FIFTH ARHEOINVEST SYMPOSIUM

Stories Written in Stone

International Symposium on Chert
and other Knappable Materials
Iai, 20-24 August 2013
Abstracts Volume

Edited by
Otis N. Crandell and
Vasile Cotiug

Editura Universitii Alexandru Ioan Cuza din Iai, 2013

Organisers and partners

Sponsors

Editors: Otis. N. Crandell, Vasile Cotiug

Proofreading team:
Otis N. Crandell
Patrick Julig
Mark Moore
George Rip Rapp
Cover design: tefan Caliniuc and Otis N. Crandell
Authors are responsible for the contents of their articles.

2013
Editura Universitii Alexandru Ioan Cuza din Iai, 2013
Arheoinvest Research Platform, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iai
Bd. Carol I, nr 11, corp. H
Iasi, 700506
Romania
Phone: [+40] 232.201.636 / [+40] 744.389.551
Fax: [+40] 232.201.636
Email: arheoinvest@gmail.com
Web: http://arheoinvestsymposium.uaic.ro/
ISSN: 978-973-703-758-9
i

ii

Contents

Contents ................................................................................................................... iii

Organisers ................................................................................................................ 1
Committees............................................................................................................... 2
Session 1. Raw material exploitation strategies: mining and surface
collecting ........................................................................................................... 3
Lithic assemblages of Azokh Cave (Nagorno Karabakh, Lesser Caucasus) and the
differential use of raw materials
Lena Asyran(a, b, c), Andreu Oll (b,a) and Norah Moloney(d) ................................................... 4
New flint mining sites in Lower Sindh (Pakistan)
Paolo Biagi and Elisabetta Starnini........................................................................................ 5
Raw material studies of West Central Serbia
Vera Bogosavljevi (a) and Jelena Markovi (b) ....................................................................... 6
Prehistoric quarrying and surface collecting strategies in the southern Pampas of Argentina
Luciana Catella (a,c), Fernando Oliva (a,c), Marcelo Manassero (d,e), Gustavo Barrientos (b,c,e)
and Jorge Moirano (a,c) ............................................................................................................ 8
Optimal perspective? Assessing behavioural ecology models for lithic stockpiling in the
Maya area
Joshua J. Kwoka .................................................................................................................... 10
Flint mining in the prehistory of Poland
Jacek Lech ............................................................................................................................. 11
Changes in patterns of lithics raw material procurement in Early Holocene of the east of
Uruguay
Jos Lpez Mazz (a), Oscar Marozzi (b) and Diego Aguirrezabal (b)...................................... 12
Neolithic flint mines of Trevio (Basque-Cantabrian Basin, Spain)
A. Tarrio, I. Elorrieta, M. Garca-Rojas, I. Orue, A. Snchez ............................................ 13
Simultaneity and age of lithic artefacts at sanukite resource sites, Mt. Nijo, Japan
Atsushi Uemine ...................................................................................................................... 15
Interwar archaeological excavations, socialist agriculture and a pile of flint artifacts
Neculai Bolohan, Ctlin Murariu, Alexandru Gafincu ....................................................... 16

Session 2. Ancient lithic trade and economics ................................................... 17

Raw material availability and distribution, and human exploitation strategies in coastal
North Patagonia, Ro Negro province, Argentina
Marcelo Cardillo and Jimena Alberti ................................................................................... 18
Lithic trade patterns in Neolithic Romania
Otis Crandell ......................................................................................................................... 20
Evidences of raw material circulations in the Blicquy group of Belgium (Early Neolithic
Period): examples of Bartonian flint and Ghlin flint
Solne Denis .......................................................................................................................... 22
Middle Palaeolithic flint in the central region of the Mediterranean Iberia: human
behaviour and territorial mobility
Aleix Eixea (a), Valentn Villaverde (a), Clodoaldo Roldn (b) and Joo Zilho (c) ................ 24
Raw material circulation at broad scales in southern Patagonia (Argentina)
Nora V. Franco (a), Pablo Ambrstolo (b), Natalia Cirigliano (c) and Lucas Vetrisano (d) .... 26
iii

A distinctive type of flint in Early Neolithic Balkans: Balkan flint in Bulgarian context
Maria Gurova ....................................................................................................................... 27
A 7th millennium BC house complex of ukurii Hyk in the light of the lithic
assemblage
Bogdana Mili (a) and Barbara Horejs (b) ............................................................................. 28
Stone tools and society in the Hungarian Early and Middle Bronze Age: a preliminary
report
Anna Priskin.......................................................................................................................... 29
Detecting human mobility in the Pyrenees through the analysis of chert tools during the
Upper Palaeolithic
Marta Snchez de la Torre.................................................................................................... 30
Lithic implements at Ariud: preliminary results
Sndor Jzsef Sztncsuj (a) and Katalin T. Bir (b)................................................................ 31
Raw material circulation from South of France towards North-eastern of Iberian Peninsula
throughout Prehistory: evidences, troubles and historical signification
Xavier Terradas, David Ortega and Juan F. Gibaja ............................................................ 32
Raw material economy at the Magdalenian site in Klementowice, Eastern Poland
Tadeusz Winiewski (a) and Lucjan Gazda (b) ........................................................................ 33

Session 3. Stone tool production and processing techniques............................ 34

The Mousterian lithic assemblage of the Ciota Ciara cave (Piedmont, Northern Italy):
exploitation and conditioning of raw material
Sara Daffara (a), Marta Arzarello (a,b), Gabriele L.F. Berruti (a), Giulia Berruto (a), Davide
Bert (c), Claudio Berto (b) ..................................................................................................... 35
Ouriakos: a Younger Dryas Site along the coast of Limnos (Greece)
Nikos Efstratiou (a), Paolo Biagi (b), Panagiotis Karkanas (c) and Elisabetta Starnini (b) ..... 36
Shikarpur lithic assemblage: new questions regarding Rohri chert blade production
Charusmita Gadekar (a), S.V. Rajesh (b) and P. Ajithprasad (a) ............................................. 37
A note on the taphonomic origin of breakage: an experimental view
Gadi Herzlinger, Sonia Lemmel and Naama Goren-Inbar................................................... 38
One of the flint tools production strategy based on erratic flint. Exemplified by Mesolithic
materials from the site Dobry May 7 (central-eastern Poland)
Piotr Mczyski..................................................................................................................... 39
Armorican arrowheads biographies: production and function of an Early Bronze Age
prestige good from Brittany (France)
Clment Nicolas (a), Colas Guret (b) .................................................................................... 41
Variability in the core reduction and processing technology of the Levantine Mousterian
industry at Dederiyeh Cave, Syria
Yoshihiro Nishiaki (a), Yosef Kanjo (b), Sultan Muhesen (c) and Takeru Akazawa (d)............. 43
The lithic traditions of Late Pleistocene settlement at Affad, Sudan: raw materials economy
and technological features
Piotr Osypiski ...................................................................................................................... 44
Edge length and flake production strategies: examples from the Middle Palaeolithic of
Romanian Southern Carpathians
Gabriel Popescu .................................................................................................................... 45
Kremenac (Serbia): quarry and Lower Palaeolithic open-air site
Josip ari ............................................................................................................................. 46
Features of the flint processing organization during the Chacolithic period in the Southeast
of Europe
N. N. Skakun (a), B. Mateva (b), V. V. Terekhina (a) ................................................................ 48
Lithic refitting and prehistoric skill learning processes: a case study of the Upper
Paleolithic assemblages at the Shirataki sites, Hokkaido, Japan
iv

Jun Takakura ......................................................................................................................... 49

Estimating the scale of stone axe production: a case study from Onega Lake, Russian
Karelia
Alexey Tarasov (a) and Sergey Stafeev (b) .............................................................................. 51
The last journey of the craftsmen: analyses of lithic assemblage from a Globular Amphora
culture grave
Piotr Wodarczak (a), Katarzyna Pyewicz (b), Janusz Budziszewski (c), Witold Grud (c) and
Marcin M. Przybya (d) ......................................................................................................... 52

Session 4. Use-wear analyses ............................................................................... 53

The reality and confusion of post-depositional alterations and use-wear: an experimental
case on basalt
Lena Asyran (a, b, c), Andreu Oll (b,a) and Norah Moloney (d) ............................................... 54
Household and specialised lithic management: the dichotomy in the manufacture and use
of flint tools among the first farming communities (LBK) in SW Poland
Bernadeta Kufel-Diakowska ................................................................................................. 55
Image analysis and intra-raw material variability: a continuing exploration of use-wear
accrual
Harry J. Lerner ..................................................................................................................... 56
All that glitters is not gold: reappraising the relative significance of handaxes and flakes in
Palaeolithic assemblages in Southern Britain
Clare McKenna ..................................................................................................................... 57
Use-wear studies of Bronze and Iron Age lithics from the Madaba Plains
Nikki Oakden ......................................................................................................................... 58
Mesolithic stone industry from site Ludowice 6, central Poland
Grzegorz Osipowicz .............................................................................................................. 59
Mineralogy of patina: flints from East Desert, Egypt
Maciej Pawlikowski, Magdalena Sitarz and Mateusz Sk .................................................... 60
The effects of raw material properties on edge attrition: a high-resolution study of
unretouched experimental flakes
Cornel M. Pop ....................................................................................................................... 61
How to drill in bone and other organic materials: a case study from a Linear Pottery
Culture settlement in central Poland
Katarzyna Pyewicz (a) and Marcin Szeliga (b) ...................................................................... 63
Experiments in archaeology and their significance for use-wear investigations
N. N. Skakun (a), B. Mateva (b), V. V. Terekhina (a) ................................................................ 65
The application of an open source image processing software in the analysis of use-wear
on high reflective non-flint materials
Andrea Zupancich, Flavia Venditti and Cristina Lemorini .................................................. 66
Stone or teeth? Comparative functional analysis of capibara teeth (Hydrochoerus
hydrochaeris) and rhyolite flakes used as tools
Vanesa Parmigiani(a), Mara Celina Alvarez Soncini(b), Mara Estela Mansur(a) and Hernn
De Angelis(a) .......................................................................................................................... 68

Session 5. Characterising lithic sources ............................................................. 70

Flint raw materials and artifacts from NE Bulgaria: a combined petrographic and LA-ICPMS study
Polina Andreeva(a), Elitsa Stefanova(a), Maria Gurova(b) ..................................................... 71
The fly in the soup: problems in provenancing long-distance items
Katalin T. Bir....................................................................................................................... 73
Characterization of Balkan Flint artefacts from SE Europe using LA-ICP-MS, EPMA and
pXRF
v

Clive Bonsall (a), Maria Gurova (b), Chavdar Nachev (c), Chris Hayward (d) and Nicholas
Pearce (e) ............................................................................................................................... 74
Raw material analysis of military gunflints from Schloss Neugebude, Vienna, Austria
Michael Brandl (a), Christoph Hauzenberger (b) and Gerhard Trnka (c) ............................... 75
Sourcing of Hudson Bay lowland chert by ICP-MS and FTIR, to characterize the Spanish
River lithic biface cache
Patrick Julig (a) and Darrel G. F. Long (b) ............................................................................ 77
Managing a region: patterns of Late Pleistocene human settlement in North-Western Libya
analysed through the lithic raw material procurement
Giuseppina Mutri .................................................................................................................. 78
The "Mucientes Flint" of the Iberian North Plateau (Spain)
M. Natividad Fuertes-Prieto (a), Ana Neira-Campos (a), Esperanza Fernndez-Martnez (b),
Fernando Gmez-Fernndez (c), Eduardo Alonso-Herrero (d) .............................................. 79
Mineralogy and structure of selected raw materials as reason of their quality
Maciej Pawlikowski and Marta Wrbel................................................................................ 80
Archaeometric characterization of chert and radiolarite artifacts from the Early Holocene
assemblages at El Mazo Rockshelter (Asturias, Spain)
John D. Rissetto (a,b), Giancarlo Pepponi (b), Igor Gutirrez-Zugasti (c,d), Manuel R.
Gonzlez-Morales (d) and David Cuenca-Solana (d) ............................................................. 81
Potential siliceous sources during prehistory: results of prospections in east margin of Ebro
Basin (NE Iberian Peninsula)
Mara Soto (a,b), Bruno Gmez de Soler (a,b), Josep Vallverd (a,b), Manuel Vaquero (b,a) ..... 82
First attempts to carry out a petrographic and geochemical characterization of chocolate
flint from the Wierzbice Zele mine compared with other flint rocks from Central
Poland
Dagmara Werra (a), Rafa Siuda (b) and Oliwia Grafka (b) .................................................... 84

Session 6. Lithotheques: collections of comparative raw materials ................ 85

The UI-OSA lithic raw material assemblage: an online resource for archaeological studies
of debitage and chipped stone tools
Mark L. Anderson and Daniel G. Horgen ............................................................................ 86
Taking into account geochemical and technological analyses when constructing a
comparative lithic collection
Adrian L. Burke ..................................................................................................................... 87
An online database for lithic resources
Otis Crandell (a) and Vasile Cotiuga (b)................................................................................. 88
Knappable lithic resources in the Eastern Carpathians
Otis Crandell (a), Mariuca-Diana Vornicu (b) and Vasile Cotiuga (c) .................................... 90
Lithotheques, interdiscipline and common language among archaeologists and geologists:
an example from Patagonia (Argentina)
Mara Victoria Fernndez (a) and Jimena Alberti (b)............................................................. 92
Archaeopetrological approach to the study of the lithotheque from Charentes basin
(France)
Mar Rey i Sol (a), Christophe Delage (b) and Xavier Mangado (a) ....................................... 94
The LITHICUB project: a virtual lithotheque of siliceous rocks in the University of
Barcelona
Marta Snchez de la Torre, Xavier Mangado, B. Medina, N. Rodrguez, M. Rey, A. Casado
............................................................................................................................................... 95
The LitoCAT project: creation of a reference lithotheque of siliceous rocks from Catalonia
Xavier Terradas and David Ortega ...................................................................................... 96
A proposal for the creation of a lithotheque in the province of New Brunswick, Canada
Christian C. L. Thriault ....................................................................................................... 97
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Session 7. Gemology: siliceous rocks as gemstones ........................................... 98

Obsidian bijouterie, mirrors and vessels in the prehistoric Near East; examples from
Domuztepe (Turkey) and Tell Arpachiyah (Iraq)
Stuart Campbell and Elizabeth Healey ................................................................................. 99

Session 8. Obsidian: methodological issues of obsidian provenance

studies and a new perspective of archaeological obsidian....................... 100
From conservative to cosmopolitan: interrogating the reconfiguration of near eastern
obsidian exchange networks from the Epi-Palaeolithic to Chalcolithic
Tristan Carter ...................................................................................................................... 101
Towards a more developed understanding of lithic reduction sequences in Bronze Age
Sardinia: new data from Nuraghe Pidighi and Bingia 'e Monti
Kyle P. Freund .................................................................................................................... 102
Human activity in and around obsidian sources: a case study from sites around the
Hiroppara wetland in the central highlands of Japan
Jun Hashizume (a), Yoshimitsu Suda (a), Kazutaka Shimada (b), Yuuki Nakamura (c), Akira
Ono (a) .................................................................................................................................. 103
Maritime transportation of obsidian across the Pacific during the early Upper Palaeolithic
Japan
Nobuyuki Ikeya (a) and Michael D. Glascock (b) .................................................................. 105
Prompt Gamma Activation Analysis of the Nyrlugos obsidian core depot find
Zsolt Kasztovszky (a), Boglrka Marti (a), Zoltn Kis (a) and Katalin T. Bir (b) ................ 107
The obsidian evidence for the scale of social life during the Palaeolithic
Theodora Moutsiou ............................................................................................................. 108
Obsidian Studies in Japan and the role of the Center for Obsidian and Lithic Studies, Meiji
University
Akira Ono (a), Yoshimitsu Suda (a), Shigeo Sugihara (b), Tarou Kannari (a) and Jun
Hashizume (a) ....................................................................................................................... 109
Change in exchange: Neolithic exploitation of geological sources in Eastern Europe
Danielle Riebe ..................................................................................................................... 110
Geological and geochemical study in Shirataki obsidian lava complex, Northern Hokkaido,
Japan
Kyohei Sano (a), Keiji Wada (b), Hiroyuki Sato (c), Masami Izuho (d), Masayuki Mukai (e) .. 111
Standardization of obsidian compositional data for provenance studies: petrology and data
compilation of intra-laboratory results for obsidian from the Shirataki source, Northern
Japan
Yoshimitsu Suda (a), Jeffrey Ferguson (b), Michael D. Glascock (b), Vladimir K. Popov (c),
Sergei V. Rasskazov (d), Tatyana A. Yasnygina (d), Jong Chan Kim (e), Noriyuki Saito (f),
Hironobu Takehara (g), Kenji Wada (h), Akira Ono (a), Andrei V. Grebennikov (c) and
Yaroslav V. Kuzmin (i) ......................................................................................................... 112
Shirataki obsidian exploitation and circulation in prehistoric Northern Japan
Miyuki Yakushige and Hiroyuki Sato .................................................................................. 114

vii

Organisers
Host institution:
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi
Organised in partnership with:
Arheoinvest Research Platform, Iai
Geology Department, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Society for Archaeological Sciences
International Association for Obsidian Studies
Meiji University Center for Obsidian and Lithic Studies

Committees
President:
Otis Crandell - Babe-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Vice President:
Vasile Cotiug - Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iai
Secretariat:
tefan Caliniuc - Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iai
Ctlin Hriban - Institute of Archaeology, Iai
Scientific Committee:
Astolfo Araujo - Universidade de So Paulo, Brazil
Makoto Arimura - Kanazawa University, Japan
Antoine Tony Baker - Denver, U.S.A.
Paolo Biagi - Universit Ca Foscari Venezia, Italy
Katalin Bir - Hungarian National Museum, Budapest, Hungary
Adrian Burke - Universit de Montral, Canada
Otis Crandell - Babe-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Christophe Delage - Muse de Prhistoire La Sabline, Lussac-les-Chteaux, France
Maria Gurova - Institute of Archaeology and Museum, Sofia, Bulgaria
Corina Ionescu - Babe-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Patrick Julig - Laurentian University, Sudbury, Canada
Maria Estela Mansur - CONICET, Ushuaia, Argentina
Jose Lopez Mazz - Museo Nacional de Antropologa, Mexico City, Mexico
Mark Moore - University of New England, Armidale, Australia
Yoshihiro Nishiaki - University of Tokyo, Japan
Akira Ono - Meiji University Center for Obsidian and Lithic Studies, Tokyo, Japan
Maciej Pawlikowski - AGH -University of Science and Technology, Cracow, Poland
George Rip Rapp - University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, U.S.A.
Natalia Skakun - Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Gerhard Trnka - University of Vienna, Austria
Senica urcanu - Museum of Moldavian History, Iai, Romania
Planning Committee:
Andrei Asndulesei
Mihaela Asndulesei
Radu-tefan Balaur
Andrada Raluca Buca
Petronela Cuzic
Sebastian Drob
Tudor Mandache
Ionu-Cristi Nicu
Maria Rileanu

Session 1.
Raw material exploitation strategies:
mining and surface collecting
This session covers research involving mining, quarrying and surface collecting strategies. It also
covers tools and methods used for mining and quarrying knappable stone. Presentations are not
limited to prehistoric studies. They may include historical or present day mining or quarrying
methods, on an industrial scale or by hobbyists. Presentations may also describe research that has
been conducted on specific mines or quarries.

Lithic assemblages of Azokh Cave (Nagorno Karabakh, Lesser

Caucasus) and the differential use of raw materials
Lena Asyran(a, b, c), Andreu Oll (b,a) and Norah Moloney(d)
(a) rea de Prehistria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Avinguda de Catalunya 35, 43002
Tarragona, Spain. Email: (L. Asyran) lenaprehistoria@gmail.com; (A. Oll) aolle@iphes.cat
(b) IPHES, Institut Catal de Paleoecologia Humana i Evoluci Social, C/Marcel.li Domingo s/n
(Edifici W3), Campus Sescelades, 43007, Tarragona, Spain.
(c) Artsakh State University, M. Gosh 5, Stepanakert, Nagorno Karabagh.
(d) Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC), Jos Gutirrez Abascal, 2. 28006-Madrid,
Spain. Email: tcfa305@ucl.ac.uk
Keywords: Azokh Cave; Middle to Upper Pleistocene; lithic artefacts; raw materials;
differential use
presence of retouched flakes and cores. The
Unit II lithic assemblage includes a good
Levallois component, although with fewer
cores and retouched flakes. There are very
few flake tools in Unit III. While it is still
difficult to assign the Unit V assemblage to a
techno-typological group or complex (i.e.
Acheulean, Mousterian or other local technocomplexes such as the Kudarian), the Unit II
assemblage is clearly associated with Mode 3
or the Mousterian techno-complex.
Different local and non-local raw materials
were exploited in all Units for the production
of lithic artefacts, although the range of raw
materials is more varied in Unit II. Local
chert, flint and basalt were most commonly
used due, probably, to their easy accessibility.
Limestone, jasper, quartzite, sandstone, and
hornfels, from local and non-local sources, are
present in small quantities in Units V and II.
Obsidian is the only raw material that possibly
originates from more distant sources. Flint
and chert appear to have been preferentially
exploited for flake tool production in all units,
but the toolmakers show a preference for
better quality raw material (flint, basalt,
obsidian, hornfels) for retouched pieces in
Units V and II, and for Levallois production
in Unit II.

