Technological Efficiency and Tool Curation
1986/01/01 by Douglas B. Bamforth · 21 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology #Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies
paper · doi:10.2307/280392
Abstract
Archaeologists frequently explain tool curation by its efficiency. Such explanations ignore the fact that curation is a complex activity and that its component parts are efficient in different ways. I argue that the nature and distribution of lithic resources critically affect technological efficiency and I discuss two aspects of curation, maintenance and recycling, asserting that they are responses to raw material shortages. Shortages result from regional geological conditions and from behavior patterns that restrict access to raw material in certain contexts. Ethnographic and archaeological examples support this hypothesis and highlight the relationship between subsistence-settlement organization, raw material distribution, and technology.
Citations
Cited by
- Unpacking lithic assemblage variability in the Early Upper Palaeolithic: A multivariate approach to the structure of the Iberian Aurignacian
- The Impact of Raw-Material Scarcity on Ground-Stone Manufacture and Use: An Example from the Phoenix Basin Hohokam
- A Longue Durée Perspective of Household Sustainability in the Early Bronze Age Southern Levant: Groundstone Recycling at Tell es-Sâfi/Gath, Israel
- Snakes and Ladders: A technological approach to tool maintenance byproducts using module flake categories
- Examining indicators of hunter-gatherer mobility in arid environments: The example of the final Middle Paleolithic site of Besor 37 (Northern Negev, Israel)
- The role of lithic technology in shaping mobility and decision-making: The case of Ararat-1 Cave
- Lithic Techno-economics and OSL Chronology of the Later Stone Age at Chessungalane, Save River Valley, Mozambique
- The environmental context of the Middle-to-Late Stone Age Transition in eastern Africa: seasonality as a key factor
- Raw material economies and mobility patterns in the Late Paleolithic at Shuidonggou locality 2, north China
- A Diachronic Analysis of Obsidian Use at Chaco Canyon and the Influence of Social Factors on Obsidian Procurement
- Investigating Morphological and Technological Variability of Cleavers in the Middle Berach Basin, Northwestern India: A Comparative Analysis
- Mobility/Sedentism: Concepts, Archaeological Measures, and Effects
- First evidence of a Palaeolithic frequentation of the Po plain in Piedmont: the case of Trino (north-western Italy).
- A matter of choice: Raw material specialisation at the Middle Pleistocene kill-butchering site of Gran Dolina TD10.2 (Atapuerca, Spain)
- Paleolithic exploitation of scarce chert sources in the sandstone canyons of the Hisma Basin, southern Jordan
- Manual Loading Distribution During Carrying Behaviors: Implications for the Evolution of the Hominin Hand. [europepmc]
- Regional patterns of diachronic technological change in the Howiesons Poort of southern Africa. [europepmc]
- Geochemical fingerprinting of Pleistocene stone tools from the Tràng An Landscape Complex, Ninh Bình Province, Vietnam. [europepmc]
- Delayed increase in stone tool cutting-edge productivity at the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition in southern Jordan. [europepmc]
- Snakes and Ladders: A technological approach to tool maintenance byproducts using module flake categories. [europepmc]
- Unpacking lithic assemblage variability in the Early Upper Palaeolithic: A multivariate approach to the structure of the Iberian Aurignacian. [europepmc]
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