Relevance of lithic raw material features in human technology and mobility

Описание: Relevance of lithic raw material features in human technology and mobility

Telmo Pereira1,2,3,4,5

1Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa. Palácio dos Condes do Redondo, R. de Santa Marta 56, 1169-023 Lisboa, Portugal
2 Instituto Politécnico de Tomar. Quinta do Contador. Estrada da Serra, 2300-313, Tomar, Portugal
3Instituto Terra e Memória. Largo Infante Dom Henrique, Museu De Arte Pré-Histórica, 6120-721, Mação, Portugal
4Centro de Geociências da Universidade de Coimbra. Rua Sílvio Lima. Universidade de Coimbra - Pólo II. 3030-790 Coimbra, Portugal
5UNIARQ, Centro de Arqueologia da Universidade de Lisboa. Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa, Alameda da Universidade, 1600-214, Lisboa, Portugal

E-mail: [email protected]

Stone-tools were one of the greatest advances in humankind because they allowed reaching more and better resources, compete with other animals and overpass environmental shifts. This created a base for unique conditions for survival, adaptation and evolution. Thus, understanding the variability of lithic assemblages allow to infer human ecological adaptations, cultural choices, settlement and mobility patterns, technological strategies and site functionality. For decades, the interpretation of raw materials’ properties was mostly based on visual and kinesthetic appreciation driven from manual experiments. These studies suggest that different tool design resulted from a conscious choice due to the advantages and disadvantages of each lithic raw material properties. However, such interpretations become being seen as less reliable as the archaeological and anthropological sciences increased the use of absolute methods. In this line of investigation, we have been crossing a diversity of analysis aiming to reach further the practical, and by its absence, possible symbolic reasons behind decision making such as the selection, exploitation, transportation, curation, processing and use of specific lithic raw materials. In today’s presentation we will show that significant variability exists within the same type of raw material and also that each raw material performs differently in the same task. Combined, these data give important clues about the reasons behind human mobility, territory exploitation, variability in raw material frequency between sites.