Azokh Cave is a Middle Pleistocene to

Holocene site located in Nagorno Karabakh
(Lesser Caucasus). The geographic region
forms a corridor linking Africa, Europe and
Asia, and was important for early hominin
and other animal expansion. Azokh Cave is
part of a karstic system with several
fossiliferous chambers located 850 m a. s. l
and 200 m above the nearby village of Azokh.
The main entrance, Azokh 1, is a large cave
that has two geological sequences (lower and
upper) with nine geo-archaeological Units of
which only the upper ones (Units I to V) have
a significant archaeological record.
The
faunal remains and lithic artefacts present in
these units indicate different kinds of human
involvement, for example for occupation or
animal exploitation.
The lithic artefacts presented here were
recovered from Unit V, Unit III and Unit II
during 2002 2009 excavation seasons. The
available chronological data indicates an age
of 293 258 Ka for Unit V, 206 184 Ka for
Unit III and 184-100 Ka for Unit II. The
operational chain is incomplete and the
artefacts found in the cave are primarily endproducts dominated by flake-tools. The
assemblage of Unit V is composed mainly of
simple, unretouched flakes with a slight

New flint mining sites in Lower Sindh (Pakistan)

Paolo Biagi and Elisabetta Starnini
Department of Asian and North African Studies, Ca Foscari University, Ca Cappello, San Polo
2035, Venice, I-30125, Italy. Email: pavelius@unive.it; elisabetta.starnini@unive.it
Keywords: Rohri Hills; Pakistan; flint mining
of Kotri. Further discoveries, made in 2010
south-west of Jhimpir, have shown that good
quality flint sources were available also in this
area, which had been first exploited by Final
Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers, and later mined,
most probably by Chalcolithic, Amri culture,
peoples. The newly discovered mining
trenches and adjacent flint workshops at site
Jhimpir 21 (JMP-21) are most probably
attributed to this period, as the typology of the
blade cores recorded from the surface should
indicate. These discoveries contribute to the
knowledge of both the existing knappable raw
material sources exploited, and the mining
technology adopted by the populations that
inhabited the region in the Chalcolithic
(Amri) and Bronze Age (Indus) Civilisation
periods. These problems, often oversimplified
by most authors, are of fundamental
importance for the understanding of the
economy and trade network systems in the
territory that surrounds the western region of
the Indus delta, during the 4th and the 3rdI
millennia Cal B.C.

Surveys and excavations carried out during

the last fifteen years by the Italian
Archaeological Expedition in the Rohri Hills
(Upper Sindh) led to the discovery of an
impressive evidence of flint mining areas and
blade workshops, most of which are attributed
to the Bronze Age Indus Civilisation. Until
recently these sources have been generally
considered to represent the main, or the
almost exclusive, lithic procurement zone of
the entire Indus Valley.
The archaeological surveys carried out in
Lower Sindh between 2008 and 2010 have
revealed the existence of previously unknown
important flint resources in the territory,
embedded within limestone deposits, which
belong to the Ranikot formation. Although
one of these sites has been known since the
1960s, and often incorrectly reported in the
literature as the Palaeolithic workshop site
"Milestone 101", it was only in 2008 that
Indus Civilisation mining trenches and
workshops were discovered on the top of the
terraces of Ongar, Daphro and Bekhain, south

Raw material studies of West Central Serbia

Vera Bogosavljevi (a) and Jelena Markovi (b)
(a) Petrovi, National museum in Belgrade, Serbia. Email: v.bogosavljevic@narodnimuzej.rs
(b) National museum in Belgrade, Serbia. Email: jelenamarkovic10@gmail.com
Keywords: raw material; mine; West Central Serbia; petroarcheological database; exploitation
strategies
started to be the most prominent raw material.
Both silicified wood and magnesite were raw
materials used for stone tool production at the
Divlje Polje site.
The area of the Palaeolithic site Vlaka glava
was also explored in the search for primary
and secondary deposits. A surface outcrop
(including an ancient workshop) was
recognized as a potential source of flint. Many
secondary deposits were found in locally
available
fluvial
contexts.
The
characterization of lithics from the site was
also carried out and certain spatial
correlations were established.
Our research in West Central Serbia created
the starting point for reconstruction of raw
material acquisition in prehistory. We
established an outline of the procurement
system in the Palaeolithic as well as a set of
information on the trade and settlements
network in the Neolithic of this region.
Two important aspects of our work an
original petroarchaeological database of
Serbia and the lithotheque have served as
powerful means for better explanation of raw
material origin and distribution among human
groups in prehistory.

Our work treated the territory of West Central

Serbia, comprising river flows of Zapadna
Morava and Ibar, with the surrounding
mountains. The area offers significant
possibilities for research based on many
archaeological sites from the Lower
Palaeolithic to protohistoric period. Raw
material studies in Serbia have not been
developed
until
recently.
Different
characterizations of lithics were done so far
and some of the mineral deposits in the
prospective
exploitation
zones
were
examined.
During the research of primary geological
deposits in the aak-Kraljevo basin, two
mines were identified. The Lojanik mine, a
silicified forest by origin, has been recognized
as a source of opal, flint and chert. It had been
occasionally in use from the time of the Early
Neolithic until recent times. This location has
an excellent research potential since it has lots
of different forms of exploitation, large
quantities of by-products wasted in the
process of raw material selection, and some
tools. The other, modern shaft Lazac is a very
good example for ethnoarchaeological study
of magnesite exploitation in the past,
especially by the late Vina culture, when it

Figure 1. Raw materials of West Central Serbia.

Prehistoric quarrying and surface collecting strategies in the

southern Pampas of Argentina
Luciana Catella (a,c), Fernando Oliva (a,c), Marcelo Manassero (d,e), Gustavo Barrientos (b,c,e) and
Jorge Moirano (a,c)
(a) Divisin Arqueologa, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La
Plata; Paseo del Bosque s/n, B1900FWA, La Plata, Argentina.
(b) Divisin Antropologa, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La
Plata; Paseo del Bosque s/n, B1900FWA, La Plata, Argentina.
(c) CEAR, Facultad de Humanidades y Artes, Universidad Nacional de Rosario; Entre Ros 758,
S2000CRN, Rosario, Argentina.
(d) Centro de Investigaciones Geolgicas (CIG), Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo,
Universidad Nacional de La Plata; Calle 1 N 644, B1900TAC, La Plata, Argentina.
(e) Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientficas y Tcnicas (CONICET), Buenos Aires,
Argentina.
Email: catellaluciana@hotmail.com; fwoliva@museo.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar;
mj.manassero@gmail.com; barrient@museo.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar; jmoirano@fcnym.unlp.edu.ar
Keywords: lithic procurement; hunter-gatherers; South American plains; primary and secondary
sources; GIS
our study, we have classified the lithic sources
as either point or diffuse. A point source is a
localized and a more or less isolated primary
(e.g. a bedrock exposure or outcrop) or
secondary (e.g. a stream, beach, or talus slope
deposit) rock extraction place. A diffuse
source is a very extensive and a difficult-todelimit rock extraction place, consisting of
either a primary (e.g. a large-scale geologic
formation) or a secondary (e.g. a
geographically extended gravel mantle) rock
extraction place. A diffuse source is a very
extensive and a difficult-to-delimit primary
(e.g. a large-scale geologic formation) or
secondary (e.g. a geographically extended
gravel mantle) supply area.
As long as each kind of source has very
specific conditions in terms of relevant
variables like visibility, accessibility or
exploitability (the latter mainly conditioned
by lithic raw material abundance, quality and
yield), it is expected the implementation of
different
and
recognizable
extractive
strategies through time, involving a various
combination of quarrying and surface
collection practices. In order to identify such
strategies, the methodological approach
adopted in this study is based on the use of: a)
quali-quantitative evidence collected in the
sources
themselves
and
in
other

The aim of this paper is to present the results

of on-going research aimed at understanding
the processes that structured - at different
scales - the spatial distribution of lithic
materials from diverse sources in the southern
Pampas of Argentina (Figure 1). This region,
inhabited by hunter-gatherer societies
throughout the Holocene, is characterized by a
heterogeneous distribution of lithic resources.
The main orographic features are the Tandilia
and the Ventania mountainous or hilly ranges.
Ventania, in particular, is a group of ancient
(Palaeozoic), eroded but well-defined
mountain ranges, 180 km long and 60 km
wide, which are composed of sedimentary
rocks (quartzites, sandstones, and siltstones)
with various degrees of metamorphism. Also
found on the southwestern slope of the hills
and on the surrounding plain are isolated
outcrops of quartzite, granite, and rhyolite.
The sources of lithic materials appear both, in
the form of primary outcrops and of
secondary deposits of cobbles and pebbles.
The latter are mainly distributed along the
many streams that have their headwaters in
the hills and in some exposures, south of
Ventania, of the Patagonian Shingle
Formation (Tehuelche Beds or Rodados
Patagnicos), composed of gravel deposits of
extra-regional provenance. For the purpose of
8

archaeological locations around them, and b)

GIS-based spatial modelling. In the
presentation we will illustrate the approach

using a selected set of rocks (quartzites,

rhyolites, opaque siliceous stones) and
sources.

Figure 1. Map of the southern Pampas of Argentina showing the main orographic features and toolstone sources:
Tandilia (e.g. quartzites, chalcedonies, silicified dolomite, granites); Ventania (e.g. quartzites, sandstones, granites,
rhyolite); Patagonian Shingle Formation (e.g. basalts, rhyolites, opaque siliceous stones, chalcedonies, quartz);
Coastal Pebble Deposits (e.g. basalts, rhyolites, opaque siliceous stones, chalcedonies).

Optimal perspective? Assessing behavioural ecology models for lithic

stockpiling in the Maya area
Joshua J. Kwoka
Department of Anthropology, University at Buffalo SUNY, New York, USA. Email:
jjkwoka@buffalo.edu
Keywords: Preclassic Maya; lithic stockpiling; behavioral ecology; optimization; labor
organization
the deposition of these nodules into small
piles, (3) the testing of these nodules for
quality, and (4) the reduction of select nodules
into a single tool form the celt, or what is
also known as the general utility biface. This
paper will explore the San Bartolo data in
light
of
behavioral
ecology
(BE)
interpretations of stockpiling practices, while
also reviewing previous applications of BE
models in the Maya area. It will be argued
that the San Bartolo data present a number of
issues which make the application of BE
models problematic.

The ancient Maya site of San Bartolo is

located in the Department of El Petn,
Guatemala. This far northeast region of
Guatemala, along with adjacent areas in
Belize and Mexico, is abundant with naturally
occurring chert nodules that were heavily
utilized by the ancient Maya. During the
Middle through Late Preclassic periods (ca.
600 B.C. A.D. 250), the Maya of San
Bartolo practiced a unique form of lithic
stockpiling which involved the following: (1)
the surface collection of chert nodules of
varying size and quality from areas most
likely smaller than a few hundred meters, (2)

10

Flint mining in the prehistory of Poland

Jacek Lech
Institute of Archaeology, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyski University in Warsaw. Email:
lech@iaepan.edu.pl
Keywords: flint mines; Poland; summary
more than 20 prehistoric flint mine sites in
Poland. Flint mining in the Polish lands took
various forms, ranging from systematic
surface collecting of nodules from outcrops
(Gorzw-Chwalcice) to the exploitation of
flint from weathering and moraine clays
(shallow pits and open shafts running several
metres deep Bbo, Sspw, Tomaszw), to
shafts sunk through Cretaceous rocks to reach
seams of raw material (Krzemionki
Opatowskie).
Extensive
underground
techniques of flint extraction developed at the
same sites where simpler forms of mining also
existed.
The chipping floors frequently produced flint
blades and axe-heads. Several types of flint
mined in the Vistula basin were distributed to
areas more than 400 km away. The latest of
the prehistoric flint mines was discovered at
Wierzbica Zele, where shafts were dug as
late as the end of the Bronze Age, around
1000 BC.

Research in this field was initiated in Poland

in 1919 by Stefan Krukowski. His studies
were a systematic implementation of a wellthought-out research strategy. Krukowski
published the first description of basic
siliceous rocks used in the prehistoric period
in the Vistula river basin. These raw materials
played an important role in the culture of
Stone Age and Bronze Age communities,
therefore both the methods of exploitation of
these rocks and the mechanisms of their
distribution from the Palaeolithic to the end of
the Bronze Age offer an intriguing glimpse
into the practical knowledge and skills of
humans, illustrating the organization and scale
of the activities they undertook.
In 1922 the geologist Jan Samsonowicz
discovered an excellently preserved Neolithic
mining field at Krzemionki Opatowskie,
which ultimately proved to be the most
important relic of prehistoric cultural heritage
in Central Europe. Nowadays we know of

11

Changes in patterns of lithics raw material procurement in Early

Holocene of the east of Uruguay
Jos Lpez Mazz (a), Oscar Marozzi (b) and Diego Aguirrezabal (b)
(a) Facultad de Humanidades, Centro Universitario Regin Este, Universidad de la Repblica,
Rocha, Uruguay. Email: lopezmazz@yahoo.com.ar
(b) Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad de la Repblica, Montevideo, Uruguay. Email:
oscar.marozzi@lappu.edu.uy; diego.aguirrezabal@gmail.com
Keywords: Uruguay; hunter gatherers; mobility strategies
became less mobile, in order to control the
concentration of resources. For this reason
they must have adopted local resources and
also changes in their lithics organization to
available regional geology, with less siliceous
rocks.
Archaeological works carried out at the Los
Indios site in the lowlands of the south-east of
Uruguay, is a good example of a progressive
substitution in lithics raw material to
manufacture projectile points. Technological
analyses show the emergence of a great
morphological variability in the design, size
and stem of the projectile points, as a part of
this process of technological evolution.

Hunter gatherers of the Pleistocene-Holocene

transition in Uruguay moved across an
extended territory. Siliceous lithics resources
supplied the organization of technology of
these groups which had a well and careful
development of bifacial flaking projectile
points. In the centre and north of Uruguay,
there is a great variety and abundance of
cryptocrystalline raw material (chalcedony,
agate, chert, etc.), which is excellent for
flaking and pressure flaking.
The changes in patterns in lithics raw material
procurement which occurred during the Early
Holocene show changes in social mobility and
home range dimensions in the Southern
region. Early hunter gatherers of the Holocene

12

Neolithic flint mines of Trevio (Basque-Cantabrian Basin, Spain)

A. Tarrio, I. Elorrieta, M. Garca-Rojas, I. Orue, A. Snchez
University of the Basque-Country (UPV/EHU), Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. Email: (A. Tarrio)
antonio.tarrinno@gmail.com; (I. Elorrieta) i_elobai@hotmail.com; (M. Garca-Rojas)
maitensx@gmail.com; (I.Orue) innigo.orue@gmail.com; (A. Snchez) aitor.sanchezl@ehu.es
Keywords: Neolithic mines; flint; mineral resources; prehistory
pit) that was detected by LiDAR (Light
Detection and Ranging) in the hill of San
Miguel near the villages of Grandival and
Araico (Trevio, Burgos).
In this work we present the results of the last
two years excavation works. The existence of
a Neolithic dump with a chronology between
6,000-5,600 BP (uncal.) was confirmed, by
the dating of a piece of oak charcoal and a
deer antler. The rock level base was reached
and the impressions of the exploited flint
nodules were detected. As well, the
exploitation front is starting to be delimited
which seems to be about 3-4 meters in height.
Thousands of lithic remains associated with
the extraction and first shaping of flint were
collected, as well as mining tools.
This site is one of the few prehistoric flint
mines dated in the Iberian Peninsula and one
of the oldest in Europe. Recent investigations
indicate that the circulation and use of
Trevios flint during prehistory extended to
many archaeological sites, both of the
Holocene and Pleistocene, located hundreds
of kilometres away from the outcrops.

The prehistoric mine complex of Trevios

flint is located in the Sierra de Ventestales La Cogolla - Castilletes (Berantevilla, Alava Condado de Trevio, Burgos) and its
extension northward to Montes de Cucho
(Condando de Trevio, Burgos), inside the
Cenozoic (Aquitanian, Miocene) materials of
the South-Pyrenean syncline of the BasqueCantabrian Basin. It is a landscape unit
constituted by a set of carbonated layers with
abundant
nodular
and
stratiform
silicifications. The soft, homoclinal, silicified
stratus layout towards the north-west made
the mining activities possible during
prehistory. As well, the surrounding rocks
which the stratus presents, are not very
consolidated thus facilitating flint extraction.
The extraction labours are usually identified
as dumps or trenches subtly visible and
associated to archaeological material. In the
1950s prospections on the area detected
several lithic remains, among others, hundreds
of hammers and dozens of sledge-hammers
made from ophite.
An archaeological excavation was carried out
in one potential mining structure (a dump or

13

Figure 1. Neolithic flint mines of Trevio (Basque-Cantabrian Basin, Spain).

14

Simultaneity and age of lithic artefacts at sanukite resource sites,

Mt. Nijo, Japan
Atsushi Uemine
Kyoto University, Yoshidahon-machi, Sakyo-ku / Kyoto, Japan. Email: a.uemine@gmail.com
Keywords: weathering degree; extraneous damage; Neolithic mining
Second, the presence of extraneous damages
is checked to evaluate their simultaneity. The
observation and aggregation per the units of
artefacts clarify that the unit of artefacts
excavated from mining pits are rarely
damaged. In contrast, the artefacts of the
target layer of the mining had frequently been
damaged.
The above two analyses prove that the
mixture consists of two assemblages of
different ages. One is the older assemblage,
which has not maintained its original context.
It is deposited in the target layer of the mining
and mixed in the fills of mining pits. The
other is the newer assemblage, a hoard
included refitting materials found only in the
mining pits.
Finally, the ages of the assemblages are
clarified, based on their stratification, the
typology of the lithic technology and a few
typical implements, radiocarbon dating, and
tephrochronology. The analyses indicate that
the older assemblage is Upper Palaeolithic
(possibly about 20,000 years BP) while the
newer is Neolithic (about 6,0005,000 years
BP). The newer assemblage consists of waste
and by-products associated with mining and
knapping. Their ages correspond to the
beginning of the widespread distribution of
sanukite. This implies the interconnection
between the development of lithic raw
material resource areas and the expansion of
the distribution range of lithic raw materials.

The lithic raw material resource sites have

been known as a nuisance for archaeologists.
As is often the case with such sites, the
artefacts consist of an enormous amount of
flake and core, and artefacts of various eras
are mixed. In addition, in most cases, there are
few typed implements and little or no
stratigraphy to serve as clues to their age.
How can we decompose these mixtures and
determine their ages in order to reconstruct
prehistoric mining activity? I report here on
an effective method to overcome these
difficulties through analyses based on the
weathering and extraneous damage on lithic
surfaces. My case study focuses on sites at the
northern foot of Mt. Nijo, which are some of
the most famous and important lithic raw
material resource sites in the Japanese
archipelago. Here, there are many mines of
sanukite, a kind of andesite utilized as the
main lithic raw material from the Upper
Palaeolithic age to the Bronze and Early Iron
Ages in west-central Japan.
First, I focus on the weathering degree of the
lithic surface in order to decompose the
mixture into some meaningful units in an
archaeological context and sort them
according to their relative age. The judgment
of their weathering degree can be objective,
depending on a combination of careful
observation under a low magnification
microscope and the surface roughness tester.
At the site, the surface roughness of the lithic
artefacts and the age indexical flaking method
restored from them are consistent.

15

Interwar archaeological excavations, socialist agriculture and a pile of

flint artifacts
Neculai Bolohan, Ctlin Murariu, Alexandru Gafincu
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iai. Email: neculai.bolohan1@gmail.com
Keywords: weathering degree; extraneous damage; Neolithic mining
mechanised equipment, and this practice
dislodged the archaeological remains and
spread them across a large area.
During this last decade, on account of the
interest shown for local antiquities as means
of affirming local identities, Ctlin Murariu,
a student from the Faculty of History within
the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iai,
managed to salvage a considerable number of
artefacts, from among which we draw
attention to those made of flint. The history of
their acquisition, and some primary
consideration on the habitat and degree of use
of the study area, constitute the subject of our
presentation.

During the interwar period, field research was

carried out in the area of Drgueni commune,
south of the city of Flticeni, in north-eastern
Romania. Several sites that produced
abundant and varied artifactual materials were
investigated on this occasion. By far, the best
known of them is DrgueniCetuie, a site
assigned to the Cucuteni B phase. According
to the data published at the moment of its
discovery, very few of the artefacts were
fashioned from flint and none were of any
particular interest or importance.
After WW2, socialist agriculture completed
the process of destruction of the site in
question: the land was tilled using large

16

Session 2.
Ancient lithic trade and economics
This session looks at topics such as trade routes, use of imported vs. local materials, different
values placed on certain raw materials, and specialised occupations related to lithic materials in
prehistory.

17

Raw material availability and distribution, and human exploitation

strategies in coastal North Patagonia, Ro Negro province, Argentina
Marcelo Cardillo and Jimena Alberti
Instituto Multidisciplinario de Historia y Ciencias Humanas - CONICET. 15 Saavedra St. 5th.
floor. Buenos Aires (1083), Argentina. Email: marcelo.cardillo@gmail.com;
jimealberti@gmail.com
Keywords: Coastal Patagonia (Argentina); lithic resources management strategies; multivariate
techniques; spatial analyses
The coast of San Matas Gulf (Ro Negro
province, Patagonia, Argentina) (Figure 1)
can be divided into two areas, according to its
orientation and the general environmental
settings. The northern coast (Figure 1) runs
from East to West and it has active cliffs in
alternation with bays and abrasion platforms.
In this portion of the Gulf there are about 50
archaeological sites, in form of shell middens
and lithic scatters on deflated surfaces (Favier
Dubois et al. 2008). These sites have been
dated to between ca. 6000 and 450 14C year
BP (Favier Dubois 2012).
The western coast (Figure 1) runs from North
to South and has a more regular beach with a
wide rocky intertidal range (up to 1.5 km).
Archaeological information in this sector
comes form 30 locations, most of them dated
to around 3000 14C year BP (Favier Dubois y
Borella 2011).
The raw material sources on the northern
coast are secondary ones, composed mainly of
volcanic rocks with very good and excellent
flaking properties. These sources show a
continuous distribution. The western coast, on
the other hand, has primary and secondary
sources of greater quality, the main type of
rocks here being cryptocrystalline. Also there
are some sectors in this area with significant
primary outcrops of sedimentary and volcanic
rocks, with different degrees of silicification.
Some of them were probably used in an
opportunistic way.
We think that these differences affected the
lithic resources management strategies
(procurement, production, transportation and
discard of stone tools). In a regional scale, we
have evidence of good quality raw material

transport, from areas beyond the Gulf, which

are located between 200 and 400 km away
(Favier Dubois et al. 2009). Taking into
account the distribution and composition of
the sites that have been studied, we discuss
possible models of exploitation of lithic raw
materials. To do that, we use statistical
method of spatial analysis and multivariate
techniques to detect patterns in the data set.
References
Favier Dubois, C. 2012. Hacia una cronologa del uso
del espacio en la costa norte del golfo San Matas
(Ro Negro, Argentina): sesgos geolgicos e
indicadores temporales. In Actas de las VIII
Jornadas de Arqueologa de la Patagonia. In press.
Favier Dubois, C. and F. Borella. 2011. Contrastes en
la costa del golfo: una aproximacin al estudio del
uso humano del litoral rionegrino en el pasado. In
Arqueologa de pescadores y marisqueadores en
Nordpatagonia. Descifrando un registro de ms de
6.000 aos, edited by F. Borella and M. Cardillo,
pp. 1342. Buenos Aires, Dunken.
Favier Dubois, C., F. Borella, L. Manzi, M. Cardillo, S.
Lanzellotti, F. Scartascini, M. Carolina and E.
Borges Vaz. 2008. Aproximacin regional al
registro arqueolgico de la costa rionegrina. In
Arqueologa de la Costa Patagnica. Perspectivas
para la conservacin, edited by I. Cruz y S.
Caracotche, pp. 5068. Ro Gallegos, Universidad
de la Patagonia Austral.
Favier Dubois, C., C. Stern and M. Cardillo. 2009.
Primera caracterizacin de los tipos de obsidiana
presentes en la costa rionegrina. In Arqueologa de
la Patagonia Una mirada desde el ltimo confn,
edited by M. Salemme, F. Santiago, M. lvarez, E.
Piana, M. Vzquez and E. Mansur, pp. 349359.
Editorial Utopas, Ushuaia.

18

Figure 1. San Matas Gulf, Ro Negro province, Argentina.

19

Lithic trade patterns in Neolithic Romania

Otis Crandell
Geology Department, Babes-Bolyai University, str. M. Kogalniceanu, nr. 1, Cluj-Napoca - RO400084, Romania. Email: otis.crandell@ubbcluj.ro
Keywords: Neolithic; flint; obsidian; trade patterns; Romania
Moldavian plateau and the Eastern
Subcarpathians although the majority of
artefacts during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic
were produced from Moldavian flint (the
nearest source, the Prut River, being relatively
close by) 5 to 10% of the lithic artefacts found
at most sites was Balkan flint, which would
have been imported from outside of the
culture territory of the sites where the
artefacts were found.
In the Transylvanian Basin, there was a
marked drop in the use of imported materials
in the Chalcolithic, a trend which continues
until the Bronze Age at which point very little
imported material was used. Still, even during
the Chalcolithic, the majority of imported
materials still tend to have been imported
from the north.
There are two main implications of these
findings. First of all, they suggest that the
areas often defined as culture territories based
on pottery typology are not entirely accurate.
Secondly, the large amount of imported
materials (often from across mountain ranges)
suggests a well-established system of trade
and possibly even professional traders.

This presentation will consider the directions

and intensities of exchange patterns in the
Transylvanian Basin and the adjacent areas
across the Carpathian Mountains (the
Moldavian Plateau and the Lower Danube
region) - essentially, the territory occupied by
modern day Romania.
The Carpathians have numerous sources of
knappable lithic materials ranging in quality
from high to poor. Additionally there are
several very high quality materials located at
the edges of this area - namely Carpathian
obsidian to the north-west, Moldavian flint to
the north-east, and Balkan flint to the southwest. Although there is no lack of raw
materials throughout the area, during the
Neolithic, the majority of artefacts (from half
to three quarters) appear to have been made
from imported high quality materials.
Furthermore, it is of interest to note that
imported lithics within the Transylvanian
Basin tend to come predominantly from the
north-west and north-east, territories occupied
by other cultures and much less from the
south within the area of their own cultures.
Similarly, in the western part of the

20

Figure 1. Left: A. Map showing high quality materials source areas (1. Carpathian obsidian; 2. Moldavian flint; 3.
Balkan flint). Right: Examples of high quality materials (a. Carpathian obsidian; b. Moldavian flint; c. Balkan flint).

21

Evidences of raw material circulations in the Blicquy group of

Belgium (Early Neolithic Period): examples of Bartonian flint and
Ghlin flint
Solne Denis
Universit Paris Ouest Nanterre la Dfense, CNRS (UMR 7055), Paris, France. Email:
denis.solene@gmail.com
Keywords: Early Neolithic period; Belgium; lithic technology; circulation networks
the context of domestic production. But the
blade production operates preferentially on
the Ghlin flint. In addition, those blades differ
slightly from local flint blades. It is not
excluded that the knappers are not the same,
which allows us to consider moving knappers
from Hainaut to Hesbaye.
As for the tertiary Bartonian flint, it comes
from the heart of the Paris Basin at nearly 200
km from the Blicquian sites. Despite the
distance, all sites have yielded this flint from
the Paris Basin. The circulation patterns are
complex. Blades, either untreated blocks or
preformed cores circulate. The debitage was
produced in situ. Some sites, which are more
attractive, seem to redistribute blades to other
sites. In addition, we undertook a detailed
study of the characteristics of the raw material
to try to gather the pieces likely to come from
the same block. Given the proximity between
some blades from Hesbaye and Hainaut, it is
envisaged that the Bartonian flint passes
through Hainaut before reaching Hesbaye.
This element is even more credible
considering that the study of the circulation of
Ghlin flint shows the probable moving of
knappers between the two regions. Finally,
examination of production attempted to
determine who the knappers of the Bartonian
flint in Belgium were.
Thus, the study of the circulation of Ghlin
flint and Bartonian flint can therefore specify
the socio-economic organization of these
populations specifying the linkages between
the population centres of the Paris Basin,
Hainaut and Hesbaye.

In the north of France and Belgium, the

Blicquy - Villeneuve-Saint-Germain culture
marks the end of the Early Neolithic Period
(beginning of the 5th millennium). The eleven
sites located in Belgium constitute the
Blicquy group. Two main centres of
occupation can be distinguished: one Western
in Hainaut and one Eastern in Hesbaye at 100
km from the first. As part of a PhD, the lithic
industry of these sites has been studied in
order to reconstruct the circulation networks
through
a
techno-economic
analysis.
Identification of raw materials was complex
given the lack of information about siliceous
outcrops in the Mons Basin. However, two
main circulation networks have been
highlighted: one of Ghlin flint and one of
tertiary Bartonian. These two flints are indeed
easily recognizable by their macroscopic
characteristics. The outcrops of tertiary
Bartonian flints come from the Paris Basin,
where systematic surveys have been
conducted since the late 1980s (Blanchet et
al., 1989). In addition, a study has highlighted
the existence of a micro-fossil which is
characteristic of this flint and allows to a
certain
attribution
(Mauger,
1985).
Unfortunately, such studies do not exist for
the Mons Basin, however an update of
knowledge is expected since systematic
surveys are underway. Conducted under the
leadership of Hlne Collet (SPW) and JeanPhilippe Collin (SRPH), they began in late
2012.
The Ghlin flint would show on the surface in
the Mons Basin, at about twenty kilometres
from the Hainaut sites. Heavily exploited in
the latter, it was exported to the Hesbaye sites
in a significant way. However, the siliceous
resources available in Hesbaye are not
lacking. They have also been widely used in

References
Blanchet, J. C., Plateaux, M. et Pommepuy, C. 1989.
Matires premires et socits protohistoriques
dans le Nord de la France. Action Thmatique

22

Programme Archologie mtropolitaine, rapport

dactivit, Direction des Antiquits de Picardie.
Mauger M., 1985 - Les matriaux siliceux utiliss au
Palolithique suprieur en Ile de France.
Occupation du territoire, dplacements et approche
des mouvements saisonniers. Thse de doctorat,
Universit de Paris I, 1 vol., 294 p.

Figure 1. Localization of the Blicquian sites (Belgium) and examples of Ghlin flint and Bartonian flint.

23

Middle Palaeolithic flint in the central region of the Mediterranean

Iberia: human behaviour and territorial mobility
Aleix Eixea (a), Valentn Villaverde (a), Clodoaldo Roldn (b) and Joo Zilho (c)
(a) Departament de Prehistria i Arqueologia, Universitat de Valencia. Blasco Ibez, 28 46010
Valencia, Spain. Email: alejo.eixea@uv.es; valentin.villaverde@uv.es
(b) Instituto de Ciencia de los Materiales de la Universidad de Valencia (ICMUV). Parc
Cientific. C/ Catedrtico Jos Beltrn, 2 46980 Paterna (Valencia), Spain. Email:
clodoaldo.roldan@uv.es
(c) ICREA - Departament de Prehistria, Histria Antiga i Arqueologia. Universitat de
Barcelona. C/ Montalegre 6. 08001 Barcelona, Spain. Email: joao.zilhao@ub.edu
Keywords: flint; microscopic analysis; territorial mobility; Middle Palaeolithic; Mediterranean
Iberia
Palaeolithic whereas the other two are from
the Middle Palaeolithic.
We
have
reliable
information
regarding the origin of most raw materials in
the Quebrada site, but in order to be able to
make progress in a full analysis of territorial
mobility, it is necessary to expand our
documentation regarding the source of raw
materials in areas within 20 to 30 km and 100
to 120 km from the site. From a general
perspective, it is also necessary to achieve
detailed knowledge about the varieties found
in other sites and a more precise identification
of silica varieties in the region. By doing so, it
would be possible to integrate data about a
significant part of Valencian Middle
Palaeolithic sites in a model of raw material
provision and mobility that is impossible to
consider today in all its dimensions.

The information currently available regarding

the location of lithic raw material sources for
prehistoric sites in the Valencian region is
very scarce. Systematic work has only been
carried out in small areas and a geological
map for the location of the different silica
varieties used in the prehistoric periods
concerned is yet to be drawn up. This is a
serious handicap especially for research
regarding the Middle Palaeolithic because it
reduces the possibilities of establishing a
regional context for mobility based on the
location of the raw material used in the sites.
Exceptions to this handicap are basically
found in the Alicante province, where we can
count on the work carried out by Menargues
(2005), concerning materials documented in
Ratlla del Bubo and Cova de les Cendres, and
on Carca Carrillos (Garca Carrillo, et al.,
1990) for Tossal de la Roca, both related to
the Upper Palaeolithic. To these two we can
add Fauss work (2008-2009) regarding silica
raw materials from the Comtat and Marina
Alta areas. The Schmich and Wilkens study
must also be mentioned for the Palop Alto
sites which identifies findings by means of
PIXE (Proton Induced X-ray Emission)
analysis, and finally the work carried out at
Abric del Pastor (Alcoi, Alicante) that
corresponds to the Middle Palaeolithic
(Molina et al. 2010). Research in the province
of Valencia focused on the identification of
raw materials in sites such as Parpall
(Tiffagom, 2006), Cova Negra (Moriel, 1985)
and Abrigo de la Quebrada (Eixea et al.,
2011); the first one corresponds to the Upper

References
Eixea, A; Villaverde, V. y Zilho, J. 2011:
Aproximacin al aprovisionamiento de materias
primas lticas en el yacimiento del Paleoltico medio
del Abrigo de la Quebrada (Chelva, Valencia).
Trabajos de Prehistoria 68: 65-78.
Faus, E. 2008-2009: Apuntes sobre afloramientos y
reas con presencia de materias primas silceas
localizadas en las comarcas del Comtat y La Marina
Alta (Alacant). Alberri 19: 9-38.
Garca-Carrillo, A.; Cacho, C. y Ripoll, S. 1990:
Sobre la seleccin del slex y su aprovisionamiento
en el Tossal de la Roca (Vall dAlcal, Alicante).
Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, serie I, Prehistoria y
Arqueologa IV: 15-36.
Menargues, J. 2005: La explotacin de las rocas
locales en los yacimientos paleolticos de la Ratlla
del Bubo (Crevillent, Alicante) y la Cova de les
Cendres (Teulada, Alicante). En M. Santonja, A.

24

Prez-Gonzlez y M. J. Machado (eds.):

Geoarqueologa y Patrimonio en la Pennsula
Ibrica y el entorno mediterrneo. Adema.
Patrimonio. Editorial Almazn. Soria: 413-424.
Molina, F. J., Tarrio, A., Galvn, B., Hernndez, C.
2010: reas de aprovisionamiento de slex en el
Paleoltico medio en torno al Abric del Pastor
(Alcoi, Alicante). Recerques del Museu dAlcoi
19: 65-80.
Moriel, A. 1985: Aplicacin de una metodologa de
estudio de las funciones de las raederas de Cova
Negra (Xtiva, Valencia). Cuadernos de

Prehistoria y Arqueologa Castelloneneses 11: 1786.

Schmich, S. y Wilkens, B. 2006: Non-destructive
Identification and Characterization of Lithics from
the Polop Alto: A Preliminary Assessment Using
Proton Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE). En O.
Garca y J. E. Aura (eds.): El Abric de la Falguera
(Alcoi, Alacant) Diputacin Provincial de Alicante.
Alicante: 164-170.
Tiffagom, M. 2006: De la Pierre lHomme. Essai sur
une paloanthropologie solutrenne. Eraul.
Universit de Lige, Service de Prehistoire. Lige.

Figure 1. Middle Palaeolithic sites in the central region of the Iberian Mediterranean.

25

Raw material circulation at broad scales in southern Patagonia

(Argentina)
Nora V. Franco (a), Pablo Ambrstolo (b), Natalia Cirigliano (c) and Lucas Vetrisano (d)
(a) CONICET-University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Email: nvfranco2008@gmail.com
(b) CONICET-University of La Plata, Argentina. Email: pambrustolo@hotmail.com
(c) CONICET (IMHICIHU). Saavedra 15, 5to. piso, Capital (C.P. 1083), Argentina. Email:
naticirigliano@hotmail.com
(d) Ubacyt W1/0404, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Email: lucasvetri@yahoo.com.ar
Keywords: Patagonia; hunter-gatherers; lithic regional structure; direct provisioning; exchange
material characteristics than nearby areas. Not
only are there differences between the
availability of siliceous rocks between the
Deseado Massif and areas located to the south
of it, where there are important basaltic
outcrops, but also there is internal variability
within the Massif itself.
The aim of this study is to analyze raw
material transport both within the Deseado
Massif and between it and nearby spaces,
based on the regional availability of different
rock types, including siliceous rocks, diabase,
and obsidian. Extensive surveys of raw
material availability were carried out.
Preliminary results on the frequency, type of
artifact, size and discard angle are used to
evaluate direct provisioning versus exchange
of lithic raw materials, in order to understand
human mobility in the past.

The extension of the home ranges of huntergatherer groups can be evaluated by

examining the frequency and characteristics
of the lithic raw materials they used. In order
to do this, a good knowledge of the lithic
regional structure is needed as well as a
detailed study of artifact characteristics, such
as their frequency, type of artifact, size and
discard angle.
The task is particularly difficult in cases of
lithic secondary sources or when sedimentary
rocks are transported, because of the internal
variability within each source.
This topic is especially important in the case
of the Deseado Massif in South Patagonia.
This was one of the first areas to have been
used by hunter-gatherers and there is evidence
of its utilization from the PleistoceneHolocene transition to the late Holocene. In
addition, it has different cave, water and raw

26

A distinctive type of flint in Early Neolithic Balkans: Balkan flint in

Bulgarian context
Maria Gurova
National Institute of Archaeology and Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia,
Bulgaria. Email: gurovam@yahoo.fr
Keywords: lkan Flint; Moesian platform; diagnostic flint toolkit; Karanovo I culture
Bulgarian Early Neolithic chipped stone
assemblages show coherent and diagnostic formal
flint toolkits across the vast Karanovo I and II cultural
area. These toolkits are easily recognizable and
are comprised of tools made of high quality
yellow (waxy) white-spotted flint, originating
from the Pre-Balkan Platform in northern
Bulgaria and often called Balkan flint. The
typological spectrum comprises mainly blades
with (bi)lateral semi-steep to steep retouch
and sometimes pointed or rounded (endscraper-like) ends. The blades are produced
using indirect percussion (punch) technique.
Sickle inserts made on blades and with
evidence of multiple posterior re-sharpening
are also included in the toolkit. The tools of
the above-mentioned types, as well as the
blanks (rarely nodules) of Balkan flint also

represent one of the defining characteristics of

the supra-regional techno-complex of the
Karanovo I-Starevo-Cri-Krs cultural
complex. This reflects the particular value of
this raw material, which is found among many
assemblages some of them at considerable
distances from the presumed (and actual)
Balkan flint deposits in northern Bulgaria
(in the Pleven-Nikopol area). Its stylistic
appearance surely played a significant role in
its broader distribution and appreciation, apart
from its high quality and favorable technical
properties for knapping and tool manufacture.
This paper contributes new data concerning
the source or sources of Balkan flint and the
possible routes of its distribution from the
geological outcrops to the settlements of the
vast Early Neolithic oikumenae in Bulgaria.

Figure 1. Artefacts of Balkan Flint from the Early Neolithic site of Yabalkovo (south Bulgaria). (Photo by M.
Gurova.)

27

A 7th millennium BC house complex of ukurii Hyk in the light of

the lithic assemblage
Bogdana Mili (a) and Barbara Horejs (b)
(a) BEAN project, Department of Prehistory, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey. Email:
mala_tess@yahoo.com
(b) Austrian Archaeological Institute (AI), Vienna, Austria. Email: barbara.horejs@oeai.at
Keywords: chipped stone assemblage; raw materials; Late Neolithic; West Anatolia
The prehistoric site of ukurii Hyk is
located in the region of ancient Ephesus in
Western Turkey. From 2006 onwards, the site
has been systematically excavated within the
projects under the supervision of Dr. Barbara
Horejs. tell site of ukurii Hyk is at the
same time the oldest settlement near Ephesus,
whereby the oldest phase belongs to the Late
Neolithic period, or more precisely, the 7th
mill. BC, while the occupation of the site,
represented by the first proto-urban structures
at ukurii extends to the Early Bronze Age
(early 3rd mill. BC).
The lithic analyses from early phases at
ukurii Hyk are part of my PhD thesis
within the BEAN project, 1 under the name
Lithics and raw materials as source for
mobility and migration in Neolithic and
Chalcolithic periods: a case study from
western Anatolia. The poster presents new
results about the raw material provenience
and the main typological remarks on the
lithic assemblage from Late Neolithic
ukurii Hyk, represented in one particular
house of Complex 6 dating back to the 7th
mill. BC. In general, the site of ukurii
Hyk shows a specific situation during the
whole occupation period where the vast
majority of lithics belong to obsidian artifacts,
while the rest of the raw material is a reduced
amount of flint (in local variations and low
quality) and a slight quantity of quartz,
quartzite and rock crystal.
This remarkable phenomenon can be observed
in the building of Complex 6, where more
than 85% of the total amount of the lithic

assemblage is made of obsidian. In order to

study the origin of obsidian, samples are
analyzed with NAA (Neutron Activation
Analyses). These new analytical results of the
raw material provenience are presented in the
poster. Previous analyses from Chalcolithic
and Bronze Age contexts demonstrated that
obsidian came from the Aegean Island of
Melos, and only a negligible amount of raw
material indicates contact with inner Anatolia,
or more precisely, Cappadocian obsidian
sources (Bergner et al. 2008). On the other
hand, regarding the results of typological
analyses, it can be observed that obsidian was
brought to the site and then knapped on spot,
rather than imported in the form of already
finished tools.
The specific pattern of the lithic assemblage,
with a huge amount of obsidian from far away
and scarce usage of local flint sources largely
define the role of local vs. imported raw
materials. By the example of a house of the
7th millennium BC in light of the lithic
assemblage, some further conclusions about
the possible important role of ukurii Hyk
in the wider exchange network can be made.
References
M. Bergner, B. Horejs, E. Pernicka. 2008. Zur
Herkunft der Obsidianartefakte vom ukurii
Hyk, StTroica 18, 2008, p.251273.

Project no. 289966 Bridging the European and

Anatolian Neolithic Demography, migration, and
lifestyle at the advent of civilisation (Marie Curie
Initial Training Networks Theme of the European
Commission's Seventh Framework Programme)

28

Stone tools and society in the Hungarian Early and Middle Bronze
Age: a preliminary report
Anna Priskin
Mra Ferenc Mzeum, Szeged, Hungary. Email: anna.priskin@gmail.com
Keywords: Bronze Age; Hungary; Benta Valley; chipped stone tools; microregional study
Various field methods were used at different
sites in the course of the research project in
the Benta Valley with different results: field
survey, intensive field survey, shovel point
test, shovel test, excavation. During this
research chipped stone artefacts from eleven
Early and Middle Bronze Age settlements,
which included one hilltop and many
horizontal settlements, were analysed. The
lithic tools were analysed in terms of
typology, technology and the utilization of
raw materials. The results from the various
settlement types and the published lithic finds
from the Szzhalombatta-Fldvr tell
settlement were compared. Furthermore, I
attempted to reconstruct the extent of
connections
between
contemporary
communities based on the local, regional and
long-distance raw materials. The results may
provide new information on the function of
each settlement within the settlement network
and the organization of the manufacture of the
lithic tools. This data may bring us closer to a
better understanding of the social and
economic structure of the Early and Middle
Bronze Age.

The aim of this talk is to present the first

phase of a research project which investigates
Bronze Age society in Hungary based on
lithic tools technology, specialization and the
utilization of raw materials. In the late 1990s
the
Szzhalombatta
Archaeological
eXpedition (SAX) and the Benta Valley
Projects were started in central Hungary in
order to analyse the social and economic
organisation of an Early and Middle Bronze
Age society (2300-1500 BC) through microregional settlement research. The focus of the
project is the Szzhalombatta-Fldvr tell
settlement (SAX), which is connected to
many different types of settlements in the
Benta Valley: fortified hilltop settlements,
smaller and larger horizontal settlements
(Benta Valley Project). The settlement
structure of the valley has a complex
hierarchy, which may suggest a complex,
hierarchical, chiefdom type society. In this
type of society important questions about
political power include what was the level of
craft specialisation, who controlled the
specialists and the circulation of local and
exotic raw materials.

29

Detecting human mobility in the Pyrenees through the analysis of

chert tools during the Upper Palaeolithic
Marta Snchez de la Torre
Seminari d'Estudis i Recerques Prehistriques, Dept. Prehistria, Histria Antiga i Arqueologia,
Universitat de Barcelona, Spain. Email: martasanchezdelatorre@ub.edu
Keywords: archaeopetrology; Alons Cave; Forcas I Shelter; Lower Magdalenian
and 30 m thick, which were analyzed using a
petrological microscope (OLYMPUS BX41).
At the same time, we developed fieldwork to
localize chert outcrops that could have been
used as a provisioning place for the huntergatherers that occupied these sites. As a result,
we found chert outcrops from five geological
formations in an area of 40 km around the
site. After this, we compared the geological
samples with the archaeological samples.
In Alons Cave we identified two types of
chert. One originated in a lake sedimentation
environment (92%) and another from a
hypersaline environment (8%). Three
formations located within a local and regional
provisioning area (5-30 km) have clear
similarities with the archaeological samples.
For the 15b level of Forcas I Shelter we
identified three types of chert. The largest
group (67%) was formed in a lacustrine
environment, the second (20%) comes from a
hypersaline environment, and the third (3%)
originated in a marine environment. On this
occasion, the closest outcrops for the three
groups are located in a regional provisioning
area (between 20 and 30 km).
Having done the archaeopetrological study,
we present in this communication some notes
about the human mobility in the Lower
Magdalenian in the Aragonese Prepyrenees.
The relation between the chert outcrops
identified and the archaeological record
allows us to provide new data about the
territory frequented and the similarities in the
exploitation strategies carried out by the
Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers that occupied
these sites.

The macroscopic and microscopic analysis of

chert tools collected in the Magdalenian levels
of two archaeological sites located in the
Aragonese Prepyrenees allows us to identify
some human mobility patterns through the
study of the lithic raw materials.
Alons Cave and Forcas I Shelter are situated
in the eastern province of Huesca (Spain), in
the geographical space of the Outside
Pyrenees Mountain. Both sites are separated
by a distance of 15 km and have been
excavated by a research team at the University
of Zaragoza.
Due to erosive processes and recent human
activities in the area, only one archaeological
level has been preserved in Alons Cave
(level m), which has been dated to the Lower
Magdalenian (14,84090 BP GrA-21537
and 15,06990 GrA-21536) (Montes, 2005).
In Forcas I Shelter, however, researchers have
found different archaeological levels, one of
them being dated to the Lower Magdalenian
(15b level) (14,44070 BP GrA-25979)
(Utrilla y Montes, 2007). Both Lower
Magdalenian levels present a chert-based
lithic assemblage with the same typological
inventories that have been defined as facies
Juyo Cantabrian Lower Magdalenian.
The archaeopetrological analysis has focused
on the study of both archaeological levels
(4,000 lithics for the m level of Alons Cave
and 160 units for the 15b level of Forcas I
Shelter). Firstly, we observed each piece with
a binocular stereo microscope (OLYMPUS
SZ61), which allowed us to separate some
groups based on their sedimentary
environment. Then, a selection of some items
was done to create thin sections between 25

30

Lithic implements at Ariud: preliminary results

Sndor Jzsef Sztncsuj (a) and Katalin T. Bir (b)
(a) Szkely National Museum, Sfntu Gheorghe, Romania. Email: sztancsuj_sandor@yahoo.com
(b) Hungarian National Museum, Budapest, Hungary. Email: tbk@ace.hu
Keywords: Ariud (Ersd); Copper Age; stone tools; macroscopic petroarchaeological analysis
Ariud (Hungarian: Ersd) is a world-famous
settlement from the Copper Age, the
eponymous site of the Ariud Culture. There
is, however, very little information on the
lithic industry of the site, in spite of the fact
that at least 600 stone implements are known
and registered from the settlement in the
collection of the Szkely National Museum
(Sfntu Gheorghe) and minor collections in
the National History Museum of Transylvania
(Cluj-Napoca) and the Hungarian National
Museum (Budapest), comprising the richest
stone tool assemblage of this culture.
The settlement on the Tyiszk-hegy Hill was
discovered in the second half of the 19th
century. Archaeological excavations were
conducted here in the beginning of the 20th
century by Ferenc Lszl (1907-1913, 1925),
later on, Zoltn Szkely, Ion Nestor and
Eugenia Zaharia (1968-1986) carried out
modern methodological studies on the site. As
is a common shortcoming of Eastern
European archaeology, the results of these
works have been published only in very
fragmented form, and this is even more valid
for the lithic material recovered from the site.
A primary archaeological examination of the
stone tools was accomplished by S. J.

Sztncsuj between 2006 and 2011 for a

general overview of the Ariud Culture for his
PhD.
More
recently,
a
detailed
petroarchaeological investigation was started
on the material with the help of Katalin T.
Bir. In the first step, a macroscopic survey of
the stone artefacts was made with an eye on
further petrographic and geochemical studies.
According to our present impressions, the
overwhelming majority of the chipped stone
tools are made of Prut flint. Among the long
distance imports, we could further identify
Volhynian flint and, to a lesser amount,
obsidian (Carpathian 1 type) and flint of
southern origin (Banat or Balkan flint). There
are important local and regional raw materials
located nearby in the Eastern Carpathian
region as well, described as a basaltoid and
various colour variants of radiolarites,
probably from the environs of Sita Buzului
(Hungarian: Szitabodza). Typologically, the
assemblage fits well within the image of
Copper Age lithic industries related to
Precucuteni and Cucuteni forms and also
similar
to
known
Tiszapolgr
and
Bodrogkeresztr culture lithics.
The paper is a progress report on ongoing
current research with many open questions.

31

Raw material circulation from South of France towards North-eastern

of Iberian Peninsula throughout Prehistory: evidences, troubles and
historical signification
Xavier Terradas, David Ortega and Juan F. Gibaja
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), IMF Department of Archaeology and
Anthropology, C/ Egipcaques, 15. 08001, Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: terradas@imf.csic.es;
ortega@imf.csic.es; jfgibaja@imf.csic.es
Keywords: North-eastern Iberia; prehistory; siliceous rocks; raw materials economy
Iberian, becoming often the more exploited
rocks. Throughout the Upper Palaeolithic and
Neolithic changes are observed in the
provenance of raw materials, their
morphology (as raw material, cores, blanks,
tools, etc.), the intensity of their exploitation,
and in its role within the subsistence activities
of groups that used them.
We illustrate this process with examples
provided by four concrete raw materials:
Precambrian jasper from the Tt Basin, OligoMiocene flint native to the Narbonne-Sigean
Basin, and two types of flint coming from the
Provencal area (one Bedoulian, the other
Oligocene). We have attempted to understand
the scope of its distribution, which were the
aims that led to their exploitation, as well as
the activities in which they were incorporated
within the social dynamics of societies from
the North-east of the Iberian Peninsula.

The North-east of the Iberian Peninsula is an

area with a significant diversity in terms of
availability of siliceous rocks for production
of stone tools. These differences in the
geographic representation of raw materials are
also linked to other differences in their
properties. Thus, some raw materials have
disadvantages to be exploited by means of the
application of certain knapping methods,
especially with reference to blade production
during Upper Palaeolithic and Neolithic
times.
This context led to the search for alternative
raw materials - especially in northern areas more suitable for blade knapping. Most of
these materials come from the north, from
different parts of Southeast France - some of
them several hundred kilometres away -, and
their presence is profusely confirmed in the
archaeological record of sites from NE

32

Raw material economy at the Magdalenian site in Klementowice,

Eastern Poland
Tadeusz Winiewski (a) and Lucjan Gazda (b)
(a) Institute of Archaeology, Maria Curie Sklodowska University, Pl. Marii Curie-Skodowskiej
4, 20-031 Lublin, Poland. Email: krzem7@o2.pl
(b) Environmental Engineering Faculty, Lublin University of Technology, 40B Nadbystrzycka
str., 20-618 Lublin, Poland. Email: l.gazda@pollub.pl
Keywords: Eastern Poland; Magdalenian; chipped stone; raw material; flint
The archaeological site in Klementowice is
the north-easternmost settlement point of the
Magdalenian technocomplex in Central
Europe. The site has been known since the
early 1980s. In 2007, the excavations were
resumed and a new, previously unknown
concentration of artefacts was discovered. The
inventory from the site exhibits close
analogies with the areas of Moravia and
Central Germany. The new data from several
thousands of chipped stone artifacts and the
first discovery of faunal remains (Equus
ferus) indicate that there was a multi-seasonal
hunting camp in this area.
The key element in identification of artefacts
in terms of raw material is their preservation
status. Nearly all the artefacts discovered in
Klementowice are covered by patina, which is
either very delicate and allows proper
identification of the raw material or very
intense. Mechanical damage caused by
modern agrotechnical practices sometimes

facilitates identification of highly patinated

items.
The most abundant erratic flint should be
regarded as a local raw material. It occurs in
postglacial formations and in the nearby river
valleys up to 10 km from the site.
wieciechw-type flint deposits are located
approximately 60 km south, while chocolate
flint can be found ca. 80 km south-west, in the
north-east periphery of the witokrzyskie
Mountains.
The petrographical investigation of chipped
stone collection from Klementowice, showed
the same raw material already earlier known
in the Magdalenian site in the Ochozsk Cave
(ca. 600 km). There is no information about
the provenance of this raw material. It was
classified as a layered chert similar to the
chert type of Troubky-Zdislavice but not
identical. There are also many artifacts made
from quartzite and quartz sandstone.

33

Session 3.
Stone tool production and processing techniques
How were stone artefacts made? This session will look into the various methods used to process
raw material and produce tools or even artwork by knapping. Presentations in this session may
be theoretical or based on modern analogy. They may also be based purely on methods used by
modern knappers today.
This session will also focus on other usages of microcrystaline quartz in the modern era.

34

The Mousterian lithic assemblage of the Ciota Ciara cave (Piedmont,

Northern Italy): exploitation and conditioning of raw material
Sara Daffara (a), Marta Arzarello (a,b), Gabriele L.F. Berruti (a), Giulia Berruto (a), Davide Bert (c),
Claudio Berto (b)
(a) Associazione culturale 3P Progetto Preistoria Piemonte, Via Lunga 38 10099, San
Mauro Torinese, Italy. Email: saradaffara@virgilio.it; marta.arzarello@unife.it;
gabrielelfberruti@gmail.com; giulia.berruto@yahoo.com
(b) Universit degli Studi di Ferrara, Dipartimento Studi Umanistici, LT TekneHub, Ferrara,
Italy. Email: claudio.berto@unife.it
(c) Universit Sapienza di Roma, Rome, Italy. Email: davide.berte@gmail.com
Keywords: Mousterian; Ciota Ciara; lithic technology; use-wear analysis; quartz exploitation
have been founded around the archaeological
site (within a maximum of 5 km).
The lithic assemblage is composed of flakes,
retouched tools, cores and debris. The direct
percussion by hard hammer is the only
technique employed while the methods are
various: S.S.D.A. (Systeme par surface de
debitage alterne), discoid, Levallois and
Kombewa l.s. The reduction sequences on
quartz are complete, even though no refitting
was found, because of the characteristics of
this raw material. The reduction sequence is
not complete for the other raw materials. The
flint blanks were derived both from an
opportunistic and from discoid debitage and,
although more numerous in Level 14, are rare.
The dbitage products are small or medium
size (1-4 cm) and have different
morphologies. The use-wear analysis of
quartzs artefacts was carried out using the
low power approach. The state of preservation
of the lithic assemblage is very good and no
chemical, mechanical or post-depositional
alterations are evident. The use-wear analysis
shows the predominance of the processing of
medium-hard and medium-soft materials.
The characteristics of the lithic industries
show the adaptation of production strategies
typical of the Middle Palaeolithic to the
characteristics of the non-sedimentary raw
materials employed. We can then define the
behaviour of the Neandertals of the Ciota
Ciara cave as opportunistic, also if all
typical Mousterian elements are presents, in
terms of supply areas and strategies of
production.

The Ciota Ciara cave is located in the karst

region of Monte Fenera (Borgosesia, VC), at
670 m a.s.l. It is the only evidence of a
prehistoric occupation in Piedmont and it was
occupied by Homo neanderthalensis (a right
temporal squama and two premolars were
found inside reworked sediments outside the
cave; Villa & Giacobini, 2005) during the MIS
5 in a temperate-humid period, as attested by
the faunal reminds. The environment was
characterized by deciduous woodland and,
probably at the base of Mount Fenera, by
glades. The intersection between different
habitats, the presence of lithic raw materials
and water sources were the main factors that
certainly favored human occupation during the
Upper Pleistocene between 80.000 and 70.000
BP.
In 2009 the systematic excavations at the
Ciota Ciara were started by the University of
Ferrara
in
collaboration
with
the
Soprintendenza Archeologica del Piemonte.
The researches are concentrated in the atrium
of the cave where three stratigraphic units
were investigated: 13, 103 and 14.
The characterization of exploited raw
materials was made by stereomicroscopic
observations and, when necessary, by the use
of a scanning electron microscope. Many
lithologies are represented, in different
proportion: quartz is the prevalent used
material, followed by spongolite, sandstone,
mylonites and opal. The archaeological record
is constituted by many typologies of quartz:
macrocrystalline
pegmatitic
quartz,
microcrystalline pegmatitic quartz and hyaline
quartz. All of these types of raw materials
35

Ouriakos: a Younger Dryas Site along the coast of Limnos (Greece)

Nikos Efstratiou (a), Paolo Biagi (b), Panagiotis Karkanas (c) and Elisabetta Starnini (b)
(a) School of History and Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Email:
efstrati@hist.auth.gr
(b) Department of Asian and North African Studies, Ca Foscari University, Ca Cappello, San
Polo 2035, Venice, I-30125, Italy. Email: pavelius@unive.it; elisabetta.starnini@unive.it
(c) Ephoreia of Palaeoanthropology-Speleology of Southern Greece, Ardittou 34b, 11636
Athens, Greece. Email: pkarkanas@hua.gr
Keywords: Late Palaeolithic; Limnos; Greece
The Late Palaeolithic site of Ouriakos was
discovered in 2006 along the south-eastern
coast of the island of Limnos, in the northeastern Aegean. The site is located on a
marine terrace, some 10m above the present
sea level, delimited by two seasonal streams.
Surface collections made in 2008-2010, and
the excavations that followed in 2009-2012,
showed that the site extends for some 1500m2.
The chipped stone assemblage is contained in
a 10-20 cm thick sandy layer whose lower
part yielded a few small bones, one of which
was AMS-dated to 1039045 uncal. BP (GrA53229), suggesting that the site was settled
during the Younger Dryas cold oscillation. In
2012 the opening of a test-trench led to the
discovery of an undisturbed thin layer
containing chipped stone artefacts made from
jasper pebbles, and hydrothermal rocks still in
situ.
The chipped stone tools consist mainly of
exhausted cores, technological pieces,

microlithic lunates and atypical end-scrapers.

A comparable assemblage is known from
layers Ia1-Ia2 of kzini Cave, (Antalya,
south-west Anatolia). The preliminary
analysis of the Ouriakos lithic complex
suggests that hunting was the main activity
practised at the site, as shown by the
abundance of microlithic lunates, most
probably hafted to arm spear points, and endscarper for hide processing. The discovery of
a Younger Dryas site at Limnos is important
for understanding the events that took place in
the north-eastern Aegean Sea at the end of the
Pleistocene, pointing out its important
position in the wider Aegean context at the
end of Pleistocene/beginning of the Holocene;
a period for which very little is known not
only in the Aegean islands but also in the
adjacent regions of north-west Anatolia, the
western Black Sea and the south Balkan
peninsula.

36

Shikarpur lithic assemblage: new questions regarding Rohri chert

blade production
Charusmita Gadekar (a), S.V. Rajesh (b) and P. Ajithprasad (a)
(a) The Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Faculty of Arts, The Maharaja
Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat, India. Email: (C. Gadekar)
doyaldua@gmail.com; (P. Ajithprasad) ajitkarolil@rediffmail.com
(b) The Department of Archaeology, Kerala University, Tiruvanthapuram, Kerala, India. Email:
rajeshkeraliyan@yahoo.co.in
Keywords: Harappan civilization; Rohri chert; lithic tools
position. The Shikarpur Rohri blade
assemblage however incorporates more than
650 blades, a large fluted blade-core and a
few pieces of Rohri chert debitage. These
have led the excavators to suggest that some
of the blades found at the site were locally
produced from raw materials brought to the
site from the Rohri Hills. Typo-technological
features of the Rohri chert assemblage from
Shikarpur have been analysed in this context.
These, along with metrical features of the
assemblage, are compared with Rohri chert
assemblages from other major Harappan sites
in the region to check the validity of the
proposed limited local production.

Recent excavations in Shikarpur, a fortified

Harappan site situated near the Gulf of Kutch
in Gujarat, Western India, brought to light a
large collection of Rohri chert blades. Chert
found in the Rohri Hills near Sukkur in Sindh,
Pakistan is distinctive and easily identifiable.
The wide distribution of standardized Rohri
chert blades is often regarded as a testimony
to the Harappan efficiency in long distance
trade and craft production. The possibility of
localized production of Rohri chert blades in
Gujarat is often negated due to the constraints
of raw-material availability. The absence of
Rohri chert working debitage from most of
the sites in Gujarat, has lent support to this

37

A note on the taphonomic origin of breakage: an experimental view

Gadi Herzlinger, Sonia Lemmel and Naama Goren-Inbar
Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905,
Israel. Email: (G. Harzlinger) svampfest0@gmail.com; (S. Lemmel)
sonia.lemmel@mail.huji.ac.il; (N. Goren-Inbar) goren@cc.huji.ac.il
Keywords: Breakage rates; bifacial production; knapping; taphonomy; experimental
from experimental production of bifaces (982
flint and basalt samples). This study aims to
evaluate the direct contribution of knapping
and measure the rate of spontaneous breakage,
thus testing the hypothesis that views postdepositional processes as a major contributor
to the breakage of stone artifacts. Preliminary
results highlight the extremely high frequency
of breakage during regular biface production,
which exceeds the breakage rates caused by
post-depositional processes. Furthermore,
they demonstrate that high breakage rates are
a prominent feature of biface reduction
processes. The results of this study will be
integrated in the examination of assemblages
with longer life histories, aiming at enhanced
assessment of the roles of knapping and
taphonomic
breakage
in
prehistoric
assemblages.

Analyses of lithic assemblages routinely

incorporate an attribute concerned with
breakage. The breakage of artifacts is
commonly viewed as a reflection of the
taphonomic state of artifacts and assemblages.
Trampling, soil movement, bioturbation,
plowing and other post-depositional agents
are considered primary causes of artifact
breakage.
Breakage
is
also
caused
spontaneously during knapping, as has been
shown experimentally. Although the different
causes of breakage have crucial implications
for the interpretation of lithic assemblages,
neither current methodologies of lithic
analysis nor knapping experiments have
yielded sufficient information to distinguish
between breakages caused by these two
different sources. For further investigation of
the causes of breakage, we have examined
several flake (debitage) assemblages derived

38

One of the flint tools production strategy based on erratic flint.

Exemplified by Mesolithic materials from the site Dobry May 7
(central-eastern Poland)
Piotr Mczyski
Institute of Archaeology University of Rzeszow, Poland. Email: archeolublin@gmail.com
Keywords: Dobry May site 5; Mesolithic, Poland; erratic flint; prehistoric technology;
tranchet axes
tranchet axes). The raw material was chosen
with the intention of selecting fragments most
resembling the shape of the finished tools.
Additionally, specimens having natural flat
sides, sometimes even converging with each
other, and thus easily adoptable as a blade,
were preferred. The manufacturing process
was limited to shaping some surface areas of
the sides and butt. The cutting edge area of all
these specimens was shaped by a series of
removals derived from the front or cutting
edge. It is an unusual method, as tranchet axes
have their cutting edge formed by removals
derived from the direction of one of the sides.
Rarely were other smaller tool forms made
from fragments produced in a similar manner.
A single end scraper, made from a flint
fragment, is an exception.
The observed strategy of selection of raw
material with appropriate parameters is not
limited to core tools manufacture. It has also
been recorded in core reduction aimed at
obtaining blade blanks. It appears that when
choosing raw material for future cores,
fragments of hexagonal shape were preferred.
Furthermore, natural surfaces were selected
for the flaking face, sides and the back of the
core. This strategy allowed limited core
preparation, greatly facilitated the reduction
process and, above all, helped to minimise the
excessive loss of weight of the raw material.
The above-described phenomenon of the use
of flint fragments seems to be rarely found in
archaeological materials. It is an example of
adaptation of the flint knapping technology
suitable for the specific characteristics of the
raw material within the reach of the
Mesolithic population living at this site.

Erratic flint in glacial depositional landforms

is known in many parts of Poland. Thanks to
the location of deposits within the surface
layer, this material belongs to the group of
siliceous rocks the most frequently used in
prehistory. It usually occurs in the form of
fragments resulting from disintegration of
larger nodules caused by the strong influence
of weathering processes. In addition, microcracks may often be present in the fragments,
causing the seemingly pristine-looking
fragment of flint to disintegrate into angular
fragments at the very first attempt to obtain
blanks. This situation can significantly hinder
or even make it impossible to carry out core
reduction processes. However this feature,
even though seemingly negative, in some
cases might be used in the tool production
process.
Such a situation has been observed at site 7 in
Dobry May, located in the central eastern
part of Poland. In that case, the Mesolithic
population living on an elevated sandy area,
exclusively used the fragments of erratic flint
that were accessible in the neighbouring fields
for tool production. Several of the cores and
tools discovered represent a minimal amount
of the flint knapping process, which was
based on selection of fragments of raw
material. The initial shape of the fragments
was morphologically similar to the tools
which were intended to be produced from the
fragment. The production process itself was
limited to only some surfaces of the shaped
fragment.
It seems that the most interesting example of
adaptation of raw fragments found is provided
by a series of tranchet axes discovered on this
site (five tranchet axes and two semi-finished

39

Figure 1. Erratic flint.

40

Armorican arrowheads biographies: production and function of an

Early Bronze Age prestige good from Brittany (France)
Clment Nicolas (a), Colas Guret (b)
(a) University of Paris 1 - Panthon-Sorbonne, CNRS, UMR 8215 Trajectoires, Maison de
lArchologie et de lEthnologie, 21, alle de lUniversit, F-92023 Nanterre cedex, Paris,
France. Email: clement.nicolas@mae.univ-paris1.fr
(b) University of Paris 1 - Panthon-Sorbonne, CNRS, UMR 7041 Arscan, Equipe Ethnologie
prhistorique , Maison de lArchologie et de lEthnologie, 21, alle de lUniversit, F-92023
Nanterre cedex, Paris, France. Email: colas.gueret@hotmail.fr
Keywords: Armorican arrowhead; Britanny; Early Bronze Age; technology; use-wear analysis
studied, none present diagnostic impact
features.
However,
use-wear analysis
indicates that most of them were hafted
(adhesive traces, bright spots, blunt edges).
These facts suggest that they are less
functional arrowheads than objects for show.
In the graves, Armorican arrowheads are
frequently set down carefully in wooden
boxes, the shafts having been taken off.
The Armorican arrowheads with their exotic
raw materials, their high-degree of
technicality, and their absence of use, have all
the features of a prestige good. They have
been discovered by the dozens in a few graves
under barrows with very rich funeral items
(bronze daggers decorated with golden pins,
precious bracers, silver beakers, etc.).
According to these obvious facts, they
symbolize the power of the elites. The genesis
of Armorican arrowheads are in all likelihood
explained by a climate of increasing social
competition, which expressed itself in
Brittany by an individualization of burial rites,
a development of metalworking and a
reorganization of territories.
In our presentation, we will emphasise raw
materials selection, technology and knowhow, as well as use-wear analyses. All of
these approaches will help us to trace the
biographies of the Armorican arrowheads.

Brittany prides itself on the Armorican

arrowheads found in Early Bronze Age graves
(2150-1700 BC). In the present state of
knowledge, these are the only specialized
craft products of knapped flint produced in
this region at the western edge of continental
Europe. Admired since the 19th century, these
flint arrowheads have never really been
studied. Due to the wealth of graves and
grave-goods, a relatively precise study can be
undertaken of the development of these craft
products, despite the low number of reliable
radiocarbon dates.
These arrowheads are characterized by a welldefined type (pointed tang and oblique barbs)
most often combined with an ogival form.
Raw materials show the selection of a high
quality yellow translucent flint, of which the
origin is more than 400 kilometres away
(Lower Turonian flint from Cher Valley).
From a technical point of view, Armorican
arrowheads reveal a great mastery of retouch
by pressure-flaking. This skill is written in
stone by the perfection of forms, the extreme
thinness (as low as 2.5 mm thick) and very
long barbs (up to 25 mm long). Such work
could not have been done without the use of
copper, even bronze, awls. Moreover, some
marks may testify to the implication of these
tools. Of the 626 arrowheads that have been

41

Figure 1. Armorican arrowheads.

42

Variability in the core reduction and processing technology of the

Levantine Mousterian industry at Dederiyeh Cave, Syria
Yoshihiro Nishiaki (a), Yosef Kanjo (b), Sultan Muhesen (c) and Takeru Akazawa (d)
(a) The University Museum, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; nishiaki@um.u-tokyo.ac.jp
(b) Aleppo National Museum, Aleppo, Syria; kanjou00@yahoo.com
(c) Qatar Museums Authority, Doha, Qatar; smuhesen@qma.org.qa
(d) The Research Institute, Kochi University of Technology, Tokyo, Japan;
akazawa.takeru@kochi-tech.ac.jp
Keywords: Levant; Middle Palaeolithic; technological variability; Levallois products;
occupational intensity; settlement pattern
information for Neanderthal behavioral
patterns as well. Their analysis reveals a
correlation between the variability of the lithic
industry and possible changes in settlement
pattern. More specifically, the lithic analysis
shows that the variability of the core reduction
technology and the resultant tool forms
correlate to the changes in the occupational
intensity at the cave. This finding provides
key data by which to interpret the nature of
the technological variability of the Levantine
Neanderthals.

Middle Palaeolithic assemblages often display

a great deal of inter- and intra-assemblage
variability in terms of raw material use, core
reduction technology, and the resultant tool
typology, among others. The interpretation of
this variability has received considerable
attention for more than half a century. This
paper presents a case study to explore the
temporal variability of the late Levantine
Mousterian assemblages excavated at the
Dederiyeh Cave, northwest Syria. Because
they are associated with Neanderthal remains,
the assemblages serve as a superb source of

43

The lithic traditions of Late Pleistocene settlement at Affad, Sudan:

raw materials economy and technological features
Piotr Osypiski
Patrimonium Foundation, Rubie 46, PL-61-612 Pozna, Poland. Email:
piotr.osypinski@patrimonium.pl
Keywords: Levallois tradition; Late Pleistocene; Northeastern Africa; Middle Nile Valley
The results of preliminary excavations at the
Palaeolithic site Affad 23 have been presented
at the Archaeology of the Earliest
Northeastern Africa symposium in Poznan in
2003 as well as later on other occasions. One
of the works impact was initiating a new
research project in 2011 (Project Levallois
Tradition Epigons in the Middle Nile Valley
financed by the Polish National Center for
Science,
research
grant
DEC2011/01/D/HS3/04125.
www.archeosudan.org) which focused on
description of the Late Pleistocene settlement
near Affad and its contexts. Surveys done in
February 2012 and 2013 allowed for the
completion of data from previous research in
the area the Southern Dongola Reach
Survey. One of the main aims of the new
project is to determine the relative and
absolute chronology of Affad sites occurring
on the same stratigraphic level (the surface of
a Late Pleistocene riverine terrace) and
containing lithics with very similar
technological and stylistic features.
Analysis of the lithic artefacts collected in
2003, points to the workshop character of the
assemblage. Refittings of numerous cortical
flakes and their dispersion marked relics of
the initial knapping activities using chert
pebbles as a raw material, collected in the
very near vicinity. Technological attributes of
the assemblage were related to discoidal-flake
oriented methods. Levallois flakes were used
as blanks for burins, but most of the recorded
flakes and points were not retouched at all.

Denticulated pieces were mostly produced

from cortical flakes.
What is more, the absolute age of Affad 23
was problematic. Technological analysis
excluded a link to blade traditions typical for
Late Pleistocene inventories of the Old World.
However, the presence of few burins and lack
of bifacial items are what called attention to
the latest flake oriented industries of the
Nubian Nile Valley (Khormusan). Moreover
the occurrence in the upper parts of the silt
terrace point to the relation with one from the
youngest Nile aggradation stage (Late-Middle
Palaeolithic Aggradation according to
Schild and Wendorf dated to early MIS4, but
maybe even younger possibly dated to
MIS3). Such a long term persistence of the
Levallois tradition in the area between the 3rd
and 4th Nile Cataracts should be taken into
consideration.

44

Edge length and flake production strategies: examples from the

Middle Palaeolithic of Romanian Southern Carpathians
Gabriel Popescu
School of Human Evolution & Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
Email: gabriel.popescu@asu.edu
Keywords: Middle Palaeolithic; Southern Carpathians; lithic technology
In order to more fully understand behavior in
the Middle Palaeolithic of the Southern
Romanian Carpathians region it is necessary
to study technology beyond the inferences of
typological classification. Recent advances in
theoretical and methodological approaches to
lithic studies have led to new perspectives on
past human behavioral systems. It was in this
context that Braun and Harris introduced the
index of edge length to mass derived from
measurements of flakes within an assemblage.
This
paper
attempts
to
document

technological responses to lithic resource

constraints, through the use of Brauns
efficiency index expressed as the ratio of edge
length to mass, to emphasize the efficiency
with which a knapping strategy converted a
mass of stone into flake edge. The data set is
represented by three significant Palaeolithic
sites from the region of the Romanian
Southern Carpathians - Nandru-Petera
Curat, Ohaba Ponor-Bordu Mare, and Baia
de Fier-Petera Muierii.

45

Kremenac (Serbia): quarry and Lower Palaeolithic open-air site

Josip ari
Institute of Archaeology, Belgrade, Serbia. Email: josips@eunet.rs
Keywords: hammerstones; choppers; protobifaces; sidescrapers; endscrapers
Kremenac should be considered both a
place of exploitation of good quality raw
material and an occasional place for
camping;
Besides tools used for breaking coarser
pebbles while collecting the raw material,
there are other clearly defined artefacts
used in other every-day activities;
At Kremenac, without doubt, there existed a
Lower Palaeolithic industry which, in
technological sense, is characterized by
rough and summary manufacturing;
Apart from retouched and typologically
clearly defined artefacts, the industry of
Kremenac contains natural pebbles; their
natural shapes enabled their usage in some
activities, which is inferred from the
presence of specific traces of damaging;
and
Some artefacts with characteristics of the
Mousterian industry and with strongly
pronounced archaic elements are most
probably Pre-Mousterian and could be
related to the younger horizon of the Lower
Palaeolithic.

Kremenac is a site near the Rujnik village

representing a relatively denuded gentle slope
along the margin of the Ni basin. The slope
is elongated on a north-south axis, around 1.5
km long and between 200 m to 270 m wide. It
is sporadically covered by grass and low
bushes and crosscut by numerous country
roads.
The most representative items of the
Kremenac collection are hammerstones,
different types of choppers (Figure 1),
protobifaces, sidescrapers and endscrapers
mostly made of opal (ari 2011). This
material is very abundant at Kremenac and the
locality is named after this raw material.
Typological analyses of the artefacts indicate
the possible existence of two chronological
horizons that belong to the Lower
Palaeolithic. However, the younger horizon
contains artefacts which indicate, only by
their morphology, characteristics that would
dominate during the Middle Palaeolithic.
Major parts of the industry are characterized
by very rough and summary manufacturing
which results in artefacts that, ultimately, can
be correlated with well-known standards from
the Lower Palaeolithic. A peculiar
characteristic of the lithic assemblage of
Kremenac is that it contains tools having
traces of damaging as a consequence due
exclusively to utilization. Some pieces of raw
material were used in its original shape
without any additional shaping.
Dating of mandible BH-1 from Mala Balanica
cave in the Sievo Gorge to 397,000-525,000
years BP clearly indicates that Kremenac,
which is situated in the vicinity of Mala
Balanica, is one of the most significant
Palaeolithic sites of south-eastern Europe
(Rink 2013).
Although precise dating of the Kremenac site
will be done in the future, it is possible to
draw the following conclusions:

Acknowledgements
The article results from the project
Archaeology of Serbia: Cultural identity,
integrating factors, technological processes
and role of Central Balkan in the evolution of
European prehistory (no. 177020) funded by
Ministry of Education and Science and
Technological Development of the Republic
of Serbia.
References
ari, J. 2011. Lower Paleolithic Site Kremenac near
the Village Rujnik (Serbia), StarinarLIX.7-31.
Beograd.
Rink, W. J., N. Mercier, D. Mihailovi, M. W. Morley,
J. W. Thompson and M. Roksandi 2013. New
Radiometric Ages for the BH-1 Hominin from
Balanica (Serbia): Implication for Understanding
the Role of the Balkans in Middle Pleistocene
Human Evolution. PloS ONE 8(2): e54608, 1-7.

46

Figure 1. Double-sided chopper from the open-air site of Kremenac in Rujnik village near Ni, Serbia.

47

Features of the flint processing organization during the Chacolithic

period in the Southeast of Europe
N. N. Skakun (a), B. Mateva (b), V. V. Terekhina (a)
(a) Institute for the Material Culture History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint
Petersburg, Russia. E-mail: skakunnatalia@yandex.ru; terehinavera@mail.ru
(b) Historical museum-Isperih, Isperih, Bulgaria. E-mail: boryanamateva@yahoo.com
Keywords: Chalcolithic, Tripolian culture, flint deposits, tool functions, planigraphy, economy
reconstruction
During the early Metal Age, flint as the main
raw materials for tools continued to be used
widely in many regions of Europe. At this
time, exploitation of large nodules of
Cretaceous flint deposits begins. Its mining
was carried out in open pits as well as in
mines and adits. Studying the Tripolian
culture sites in the northwest of Ukraine
showed that near the Volhynian flint deposits
there were workshop settlements focused on
production and processing of these raw
materials. One such site is the Bodaki
settlement. A complex study of the flint
materials from this site produced interesting
results. The use-wear analysis and planigrahy
research showed that preprocessing of raw
materials happened outside of the settlement,
flint knapping was done in a special workshop
and on an open working platform where the
majority of the tools used were connected
with flint processing. There are cores,
spherical hammerstones, punches, retouchers
and ridge blades. In dwellings, on the
contrary, the majority of tools are connected

with processing and production of products.

These are scrapers and borers for processing
of skins, regular scrapers, saws, burins, drills,
planing knives for processing of wood, bone
and horn, and knives for cutting meat. The
tools used in agriculture are also found. These
include sickles and querns. The results of
these researches testify that in the Tripolian
culture there were specialized workshop
settlements for flint processing, while at the
same time within the site the complete cycle
of economic activity, characteristic of the
economy of this time was carried out. In the
Chalcolithic of Bulgaria in Dobrudja, there
were also workshop settlements which
completely provided flint products to the
settlements of other areas, for example, the
Black Sea area. Specialized objects linked to
flint mining have been investigated in
England, Belgium, and France, but a lack of
use-wear analysis of the assemblages of these
sites prevents the characterisation of their
economic features at this time.

48

Lithic refitting and prehistoric skill learning processes: a case study

of the Upper Paleolithic assemblages at the Shirataki sites, Hokkaido,
Japan
Jun Takakura
Archaeological Research Center, Hokkaido University, Japan. Email: juntaka1512@gmail.com
Keywords: lithic refitting; skill learning; Shirataki; obsidian; reduction process
that novice knapping activities could have
occurred at these sites.
In order to understand a difference in skill
among the refitted materials at the Hattoridai
2 site and the Kamishirataki 2 site, I focus on
the technological characteristics of blade
reductions, such as a number of qualitative
value judgments such as productivity,
precision, regularity, the patterned multistage
of operations and their spatial patterning
generally interpreted as skill signatures in the
previous studies. In addition, the variety of
raw materials, especially its size and form, as
well as the absenceghostof blade cores
and the absence of blades among the refitted
materials are assessed. It is apparent that the
relationship between the variety of available
raw material and the criteria we use to
identify technical skill levels should be further
explored by analyzing suitable collections.
The results of analysis can reveal not only the
pedagogical demonstration by the expert
knappers for the benefit of a beginner knapper
at the Kamishirataki 2 site, but also the
observational learning of knapping operations
and skills at the Hattoridai 2 site.

In this paper, I aim to discuss the skill

learning processes based on the analysis of
lithic refitted materials obtained from the
Upper Paleolithic assemblages at the
Hattoridai 2, and Kamishirataki 2 sites,
Hokkaido, northern Japan. These sites are lie
around the upper stream of the Yubetsu River
basin,
eastern
Hokkaido,
and
are
topographically located along the margins of
river terraces and hills. Techno-typological
comparison and some of radiocarbon dates
show that many of the lithic refitted materials
mainly belong to the Late Upper Paleothic.
Since both sites are located near a huge
outcrop of obsidian that is of good quality,
with few interior inclusions, a large amount of
lithic production was carried out at the sites.
In a situation where raw material is relatively
abundant and of low value, a novice knapper
may be permitted a degree of trial and error,
either on his own or under the supervision of a
skilled knapper. This matches the context of
the Shirataki sites, where obsidian gravels and
debris preferable for use as lithic raw material
could be easily and abundantly acquired.
Accordingly, it seems reasonable to suggest

49

Figure 1. The refitted materials from the Kamishirataki 2 site, Hokkaido.

50

Estimating the scale of stone axe production: a case study from

Onega Lake, Russian Karelia
Alexey Tarasov (a) and Sergey Stafeev (b)
(a) Institute of Language, Literature and History, Karelian Research Centre, Russian Academy of
Sciences, 11 Pushkinskaya St., Petrozavodsk, Karelia, Russia. Email: taleksej@drevlanka.ru
(b) Institute of Applied Mathematical Research, Karelian Research Centre, Russian Academy of
Sciences, 11 Pushkinskaya St., Petrozavodsk, Karelia, Russia. Email: stafeev@krc.karelia.ru
Keywords: stone axes; mass-production; mass-analysis; Fennoscandia; punch technique
technology, primarily based on punch
technique, was used to obtain an experimental
reference assemblage. Mass-analysis of waste
flakes from excavations and experiments,
which was performed with the aid of image
recognition
software,
provided
data
concerning the amount of flakes and their
sizes. Statistical comparison of metrical
variables from experimental and excavation
assemblages testifies to consistency and
general uniformity in data and, therefore,
assures that that the experimental data can be
used as a foundation for calculations.
Estimation of the approximate amount of
finished tools produced within the excavated
area, based on the experimental model, will be
presented in this paper.

The industry of metatuff axes and adzes on

the western coast of Onega Lake (Chalcolithic
period, ca. 3500 1500 cal. B.C.)
demonstrates clear signs of specialized
production: manufacturing of tools in
specialized workshops in just one small
region, sophisticated technology, high degree
of standardization, large scale of production,
long-distance trade. Excavations of the
workshop site Fofanovo XIII, conducted in
2010-2011, provided an extremely large
assemblage of artifacts (over 350,000 finds
from just 30 square meters, including ca.
296,000 waste flakes from making axes and
adzes and ca. 700 preforms) and gave us a
possibility to estimate the scale of production.
A series of experiments, which consisted of
replication of tools based on ancient

51

The last journey of the craftsmen: analyses of lithic assemblage from

a Globular Amphora culture grave
Piotr Wodarczak (a), Katarzyna Pyewicz (b), Janusz Budziszewski (c), Witold Grud (c) and
Marcin M. Przybya (d)
(a) Orodek Archeologii Gr i Wyyn, The Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology PAN, ul.
Sawkowska 17, 31-016 Krakw, Poland. Email: wlodarczak.piotr@gmail.com
(b) Institute of Prehistory, Adam Mickiewicz University in Pozna, w. Marcin 78, 61-809
Pozna, Poland. Email: kpyzewicz@gmail.com
(c) Institute of Archaeology, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyski University in Warsaw, ul. Wycickiego
1/3, bud. 23, 01-938 Warsaw, Poland. Email: budziszewski.janusz@gmail.com;
wittold@gmail.com
(d) Stowarzyszenie Archeologw Terenowych STATER, Niepoomice, Poland. Email:
megzyk@poczta.onet.pl
Keywords: Globular Amphora Culture; southern Poland; blade technology; use-wear; square
section axes
settlements) but are dated to the same period.
Additionally, we made an attempt to
investigate if and how the craftsmen
functioned in the prehistoric societies of the
Globular Amphora culture (Migal 1997). We
considered both the possibility that the
craftsmen worked locally and that they were
journeyman. The latter hypothesis was
proposed in one of the models by researchers
with specialization in the Late Neolithic and
Bronze Age flint technologies from
Scandinavia (Eriksen 2008, Olausson 1997).

The aim of this paper is to present

technological and functional studies carried
out on the lithic grave goods from the
Koszyce site. The site is located at the
southern limit of the Globular Amphora
culture territory in the Maopolska Upland,
Poland. The lithic assemblage consists mostly
of blades, square section axes and flakes.
Most of the flint materials were made from
imported raw materials and exhibit a high
level of know-how. This can be observed both
in the standardized production of regular
blades and precise shaping of square section
axes. The artefacts were examined using a
refitting method and use-wear analysis in
order to assess reduction sequences and
discover their functional biographies. Our
hypotheses were later tested by conducting
flint-knapping experiments. We were
especially interested in studying the flint
processing economy and the social role of
flint producer. We compared the results of our
studies with findings obtained from other
excavation sites that are known to have
different function (e.g. flint mines and

References
Eriksen B. V., 2008 Dynamic technological analysis of
Bronze Age lithics. A tribute to an unconventional
archaeology. In: Z. Sulgostowska, A. J.
Tomaszewski (eds.) Man Millennia
Environment.
Migal W., 1997 Selected aspects of specialization in
mining and flint knapping. In: Romuald Schild,
Zofia Sulgostowska (eds.) Man and flint.
Olausson D., 1997 Craft specialization as an agent of
social power in the south Scandinavian Neolithic.
In: Romuald Schild, Zofia Sulgostowska (eds.) Man
and flint.

52

Session 4.
Use-wear analyses
An important field of study in lithics is related to what the artefacts were used for and use-wear
analyses often give a better insight into this topic. This session will focus on research related to
use-wear analysis (also known as traceology) and various signs of usage on knapped stone
tools.

53

The reality and confusion of post-depositional alterations and usewear: an experimental case on basalt
Lena Asyran (a, b, c), Andreu Oll (b,a) and Norah Moloney (d)
(a) rea de Prehistria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Avinguda de Catalunya 35, 43002
Tarragona, Spain. Email: (L. Asyran) lenaprehistoria@gmail.com; (A. Oll) aolle@iphes.cat
(b) IPHES, Institut Catal de Paleoecologia Humana i Evoluci Social, C/Marcel.li Domingo s/n
(Edifici W3), Campus Sescelades, 43007, Tarragona, Spain.
(c) Artsakh State University, M. Gosh 5, Stepanakert, Nagorno Karabagh.
(d) Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC), Jos Gutirrez Abascal, 2. 28006 - Madrid,
Spain. Email: tcfa305@ucl.ac.uk
Keywords: experimental case; basalt; use-wear patterns; post-depositional surface modifications
modifications noted on the Middle to Upper
Pleistocene lithic assemblages of the Azokh
Cave site (Nagorno Karabagh, Lesser
Caucasus). Our specific aims were:
1) to identify use-wear patterns on basalt and
to understand the extent to which these differ
from the patterns described on other rocks;
2) to determine the type of alterations bear
trampling can produce on the surface of basalt
artefacts (e.g. edge damage, micro-fractures,
rounding, striations, etc.); and
3) to look for criteria that may assist in
distinguishing bear trampling from use-wear
traces on basalt.
Although some aspects of both events (i.e.
use-wear and PDSM) remain to be studied in
depth, the experiment has improved our
understanding of the effects of use-wear and
post-depositional trampling on basalt lithic
artefacts. In particular, it has allowed us to
recognise mechanical alterations (e.g. cracks,
striations, fractures, pseudo-retouch) caused
by bear trampling and to note differences
between these modifications and those caused
by use.

Distinctive combinations of wear features on

the surface of lithic artefacts can be produced
by different natural mechanisms (i.e. the
results of direct interaction with sediment or
environmental processes), which can also
disturb the spatial arrangement of artefacts.
Cracks, fractures, striations, deformations,
edge and ridge rounding, polished surfaces,
pits and surface colour changes are the most
common types of natural alteration affecting
stone tool artefacts, and have been most often
recorded on siliceous materials (Burroni et al,
2002). These types of natural alterations can
be confused easily with use-wear and affect
subsequent interpretation.
While many experimental studies have been
done on siliceous and metamorphic rocks for
both use-wear and post depositional surface
modification (PDSM) events, little is known
about such experiments on volcanic rocks
(other than obsidian), and on basalt in
particular.
Here we present the preliminary results of two
experiments
related
to:
1) evidence for basalt use (e.g. butchery and
fresh hide scraping) and the subsequent
characteristic use-wear patterns that can be
seen; and
2) post-depositional surface modifications
caused by bear (Ursidae) trampling on
experimental basalt tools.
The results of these two experiments were
compared to better understand some surface

Reference
Burroni, D., Donahue, R.E., Pollard, A.M.
(2002). The Surface Alteration of Flint
Artefacts as a Record of Environmental
Processes. J. of Archaeological Science; 29;
pp. 1277 1287

54

Household and specialised lithic management: the dichotomy in the

manufacture and use of flint tools among the first farming
communities (LBK) in SW Poland
Bernadeta Kufel-Diakowska
Institute of Archaeology Wrocaw University, Szewska 48, 50-139 Wrocaw, Poland. Email:
bernadeta.kufel@gmail.com
Keywords: Neolithic; LBK; lithic management; technology; use-wear analysis
probably not recognised by local craftsmen
(exploitation of prepared one- and doubleplatform cores long, regular blades)
Jurassic flint was imported mostly as blanks
or finished tools. According to the use-wear
analysis tools were used for activities
necessary for everyday life of an earlyfarming family (cereals processing, hide
working and processing of other materials),
but there was a difference in types of
functional tools depending on the type of flint.
From Jurassic flint were mostly made formal,
curated and composite tools, erratic products
were used for ad-hoc tools. Based on the
distribution of wastes from the local
production and on imported and locally made
worn tools, we can observe the phenomenon
of dichotomy in management of flint raw
materials. These studies also shed light on the
migration routes and interregional relations
between different groups of the Linear Pottery
culture these three times of re-settling the
site in Strzelin and exploiting local erratic
flint and those existing in southern Poland and
use of high-quality Jurassic flint.

The presentation aims to show new data on

the use of flint by the societies of the Linear
Pottery culture in SW Poland (Ehlert, KufelDiakowska in press). The archaeological
materials retrieved in the course of rescue
excavations at site no. 16 in Strzelin represent
the remains of a three-phase settlement
occupied by the communities of the first
farmers in the Oawa Valley, and have been
elaborated by the explorers in the mid-90s
(Wojciechowski, Cholewa 1995). The
analysed inventory consists of 121 artefacts,
including 12 cores, 27 flakes, 26 blades, 31
retouched tools (scrapers, truncated pieces,
retouched blades and flakes), 25 nodules and
chunks. Flint artefacts were made from two
kinds of raw material: local erratic flint
collected from the hills of glacial origin in the
vicinity of the site and high-quality Jurassic
flint imported from the area of the Polish
Jurassic Highland more than 200 km to the
east. There is a difference in use of erratic and
Jurassic flint by the groups of farmers who
settled the village in different phases
(respectively: 40-100% for local and 0-60%
for imported flint). According to the structure
of the inventory, as well as technological and
functional characteristics these two kinds of
flint represent different knapping techniques
and played different roles (expedient vs.
curated tools). Detailed analysis of the
technological
attributes
has
provided
information about the simple reduction
techniques, which local flint knappers were
able to use (bipolar knapping splintered
pieces) and those known by specialised highskilled manufacturers from outside, but most

References
Wojciechowski W., Cholewa P. 1995. Osady
najwczeniejszych rolnikw i hodowcw na
stanowisku 16 w Strzelinie, Studia Archeologiczne,
XXVII, Wrocaw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu
Wrocawskiego.
Ehlert M., Kufel-Diakowska B. in press.
Wykorzystanie surowcw krzemiennych przez
spoecznoci kultury ceramiki wstgowej rytej na
osadzie w Strzelinie 16, gm. loco, woj.
dolnolskie, Silesia Antiqua, 49 (2013).

55

Image analysis and intra-raw material variability: a continuing

exploration of use-wear accrual
Harry J. Lerner
Centre Interuniversitaire dtudes sur les lettres, les arts, et les traditions (CLAT)
Pavillon Charles-De Koninck, Universite Laval, Quebec, Quebec, Canada. Email:
harry.lerner.1@ulaval.ca
(Current mailing address: 1059 Riverside Dr., London, Ontario, N6H 2T4, Canada.)
Keywords: raw material; hide-working; wear accrual; digital image analysis; Southwest U.S.
measures provided by the Clemex program
and adapted to the analysis of use-related
wear (area percent, density, average intensity.)
The overall research initiative has been
undertaken in an effort to better understand
how the physical differences between various
lithic raw materials influence how each
accrues wear and how this affects our
interpretations of archaeological use-wear
evidence. The methods that will be presented
have broad geographic and temporal
applicability, and thus the potential for
contributing to greater standardization in the
quantification of archaeological use-wear.

This poster will present the latest results of an

on-going research initiative into the role of
lithic raw material variability in the use-wear
accrual process, specifically as it relates to the
scraping of dry ungulate hide. The study
employed the Clemex Vision image analysis
software package to quantitatively assess rates
of use-wear accrual as a function of intra-raw
material variability. The poster will detail the
study of two lithic materials (Morrison
Undifferentiated Gray Chert and Brushy
Basin Silicified Siltstone) used during the
Late Archaic in the Four Corners area of the
American Southwest. The data collected and
evaluated consists of a roster of quantitative

56

All that glitters is not gold: reappraising the relative significance of

handaxes and flakes in Palaeolithic assemblages in Southern Britain
Clare McKenna
Department of Archaeology, University of York, York, United Kingdom. Email:
cm685@york.ac.uk
Keywords: Lower Palaeolithic; Southern Britain; handaxes; flakes; aesthetic characteristics
Palaeolithic stone tools are often conceived of
as points on a hierarchy. For the Lower
Palaeolithic, the top of this hierarchy - the
most aesthetically pleasing form - is the
handaxe, which has been the centre of many
on-going debates. A handaxe of this period is
seen as a purely functional object, it may also
show reverence within the society of the
craftsmen. This may mean that too much
influence is placed on these objects within the
literature, and we can potentially miss some
significant data from less desirable stone
tools. The purpose of this paper is to show the
statistical analysis of stone tools from the
Acheulian period in which I will illustrate that
all that glitters is not gold by paying closer
attention to the forgotten elements of the
lower Palaeolithic assemblage and the
Clactonian, Acheulian debate.

My results show that the handaxes held within

the Hoxne collection at the British museum
are not functional objects; they have no use
within butchery in relation to meat and sinew
removal, disarticulation of joints and marrow
extraction in the butchery context. The flakes
from both the Hoxne site and the Clacton-onSea site do not fit to the profile talked about in
the theoretical literature on the subject.
Though there are statistical differences within
the two assemblages both would be seen as
squat in relation to their shape, opposed to
what is thought of in the theoretical literature.
I suggest that looking at less aesthetically
pleasing artefacts leads to a different
interpretation of the Acheulian period
assemblages with implications for other key
issues.

57

Use-wear studies of Bronze and Iron Age lithics from the Madaba
Plains
Nikki Oakden
University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Email: nikkioakden@hotmail.com
Keywords: Jordan; Near East; Bronze Age; Iron Age; lithic; use-wear; Tell al-Umayri
This paper addresses the under-representation
of lithic material in the interpretation of
Bronze and Iron Age archaeological
assemblages in the Levant. Lithic material has
been recovered from Tell al-Umayri, Bronze
and Iron Age site south of Amman, Jordan,
since 1992 and a preliminary typology of Tell
al-Umayri lithic tools has been constructed
by a research team at Mount Royal University
(Alberta, Canada). Experimental versions of
some of these tool types were then recreated
from chert of approximately the same quality
and utilized in a series of experiments which
duplicated activities such as agricultural
harvesting, textile manufacture and other craft
production. These activities are believed to

have been prevalent at Tell al-Umayri due to

the presence of other archaeological remains
recovered from the site, such as spindle
whorls, carbonized barley seeds, and
decorated bone implements. The resulting
use-wear on these experimental tools were
then compared the actual lithics from the Tell
al-Umayri collection through analysis under
a metallurgical microscope at 200x
magnification. Several promising correlations
were found between the experimental tools
and the archaeological material, shedding
some light on how important production
activities and domestic tasks may have been
performed utilizing lithic material.

58

Mesolithic stone industry from site Ludowice 6, central Poland

Grzegorz Osipowicz
Institute of Archaeology, Nicolaus Copernicus University, ul. Szosa Bydgoska 44/48, 87-100
Toru, Poland. Email: grezegor@umk.pl
Keywords: Poland; Mesolithic; quartz porphyry; granite; quartz sandstone
made from these raw materials were
discovered on in small concentrations.
However, grey granite, grey quartz sandstone,
quartzites, gneisses, quartz as well as
mudstones and slates were also subject to
treatment. The collection contained 30
specimens identified as morphological tools.
The analysis of retouch visible on them and
results of the preliminary use-wear study
confirm their anthropogenic origin and
indicate tool usage. It is the first stone
industry of this type dated to the Middle Stone
Age within the territory of Poland and
probably also within Central Europe.

In the course of excavations at the Mesolithic

site Ludowice 6 (central Poland), apart from
flint artefacts typical for this region, a
collection of 533 stone artefacts (as of 2011)
was acquired. Among them the remains of an
industry were present, in the number of 483
objects - the primary feature of which was
coring oriented at production of blades, flakes
and - as a consequence - tools with forms
similar to those typical for flint artefacts.
Also, the techniques applied were analogous
to those used in the treatment of this material.
The industry was based on several types of
quartz porphyry, fine-grained red granite and
ferruginous quartz sandstone. The artefacts

59

Mineralogy of patina: flints from East Desert, Egypt

Maciej Pawlikowski, Magdalena Sitarz and Mateusz Sk
Dept. Mineralogy, Petrography and Geochemistry, AGH-University of Science and Technology,
Cracow, Poland. Email: (M. Pawlikowski) mpawlik@agh.edu.pl; (M. Sitarz)
magda.zako@gmail.com; (M. Sk) msek@student.agh.edu.pl
Keywords: mineralogy; patina; flints; Egypt; geology; quartz; patination
temperature in desert conditions. During the
colder and slightly wetter night, flints are
coated with a very delicate layer of moisture
migrating slightly inside of the flint. There,
inside of the flint, in relicts of moisture,
dissolved minerals of Mn and Fe are always
present in the flints (mostly as sulphides).
During the hot day, the flint is heated by sun
and water relicts migrate from the center of
the flint to the surface where the remains of
the water are evaporated. Because of
evaporation the Fe-Mn present in the water
start to crystallize.
The described phenomenon, repeated
thousands of times leads to the formation of
dark desert patina. The thickness of the patina
depends on the amount of time of their
formation and the intensity of insolation.
Because of this, the thickness of the patina is
greater on surfaces strongly heated or heated
longer by the sun.

Mineralogical investigation of desert flint

patina developed on surface of flints collected
in the East desert in Egypt were performed
using
mineralogical
methods
for
determination of the way in which patination
occurs. Investigations were performed using
polarizing light microscopy, SEM and EDS
methods.
The results obtained have shown that the hot
desert patina coating the surface of flints was
formed of one or many layers composed of
silica, and Fe and Mn oxides. The amount of
these oxides and relations between Fe and Mn
oxides makes various shadows of dark patina
starting from light to black. Ferric oxides are
mostly represented by goethite and hematite
while Mn-oxides are manganite and
pyrolusite. Both Mn and Fe oxides are poorly
crystallized.
The process of desert patination is the result
of day and night oscillation of humidity and

60

The effects of raw material properties on edge attrition: a highresolution study of unretouched experimental flakes
Cornel M. Pop
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. Email:
cornel_pop@eva.mpg.de
Keywords: lithics; edge attrition; experimental archaeology; raw material properties
obtained
through
(a)
cross-section
microphotographs (taken at a magnification of
20x) of edge molds, which were sectioned at
regular 5 mm intervals after a set number of
incisions, and (b) change images created from
high-resolution (105px/mm) whole-edge
planview photographs taken at regular
intervals (Figure 1). The edge molds were
created with dental impression material
(Polyvinylsiloxane) using a custom molding
and sectioning device. This device was
designed to ensure that molds taken at
different stages of the experiment were
always sectioned at the same angle and at the
same location along an artifacts edge.
Preliminary results of the experiment suggest
that various physical properties of the raw
materials, including modal grain size and
granulometric homogeneity, play a role in the
observed attrition rates. However, their
influence is quite complex and was found to
vary at different stages of the experiment.
Coarser raw materials, for example, tend to
experience higher initial edge losses, likely
due to the quick removal of any weakly bound
grains, but then tend to become more resistant
to attrition than finer grained materials. At the
same time, such raw materials tend to exhibit
more dulling near the edge (at .5mm) but
maintain lower edge angles farther away from
the edge (at 3mm). This suggests that,
generally, raw material properties cannot be
linked to discard rates in any straightforward
way; their effects on attrition may, however,
reveal potentially interesting aspects of raw
material selection based on intended function.

The influence of raw material characteristics

on the size and composition of lithic
assemblages has been the focus of numerous
studies, and there is general agreement that
said characteristics can play a major role in
determining assemblage variability. However,
most studies involving simple industries have
focused on the effects of raw material
properties on lithic production (e.g.
flakability) rather than on artifact use and
discard rates. Few experiments have
heretofore been conducted to quantify
differences between flakes made of different
raw materials in terms of their ability to hold a
usable working edge. Such experiments are
relevant because of the impacts that any such
differences may have in terms of artifact
discard rates and, perhaps, raw material
selection and use. At present, the effects of
the physical properties (e.g. granulometry) of
different raw materials on nature and rates of
attrition that are observed through the use-life
of a working edge are poorly understood.
This poster will present the results of an
experiment
designed
to
study
the
characteristics of attrition as observed on
unretouched, experimental chert and quartzite
flakes which were used to make incisions on a
hardwood plank. The physical properties of
the raw materials were quantified through
petrographic analyses of the nodules from
which the flakes were obtained, while changes
through the use-life of the working edges
were monitored and quantified with a novel,
high-resolution method that is also discussed
in detail. The method combines information

61

Figure 1.

62

How to drill in bone and other organic materials: a case study from a
Linear Pottery Culture settlement in central Poland
Katarzyna Pyewicz (a) and Marcin Szeliga (b)
(a) Institute of Prehistory, Adam Mickiewicz University in Pozna; w. Marcin 78,
61-809 Pozna, Poland. Email: kpyzewicz@gmail.com
(b) Institute of Archaeology, Maria Curie-Skodowska University in Lublin; Pl. Marii CurieSkodowskiej 4, 20-031 Lublin, Poland. Email: marcinszeliga@wp.pl
Keywords: Linear Pottery Culture; central Poland; lithic perforators and borers; use-wear
analyses; experimental research
characterized by having very slender sharp
retouched pointed ends, normally located
within the distal parts. This group of tools is
one of the largest collections of the Linear
Pottery culture materials of this type both in
Poland and central Europe.
During our studies we applied morphological,
experimental and use-wear analyses to assess
technological and functional aspects of lithic
borers and perforators. Special attention was
paid to analyzing macro and micro traces of
hafting, usage or reutilization of lithic tools.
We found certain correlations between how
artifacts were used, their morphology, the
applied technology and the choice of flint raw
material. We also attempted to explain some
elements of behaviour of Neolithic societies
in the context of production and use of the
flint materials.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the

history of selected lithic artifacts found in a
Linear Pottery Culture settlement. The
artifacts studied come from the Tominy
excavation site, which is located in central
Poland, in the north-eastern margin of the
witokrzyskie Mountains. The previous
excavations exposed an area of more than one
hectare and led to the discovery of dozens of
Neolithic features that are related to the
middle (Music Note) phase of the pottery
style.
The research of excavated materials from the
Linear Pottery culture revealed that a large
number of lithic artifacts were predominantly
made from high quality, local lithic raw
materials of Turonian age (about 80% of the
entire group), including wieciechw flint,
also known as the grey, whitish spotted
flint. Other artifacts were found to be made
from Chocolate and Jurassic-Cracow flint or
Carpathian obsidian.
The assemblage of all the lithic tools
excavated in Tominy is characterized by
numerous perforators and borers made from
regular blades. These types of tools are

Acknowledgements
The investigations were funded by the
National Science Centre in Poland, on the
basis
of
decision
no.
DEC2011/03/N/HS3/02016.

63

Figure 1. Perforators from the Linear Pottery Culture settlement in Tominy, Oarw commune (central Poland).
1-4. wieciechw flint; 5. obsidian. (Drawn by M. Szeliga).

64

Experiments in archaeology and their significance for use-wear

investigations
N. N. Skakun (a), B. Mateva (b), V. V. Terekhina (a)
(a) Institute for the Material Culture History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint
Petersburg, Russia. E-mail: skakunnatalia@yandex.ru; terehinavera@mail.ru
(b) Historical museum-Isperih, Isperih, Bulgaria. E-mail: boryanamateva@yahoo.com
Keywords: experimental archaeology, ancient tools, flint knapping, tool reconstruction,
standards for use-wear definitions

Blades and flakes obtained during controlled

knapping of the local Volhynian flint were
used for experiments. Operations were
reconstructed on the basis of use-wear studies,
and archaeological and ethnographic data.
Changes which occurred as a result of
utilization on working parts of tools and on
processed material were fixed each 15
minutes during the first hours of experiments.
Descriptions of experiments were recorded in
a journal. Besides characteristics of preforms,
modes of work, time spent for each operation,
the process of changes of working edges,
personal observations of the experimenters
were recorded. Age, professional skill, sex,
and right or left handedness use were taken
into consideration. It is worth noting that
these peculiarities influenced the character
and intensity of macrowear and microwear
traces on tools and also the duration of their
use. Productivity of labor of different
experimenters was not the same (sometimes
differed by two-three times).
Experimental works with good preparation
and detailed fixation give sufficiently reliable
results which can be used during traceological
studies of functions of ancient tools. They
may also be a basis for various
palaeoeconomic reconstructions. Still, it is
important to keep in mind that during our
experiments we are unable to take into
consideration many factors which existed in
the lives of ancient humans, such as customs,
taboos, rituals, etc., which undoubtedly
produced substantial influence on ancient
economy.

Experiment as a mode of archaeological

research emerged at the end of 19th century.
During more than 100 years, this method was
successfully developing thanks to efforts of
many European and American scholars. In the
middle of the last century some aspects of this
method were greatly improved by the Russian
scientist, S. A. Semenov, creator of the
traceological method,. Up to now, a large
volume of publications by various authors
describing scientific results and theoretical
problems of the employment of experimental
data in archaeology has been accumulated.
Nevertheless, a substantial part of modern
archaeologists consider experimental method
to be the best didactical instrument for
educating students. Others consider results
achieved by this method as absolute, judging
from their subjective view.
The experimental-traceological unit of the
Chalcolithic expedition in Bodaki, over
twenty years has carried out experimental
work aimed at increasing of the database
needed for study of use-wear traces on ancient
tools. Most experiments were connected with
the main occupations of the population of
ancient farming cultures of South-eastern
Europe. Among them production of flint tools
and pottery, processing of hides, wood, bone,
and antler, soil working, harvesting of cereals
and grass, and many other activities.
Experiments were aimed at reconstruction of
the ways of work with replicas of various
archaeological tools, creation of standards and
comparison of use-wear traces on them with
authentic ancient tools, functions of which
were determined by the traceological method.

65

The application of an open source image processing software in the

analysis of use-wear on high reflective non-flint materials
Andrea Zupancich, Flavia Venditti and Cristina Lemorini
Department of Humanities, University of Rome Sapienza, Rome, Italy. Email: (A. Zupancich)
a.zupancich@gmail.com; (F. Venditti) flavia.venditti@gmail.com; (C. Lemorini)
cristina.lemorini@uniroma1.it
Keywords: image processing; use-wear; high reflective lithic material
Laser Scanning Microscope. If on one hand
this kind of equipment allows one to carry on
in depth analyses, even on non-flint materials,
on the other hand their costs do not make
them accessible to all. In order to overcome
this issue what we propose here is the use of
an open-source software, which can help
researchers in the investigation of use-wear on
highly reflective raw materials. Through an
experimental program, including wood
working, butchering and hide processing,
performed using experimental tools made of
quartz, fenite and rhyolite, we present the use
of ImageJ. Throughout the use of this opensource image processing software, we analyse
use-wear pictures, in order to generate threedimensional plots of surface areas, which will
make it possible to ease the investigation of
use-wear patterns and to understand the
mechanics involved in the modification of the
surfaces during different activities.

Functional analysis of stone tools, based on

the investigation of both edge damage and
micro use-wear has achieved great importance
in last decades and has become a hallmark in
the investigation of prehistoric human
behaviour.
Most of the studies carried out so far, focused
on the analysis of flint and obsidian tools
investigating wear traces related to their use.
Other types of raw materials have been
analysed as well, with different degrees of
success. The most common issues in the
microscopic analysis of non-flint raw
materials, such as quartz, fenite or rhyolite,
are given by their reflectivity or by their
uneven texture. Thanks to the recent progress
in the microscopy field, these issues are
solved through the exploitation of high tech
equipment, such as DIC (Differential
interference Contrast Microscope), SEM
(Scanning Electron Microscope) or Confocal

66

Figure 1. ImageJ software.

67

Stone or teeth? Comparative functional analysis of capibara teeth

(Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) and rhyolite flakes used as tools
Vanesa Parmigiani(a), Mara Celina Alvarez Soncini(b), Mara Estela Mansur(a) and Hernn De
Angelis(a)
(a) CADIC-CONICET; (b) CADIC-ANPCyT. Emails: veparmigiani@yahoo.com.ar,
hernandeangelis@yahoo.com.ar, estelamansur@gmail.com, mcalvarezson@gmail.com.
Keywords: microwear analysis, ethnographic tools, South America, experimentation
(capibara). This animal, along with beaver
(Castor canadiensis) is one of the biggest
rodents in the world. Capibara is original
from South America and it is well known
that its incisors have been used as tools by
different ethnographic communities. The
main goal of this communication is to
present the results of microscopic functional
analysis and to discuss efficiency of tools of
both raw materials for the same tasks.

Along human history, animal teeth have

frequently been used as tools by different
cultures. Evidences of these practices are
present in the ethnographic record, as well
as repeatedly in archaeological sites.
However, for archaeological research,
animal teeth are normally considered in
archaeozoological analysis and taken into
account to build the list of consumed
animals, because they are an excellent
indicator from the taxonomic point of view.
When animal teeth are modified by human
action, they are usually interpreted as
personal ornaments. They are seldom
separated for a deeper study.

Experimental tools were used to work three

types of materials: hide, wood and bone,
fresh as well as dry, following the same
experimental protocol we used for Castor
Canadensis (Parmigiani et al. 2013). Results
obtained in utilisation periods of 5, 10 and
15 minutes show that microwear traces
form, including edge damage and
micropolishes, and that they vary according
to different kind of material worked on,
material hardness, kinematics and use
duration.

From our point of view, animal teeth have a

great potential to be used as tools, either
modified or almost without modification.
Specific bibliography refers utilization of
teeth as tools, being directly used with the
jaw as handle, or being modified for
utilization by hafting, or in some cases
fracturing them. Examples of this are studies
done by Clemente and Lozovzska (2011) on
beaver teeth from Zamotje II site (Russia),
by Maigrot (2001) on pig teeth in Indonesia,
or ethnographic studies by C. Lvi-Strauss
on use of capibara teeth as knives among the
Boror (Brasil). Consequently, we believe
that animal teeth have to be selected within
the archaeozoological record and studied for
use wear traces from the functional point of
view.

To conclude, we can say that experimental

results were positive and let us distinguish
between the natural teeth surfaces and
modifications produced by work on different
raw materials. Efficiency of tool edges was
comparable to that of rhyolite flakes when
used for the same tasks. Consequently we
believe that its possible to undertake
functional analysis of archaeological animal
teeth, in order to seek for a better
understanding of animal exploitation in past
societies. These studies can be emphasized,
not only with rodents, but also to other
animal teeth.

For this reason, we decided to undertake a

comparative study using rhyolite flakes and
natural teeth of Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris

68

69

Session 5.
Characterising lithic sources
In order to trace the provenance of an artefact, it is necessary to distinguish between different
potential sources. There are many methods of doing this ranging from visual to microscopic to
chemical analyses. This session will focus on methods that may be used to distinguish between
materials as well as characterisation studies of specific raw material sources.

70

Flint raw materials and artifacts from NE Bulgaria: a combined

petrographic and LA-ICP-MS study
Polina Andreeva(a), Elitsa Stefanova(a), Maria Gurova(b)
(a) Geological Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria. Email: (P. Andreeva)
poly_a@abv.bg; (E. Stefanova) elitsa.s@gmail.com
(b) National Institute of Archaeology and Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia,
Bulgaria. Email: gurovam@yahoo.fr
Keywords: raw material; artifacts; petrography; LA-ICP-MS; NE Bulgaria
In the present study we combined two
analytical methods (petrographic observation
and Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma
mass spectrometry) to characterize flint
artifacts and raw materials from NE Bulgaria.
We analyzed artifacts from the following
Chalcolithic settlements in Bulgaria: Tells
Karanovo and Drama-Merdzumekja (Thracian
plain); as well as Smiadovo, Ivanovo,
Kosharna, Buzovets, Targovishte-Garata, and
Goliam Porovets all in the northeastern part
of the country. The archaeological samples
taken are very instructive and significant from
a raw material point of view (representing
visually the main variants of Ludogorie flint).
They are also important as being among the
most frequently attested and diagnostic
typological tools within the assemblages.
Field work was performed in the districts of
Russe, Razgrad and Shumen in order to
collect Lower Cretaceous (Aptian) raw
materials from various flint deposits. The aim
of the study is to trace the provenance of the
artifacts based on their petrographic
characteristics and geochemical composition.
On
the basis
of micropetrographic
observations, Gurova and Nachev (2008)
described two main flint types (Ravno and
Kriva reka). Our petrographic study
confirmed the previous results and an
additional flint type was distinguished. The
Ravno
type
is
characterized
by
microcrystalline
quartz
groundmass
containing siliceous (chalcedonic) sponge
spicules
and
sporadically
preserved
foraminifer tests and thin-shelled bivalves.
Carbonate components and silt-sized clastic
quartz grains are only occasionally presented.
The microcrystalline groundmass commonly
contains abundant opaque minerals. The

second flint type (Kriva reka) consists of

microcrystalline
quartz/chalcedony
groundmass, common silicified skeletal grains
(crinoids,
foraminifers,
bryozoans,
brachiopods etc.) and variable amount (515%) of sand-sized clastic quartz grains.
Siliceous sponge spicules are locally
presented, too. Relict carbonate components
(5-15% of the rock volume) include bioclasts
and rare peloids and intraclasts. Most of them
are strongly replaced by opaque minerals. The
third flint type originates from primary and
secondary deposits (quarries in Koprivetz and
Krasen villages) and is represented by
silicified limestones (perhaps bioclasticpeloidal packstones or grainstones). Silica
components include siliceous sponge spicules
and chalcedonic groundmass. This type
displays higher Ca and Mg concentrations
compared to Ravno and Kriva reka types. The
last two types have identical chemical
composition and we cannot distinguish them
based on their chemistry. Nevertheless,
several subtypes can be differentiated based
on Al, Na, K, and Mg contents. Ravno type is
divided into 3 subtypes: First subtype is
characterized by low concentrations of the
four elements and includes mostly raw
materials from the area of Tetovo village and
an artifact (Kosharna B); Second subtype is
represented by raw materials from Ravno
village and artifacts from the same area
(Ravno, Kamenovo, Golyam Porovetz,
Radingrad, Ivanovo, Kosharna A, Buzovets B
and Smiadovo) that have average contents of
the mentioned elements; The third subtype
shows high concentrations of Al, Na, K, and
Mg and there are only artifacts (Targovisht,
Karanovo and Kosharna A). Kriva reka type
has a wide range of these element
71

raw materials could be potential sources for

the artifacts.

concentrations due to their inhomogeneous

composition. Nevertheless, the measured
values of Al, Na, K, and Mg in raw materials
overlap with these in artifacts.
Based on the obtained data we can conclude
that the possible province of the artifacts of
second subtype (Ravno type) was the area of
Ravno village. The overlapping results from
flint type Kriva reka suggest that the studied

References
Gurova, M. Ch. Nachev, 2008. Formal Early Neolithic
Flint Toolkits: Archeological and Sedimentological
aspects.
In:
Geoarchaeology
and
Archaeomineralogy (Eds. R. I. Kostov, B.
Gaydarska, M. Gurova). Proceedings of the
International Conference, 29-30 October 2008
Sofia, Publishing House St. Ivan Rilski, Sofia,
29-35.

72

The fly in the soup: problems in provenancing long-distance items

Katalin T. Bir
Hungarian National Museum, Budapest, Hungary. Email: tbk@ace.hu
Keywords: provenancing; extra-long distance (ELD) goods; non-invasive methods; coverage;
facts vs. hypotheses
In this case, the consequences of the statement
(i.e., A is coming from B region) is much
more serious, in a historical sense; our
responsibilities are higher (in terms of choice
of analytical methodology; favouring noninvasive methods for further analyses), the
coverage being uneven in terms of
petroarchaeological cognizance, not to
mention terminology and characterisation or
fingerprinting results. Collection and database
approach helps us to spot, though not always
to solve such issues. This paper intends to
concentrate on these problem cases
emerging
when
investigating
lithic
assemblages in the heart of the Carpathian
Basin.

Macroscopic methods of provenance analysis

can take you quite a long way in determining
the origin, (i.e., geological source) of lithic
artefacts in various archaeological contexts.
The problems arise, however, with the most
important cases: long distance raw materials
of high quality, allegedly travelling hundreds
of kilometres via human transport from source
to site. It is easy to see that the potential
interaction with other, macroscopically
similar, raw materials is much higher in the
case of Long Distance (LD) and Extra-Long
Distance (ELD) materials, just thinking about
the areas involved, not to speak about
qualitative preferences in the choice of the
suitable raw material, restricting availability
to the chosen few.

73

Characterization of Balkan Flint artefacts from SE Europe using LAICP-MS, EPMA and pXRF
Clive Bonsall (a), Maria Gurova (b), Chavdar Nachev (c), Chris Hayward (d) and Nicholas Pearce (e)
(a) School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, William Robertson
Building, Old Medical School, Edinburgh EH8 9AG, U.K. Email: clive.bonsall@ed.ac.uk
(b) National Institute of Archaeology and Museum, BAS, 2 Saborna str., Sofia, Bulgaria. Email:
gurovam@yahoo.fr
(c) National Museum Earth and Man, 4 bul. Cherni vrah, Sofia, Bulgaria. Email:
chnachev@hotmail.com
(d) School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Grant Institute, The Kings Buildings,
West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JW, U.K. Email: chris.hayward@ed.ac.uk
(e) Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Wales, Llandinam Building,
Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth SY23 3DB, U.K. Email: njp@aber.ac.uk
Keywords: Balkan Flint; SE Europe; geochemical fingerprinting; LA-ICP-MS; EPMA; pXRF
Platform) in northern Bulgaria from where it
was distributed throughout much of
Southeastern
Europe
(Kozowski
&
Kozowski 1984; Voytek 1987). But did it all
come from sources on the Moesian platform
and, if so, where were those sources located?
Our paper is concerned with the very
important but still unresolved problem of the
origins of Balkan Flint. The difficulties of
provenancing flint using geochemical
fingerprinting techniques are discussed, and
preliminary results of trace element analyses
using LA-ICP-MS, EPMA and pXRF are
presented.

A consistent feature of early farming

settlements across much of the Balkan
Peninsula is the appearance of a new, highquality, raw material for the manufacture of
chipped stone artefacts, widely known as
Balkan Flint or yellow spotted flint. In some
areas this material continued in use into the
later Neolithic and beyond. How and where
was it obtained, and why was it so popular?
Did it hold symbolic as well as economic and
technological significance for Neolithic
peoples? Since the 1970s it has been the
conventional view that this distinctive flint
originated from a source or sources on the socalled Pre-Balkan Platform (Moesian

Figure 1. Examples of Balkan Flint artefacts from ten Early Neolithic sites in SE Europe, illustrating the strong
visual resemblance of the materials from different sites.

74

Raw material analysis of military gunflints from Schloss Neugebude,

Vienna, Austria
Michael Brandl (a), Christoph Hauzenberger (b) and Gerhard Trnka (c)
(a) Abteilung Prhistorische Archologie, Institut fr Mediterrane und Prhistorische
Archologie, sterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna. Email:
michael.brandl@oeaw.ac.at
(b) Mineralogy and Petrology Department, University of Graz, Austria. Email:
christoph.hauzenberger@uni-graz.at
(c) Institut fuer Ur- und Fruehgeschichte, Universitaet Wien, Vienna, Austria. Email:
gerhard.trnka@univie.ac.at
Keywords: gunflints; Vienna; Schlo Neugebude; military; 19th century; flint source
provenance studies; LA-ICP-MS
Gunflints are an abundant type of lithic find in
Central Europe. They were distributed all over
Europe and the colonies by the millions since
the flintlock rifle was introduced in the 17th
century as an important part of military
equipment. Main production areas for gunflint
stones were situated in France (Meusnes),
England (Brandon), Spain (Casa Montero),
Italy (Lessini Mountains), and Poland (the
former Galicia, Cracow region). The present
case study is focussed on a gunflint cache
recovered at Schloss Neugebude, located in
the south of Vienna (Wien-Simmering, 11th
city district). From that site, approximately
1.5 tons of gunflints were recovered in the
course of an excavation in 2002.
Preliminary investigations concerning the raw
material of the gunflints revealed a
provenance mainly from French sources,
followed by such from the Lessini Mountains
in Northern Italy and uncertain flint deposits.
The raw material composition of the
assemblage is a crucial factor for the
determination of the last holders and the
depositional circumstances of the gunflint
stock. The main research question concerned

the presence of Polish raw material in the

cache. Since Galicia was part of the Austrian
Empire at the beginning of the 19th century,
and its main supplier for gunflints during the
Napoleonic Wars, it was assumed that such
material would be contained in the cache if it
belonged to the Austrian army. Visual,
microscopic and geochemical methods were
applied, and the provenance of 15
representative artifacts from the Schloss
Neugebude cache was determined. For
geochemical investigations detecting trace
element concentrations in the gunflints and
comparative raw material samples, we used
LA-ICP-MS, which had been successfully
employed for chert and flint source
provenance studies in the past. As a result, a
connection between the cache and military
activities linked to Napoleons expansionism
in the early 19th century could be established.
According to the historical background we
associate our gunflints with the siege and
conquest of Vienna by the French troops in
1809, when Schlo Neugebude was the
headquarters of Napoleon Bonaparte.

75

Figure 1. A view of the "gunflint excavation".

76

Sourcing of Hudson Bay lowland chert by ICP-MS and FTIR, to

characterize the Spanish River lithic biface cache
Patrick Julig (a) and Darrel G. F. Long (b)
(a) Department of Anthropology, Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON. P3E 2C6, Canada. Email:
pjulig@laurentian.ca
(b) Department of Earth Sciences, Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON. P3E 2C6, Canada.
Email: dlong@laurentian.ca
Keywords: Spanish River site; Hudson Bay lowland chert; sourcing; ICP-MS; FTIR
formations. In this research both FTIR and
ICP-MS methods were used to characterize
geological samples of known HBL chert, and
for testing the cache artifact specimens. These
analyses confirmed that this cache included
artifacts from at least two formations within
the HBL chert assemblage. ICP-MS is ideally
suited for sourcing chert, by the use of REE
patterns and ratios it may be possible to
further link artifacts as to specific quarry
sources, although the mixture of chert types
may indicate that it was collected from a
secondary source, such as a glacial moraine,
rather than a primary geological source.

The Spanish River lithic cache site (CcHj-2)

was found on a flat sand plane between two
waterways in the Boreal forest west of
Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. It consists of 68
specimens, mostly leaf-shaped, oval bifaces,
and other biface tools, with a few uniface
tools. Based on visual criteria, the assemblage
appeared to be formed exclusively from
Hudson Bay Lowland (HBL) material, an
exotic chert from the north. There are a
number of brown and grey chert look-alikes
that form the generic HBL. They occur in at
least three separate formations: the Bad Cache
Rapids, Stooping River and Severn River

77

Managing a region: patterns of Late Pleistocene human settlement in

North-Western Libya analysed through the lithic raw material
procurement
Giuseppina Mutri
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK. Email:
gm461@cam.ac.uk
Keywords: Chert; Jebel Gharbi; SEM-EDX; ICP-MS; Later Stone Age; Homan settlement
patterns
This work reports the results of the chemical
characterization of the Late Pleistocene lithic
complexes excavated by the Libyan-Italian
Joint Mission in the Jebel Gharbi (Libya) in
June 2006. To determine the chemical
composition, the samples were studied by
scanning electron microscopy with energydispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX)
for major elements and by InductivelyCoupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICPMS) for trace elements and REE
concentrations.

The main goal of the present work was the

chemical
characterization
of
both
archaeological flint and geological samples of
chert outcropping in the Jebel Gharbi area,
with the aim of defining the sources of the
chert exploited during the final Pleistocene
and the beginning of the Holocene. The
presence of water on the mountain range and
at its foot and the local availability of raw
materials for manufacturing stone artefacts
were the determining factors for human
settlement choices during the Later Stone Age
in the Jebel Gharbi.

78

The "Mucientes Flint" of the Iberian North Plateau (Spain)

M. Natividad Fuertes-Prieto (a), Ana Neira-Campos (a), Esperanza Fernndez-Martnez (b),
Fernando Gmez-Fernndez (c), Eduardo Alonso-Herrero (d)
(a) rea de Prehistoria, Universidad de Len. Departamento de Historia, Facultad de F y Letras,
Campus de Vegazana s/n, Spain. Email: n.fuertes@unileon.es; ana.neira.campos@unileon.es
(b) rea de Paleontologa, Universidad de Len, Spain. Email: e.fernandez@unileon.es
(c) rea de Prospeccin e Investigacin minera, Universidad de Len, Spain. Email:
f.gomez@unileon.es
(d) rea de Edafologa y Qumica del Suelo, Universidad de Len, Spain. ealoh@unileon.es
Keywords: flint; Iberian North Plateau; Duero Basin; raw materials; lithic industry
emergence and archaeological distribution
areas. The delimitation of the geographical
area of occurrence was carried out taking into
account the features of the geological material
studied. From this, the geological origin and
the geographic distribution of its outcrops and
derivative sites were determined. This allows
us to define the local procurement area in
terms of acquisition and evaluate the
movement of this material to other places. It
also permits us to recognise its strategies of
exploitation as well as sketch the circulation
of this raw material throughout prehistory.

The so-called Mucientes flint" is a variety

that appears in the calcareous pramos of
the Iberian North Plateau, in the Douro basin.
It is widely known in the geological and
archaeological literature but its use for
knapping was especially important in
prehistory. From a macroscopic point of view,
its features have been described previously; it
is a nodular flint, with white and very porous
cortex, and brown to blackish or beige colour
in the inner part. In this work we carried out
more accurate petrographic characterization of
this lithology, as well as a review of its

Figure 1. 1. Nodule of Mucientes flint. 2. Denticulated bifacial tool from Los Villares site. (Valderas, Len. Photo
by J. L. Puente.)

79

Mineralogy and structure of selected raw materials as reason of their

quality
Maciej Pawlikowski and Marta Wrbel
Department of Mineralogy, Petrography and Geochemistry, AGH-University of Science and
Technology, Cracow, Poland. Email: (M. Pawlikowski) mpawlik@agh.edu.pl; (M. Wrbel)
marta.wrobel.88@gmail.com
Keywords: geology; knapping material; cherts; quartz; obsidian; optical orientation
of opal dehydration and transformation to
silica in the form of chalcedony. The growth
of microcrystals of quartz goes well
perpendicularly to the direction of stress, i.e.,
perpendicular to the thickening of rock layers
(mostly limestones). Because of this, the
fisility of the nodules of so-called primary
flint, is best accordingly to their elongation.
Primary nodules formed in situ from sponga
organisms typical had regular nodule shapes.
Secondary flints formed due to migration of
dissolved silica to deposited sediment and had
irregular forms. Secondary crystals of quartz
present in these flints do not show space
orientation and because of this the secondary
flints are bad for knapping.

Mineralogical examination of various genetic

types of flints and obsidian were performed
using polarizing light microscopy, SEM and
EDX methods. This method was used for
determining possible relations between
internal structures of these raw materials and
relations to the best directions for processing.
Analyses showed that the best directions for
preparation of flint implements are parallel to
directions of optical orientation of noncrystalline quartz present in flint. This
orientation was the result of the
recrystallization process from opal to
chalcedony and quartz. The type of processes
active in flint nodules have persisted for a
million years. These processes are the results

80

Archaeometric characterization of chert and radiolarite artifacts from

the Early Holocene assemblages at El Mazo Rockshelter (Asturias,
Spain)
John D. Rissetto (a,b), Giancarlo Pepponi (b), Igor Gutirrez-Zugasti (c,d), Manuel R. GonzlezMorales (d) and David Cuenca-Solana (d)
(a) Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.
Email: j_rissetto@hotmail.com
(b) Micro Nano Analytical Laboratory (MiNALab), Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy.
Email: pepponi@fbk.eu
(c) Department of Archaeology, BioArCh, University of York, Heslington, York, England.
Email: igorgutierrez.zug@gmail.com
(d) Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistricas de Cantabria, Edificio
Interfacultativo, Santander, Cantabria, Spain. Email: moralesm@unican.es;
david.cuencasolana@gmail.com
Keywords: x-ray spectrometry; chert; radiolarite; El Mazo; Northern Spain
Mazo was focused on the repeated
exploitation and processing of mainly
mollusc, but also terrestrial, resources.
Multiple radiocarbon dates place the primarily
shell midden-based layers to the Mesolithic
period, while additional artifact-based
evidence suggest a Neolithic period
occupation as well. To identify the
procurement and utilization strategies of the
Mesolithic hunter-gatherers at El Mazo,
multiple archaeometric analytical approaches
will be utilized. These methods include X-ray
spectrometry, petrography, and macroscopic
techniques. Together these analytical results
will be used to characterize, compare, and link
chert and radiolarite artifacts back to natural
geologic formations located across eastern
Asturias.
Through the proveniencing of chert and
radiolarite artifacts from El Mazo, this
research will provide new empirical data to
help define how Early Holocene huntergatherers in eastern Asturias: 1) organized
stone procurement strategies within local and
regional territories, 2) moved and settled
across the landscape, and 3) either maintained
or changed these patterns when compared to
earlier Terminal Pleistocene assemblages
across north-central Spain.

The transition between the Terminal

Pleistocene (13,000-10,000 BP) and Early
Holocene (10,000-7,000 BP) time periods saw
various changes in the cultural and
technological behaviors of hunter-gatherers
across north-central Spain. Evidence of these
changes include the increased occupation and
exploitation of coastal resources, the decrease
in geographic mobility patterns, the reduction
in the number of stone and bone tool types,
and the almost complete abandonment of
artistic representation on cave walls or
engraved objects. Since stone artifacts are
often the most ubiquitous artifact type present
in these assemblages, they often represent a
thorough account of past human activity. As a
means to identify changes in past human
behavioral patterns, many archaeologists often
examine the procurement and utilization
strategies associated with stone raw materials.
This poster will present research that
investigates these strategies through the
proveniencing of chert and radiolarite artifacts
from the Early Holocene period assemblages
in the El Mazo rockshelter in Asturias, Spain.
El Mazo is a rock shelter site located
approximately 1 km from the modern day
Cantabrian coast in eastern Asturias. Based on
multiple excavation campaigns and laboratory
analysis the Early Holocene occupation at El

81

Potential siliceous sources during prehistory: results of prospections

in east margin of Ebro Basin (NE Iberian Peninsula)
Mara Soto (a,b), Bruno Gmez de Soler (a,b), Josep Vallverd (a,b), Manuel Vaquero (b,a)
(a) IPHES, Institut Catal de Paleoecologia Humana i Evoluci Social, C/Marcell Domingo s/n,
43007 Tarragona, Spain.
(b) Area de Prehistoria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Avinguda de Catalunya 35, 43002
Tarragona, Spain.
Email: (M. Soto) msoto@iphes.cat; (B. G. de Soler) bgomez@iphes.cat; (J. Vallverd)
jvallverdu@iphes.cat; (M. Vaquero) manuel.vaquero@urv.cat
Keywords: chert; prospections; silicification palaeoenvironment; territorial management; NE
Iberian Peninsula
premise that siliceous rocks acquire attributes
of enclosing rocks, we intend to define the
main characteristics of cherts of the studied
region. Those are products of an early
diagenesis by replacement of carbonated and
evaporitic sediments. Petrological analysis
shows that these cherts are formed of mega
and microquartz, with a high proportion of
fibrous silica forms, carbonates, ferric oxides
and evaporitic relicts. These characteristics
will be useful for later geological and
geographical provenance of the archaeological
material.
Prospections and the definition of siliceous
sources are the first step in order to obtain
solid bases for an exhaustive study of abiotic
sources in prehistory. The results obtained
will reinforce the conclusions about lithic
catchment and mobility patterns defined for
the cases of Abric Roman and Mol del Salt,
contributing to a better knowledge of
territorial management in the Middle and
Upper Palaeolithic in the NE of Spain.

We present the results of prospections in the

NE of the Iberian Peninsula, with the aim of
identifying the potential siliceous sources
used by the paleo-population that occupied
the marginal basins of the Ebro depression
during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic
(Abric Roman and Mol del Salt sites
respectively). Catalan Coast Ranges (CCR),
Odna (OB) and Barber Basins (BB) are
chosen as geographical limits susceptible to
present chert in carbonated and evaporitic
rocks belonging to Muschelkalk (Triassic) and
to Paleogene (Tertiary) deposits (Figure 1).
The Muschelkalk outcrops are composed of
detritic limestones, dolomites and marls,
associated with a sedimentary model of tidal
and intertidal deposits. The Paleogene
outcrops are based on the alternation of
nodular, laminated and massive gypsums,
with limestones, marls and lutites, associated
with evaporitic, lacustrine and marine
sedimentary environments.
Taking into account the palaeoenvironment in
which silifications are formed and with the

82

Figure 1. Prospected area and siliceous outcrops localization.

83

First attempts to carry out a petrographic and geochemical

characterization of chocolate flint from the Wierzbice Zele mine
compared with other flint rocks from Central Poland
Dagmara Werra (a), Rafa Siuda (b) and Oliwia Grafka (b)
(a) Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, 105, Solidarnoci
Avenue, PL 00-140 Warsaw, Poland. Email: dagmarawerra@yahoo.com
(b) Department of Geology, University of Warsaw, 93, wirki i Wigury Avenue, PL 02-089
Warsaw, Poland. Email: rsiuda@uw.edu.pl; oliwia.grafka@uw.edu.pl
Keywords: flint mining; petrographic and geochemical characterization; Wierzbica Zele;
Poland; Bronze Age
chromatograph with mass spectrometer GSMS (Clariud 500 Perkin Elmer). Moreover, a
number of IR spectroscopy tests have been
performed. IR spectra were registered using
the Nicolet Magna 500 spectrometer for
powdered samples of siliceous rock mixed
with KBr. Tests have shown that colour
variation, which has hitherto been the basic
criterion for distinguishing chocolate flint, is
connected with the differing composition and
distribution of organic compounds present in
these rocks. We can observe a clear trend: the
diminishing content of organic matter in
lighter coloured flint. This is related to
variations in the amount of organic matter in
the environment in which the deposition of
siliceous rocks took place. The other factor
influencing the hydrocarbon content was the
flint weathering processes. Investigations
have also shown that the forming of the socalled patina on the surface of the finds is
related to chemical and physical weathering
of organic matter.
Our analyses will enable us to characterize
chocolate flint in relation to other flint raw
material. Especially the chocolate flint from
Wierzbice Zele, which will enable a more
precise archaeological description of how this
material was used by prehistoric communities.
Acknowledgements
The investigations were funded by The
Intitute of Archaeology and Ethnology PAN
(grant Adulescentia est tempus discendi
funded by Ministry of Science and Higher
Educatin) and the National Science Centre in
Poland (2011/03/N/HS3/03973).

The flint mine of Wierzbice Zele (Central

Poland) is one of the most important
archaeological sites from the Bronze and
Early Iron Age in Europe. Archaeological
excavations were carried out at the site in the
years 1979-1988. At present, a monograph of
the site is being prepared. It will include a
geological description of the raw material,
together with a petrographic and geochemical
characterization.
Chocolate flint occurs within a wide belt of
outcrops of Jurassic rocks and, at present, we
know of 26 exploitation points of this type of
flint, forming the richest complex of
monuments of prehistoric flint mining in the
Vistula river basin.
The term chocolate flint is imprecise, as
considerable variations of this raw material
can be found. Research into its occurrence
and geology has an eighty-year history, but no
complex
petrographic-geochemical
investigations have as yet been carried out.
The aim of research being conducted since
2012 is to explain the internal differences
between chocolate flints and to determine
their diagnostic features in relation to other
siliceous rocks from Central Poland.
Samples have been collected from all the
exploitation points of chocolate flint, as well
as samples of the basic siliceous rock
occurring in Central Europe.
The samples have undergone geochemical
examinations, especially as to the content of
trace elements and organic material. 100 gram
samples of ground siliceous rock were
extracted
using
dichloromethane
and
methanol. The obtained aliphatic and aromatic
fractions were analyzed using a gas
84

Session 6.
Lithotheques: collections of comparative raw materials
Archaeologists around the world that are working with prehistoric cultures are aware of the
importance of understanding the lithic materials that people have used to make their tools in the
past. By successfully identifying which tool stone materials past cultures have used we can
further define how they have interacted with their landscapes, either by identifying past landuses and movements or through the identification of past cultural exchanges and interactions.
However, associating cultural lithic materials with geological sources can be a difficult task
without appropriate regional data. Lithic materials can be very similar from one location to
another and a better understanding of each of these sources is necessary. The creation of regional
lithotheques or comparative lithic reference collections allows us to better understand how, why,
when and where past cultures procured such lithic raw materials. The principal objective is to
establish an archaeological tool that will allow us to better define past relationships between
cultural and natural lithic materials. This session will explore the various uses that lithotheques
can offer to archaeological research, from macroscopic comparative identification of lithics to
microscopic and geochemical analyses. Presentations in this section may also be reports on
specific lithics collections, either private or public.
Session organisers: Adrian Burke and Christian Theriault

85

The UI-OSA lithic raw material assemblage: an online resource for

archaeological studies of debitage and chipped stone tools
Mark L. Anderson and Daniel G. Horgen
University of Iowas Office of the State Archaeologist, 700 Clinton Street Building, Iowa City,
IA, 52242-1030, U.S.A. Email: (M. Anderson) mark-l-anderson@uiowa.edu; (D. Horgen)
daniel-horgen@uiowa.edu
Keywords: Iowa; raw material samples; physical lithotheque; online resource; chipped stone
tools
assemblage holds 320 samples representing
144 different lithic types.
The in-state
assemblage is aligned with the geologic
column of Iowa, representing geo-physical
regions, and affords a more systematic and
consistent geologic approach to macroscopic
lithic identification. This data is available
through a UI-OSA web-based lithic resource
page. This poster summarizes analytical tools,
in addition to the existing macroscopic
identification key, that are being applied to
the assemblage for improved future use.

Most Iowa archaeological assemblages are

dominated by lithic materials. Geologic
identification of these lithic materials and
their source location is one of the few ways of
making
cultural
inferences
regarding
prehistoric raw material procurement,
reduction strategies, and other social
interactions. The University of Iowas Office
of the State Archaeologist (OSA) has an
expansive lithic raw material assemblage with
a 25 year compilation history. Our in-state
assemblage holds 580 samples representing
75 different lithic types; our out of state

86

Taking into account geochemical and technological analyses when

constructing a comparative lithic collection
Adrian L. Burke
Universit de Montral, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Email: adrian.burke@umontreal.ca
Keywords: geochemistry; geoarchaeology; lithotheque; quarries
technological analyses that are being carried
out by our laboratory. This paper presents a
new collection strategy that have been
developed based on archaeological work at
prehistoric quarries. Samples that are to be
included in the collection must now meet
additional criteria for geochemical and/or
technological analyses.
For geochemical
samples, numerous samples have to be
collected along strike and across stratigraphic
horizons in order to be statistically
representative and allow precise and accurate
measurements of intra- and inter-source
chemical variability. All samples have to
have GPS coordinates and it is advisable to
collect
non-knappable
(less
siliceous/conchoidal) rock samples from
layers above or below the quarried material.
In the case of thin section petrography, it is
best to collect oriented samples (e.g. for
quartzites). For technological analyses such
as chane opratoire, it is important to take
into account the raw material constraints
associated with the initial steps of the
reduction sequence. Samples should contain
all of the variability in the quality of a raw
material present at a source, and large samples
should be collected that provide information
on joint surfaces and the size and shape of
typical modules of raw material that are
extracted from a bedrock source.

The Centre de Rfrence Lithique du Qubec

(CRLQ) was created during the 1980s and
1990s by Yvon Codre as a comparative lithic
reference collection to aid archaeologists in
the visual (macroscopic) identification of
stone tool raw materials found on sites in the
province of Quebec. The collection is housed
at the Universit de Montral and contains
500 samples from known geological
formations. This collection is online and is
searchable by rock type, geological formation
and other variables. High-resolution photos
are also visible for each sample.
This
collection has proven critical to understanding
the prehistoric raw material economies of
aboriginal groups in Quebec and neighboring
areas. Building on the work of Codre, the
author presents the next step in the
development of this lithothque by presenting
research carried out over the past 20 years on
quarry-source areas in northeastern North
America. The initial research purpose of the
CRLQ as a comparative collection of hand
samples for visual identification of stone tool
raw materials was met and surpassed, and the
collection continues to be used by
archaeologists from various universities,
companies, and government agencies.
However, the original collection strategy of
this lithothque has not proven to be
appropriate for the geochemical and

87

An online database for lithic resources

Otis Crandell (a) and Vasile Cotiuga (b)
(a) Geology Department, Babe-Bolyai University, str. M. Kogalniceanu, nr. 1, Cluj-Napoca RO-400084, Romania. Email: otis.crandell@ubbcluj.ro
(b) Arheoinvest Research Platform, Alexandru Ioan Cuza Univesrity, Bd. Carol I, nr 11, Iai,
Romania. Email: vasicot@uaic.ro
Keywords: lithotheque; online; database; collaborative knowledge base
identified or based on references in existing
publications. Any user though can go to the
website and search the database for sources
based on macroscopic and microscopic
characteristics and limit the results by
distance from a specified location. Entries for
specific sources contain a place for a
bibliography of publications that mention the
source, as well as the name and contact details
of the person who created that entry. For
regular sites (those whose location is not
hidden) users can not only obtain the
coordinates but can also open a link to a
Google Maps page for the location. This may
be used later in the field with a GPS or in the
office with GIS software to compare it to
other geospatial information. One of the main
uses of this database is for archaeologists to
compare lithic artefacts with photos and
descriptions of raw materials, in order to
determine the origin of the artefacts.
In addition to the website, the database can
also be viewed and new sources can be
entered via the Android smartphone
application. The Android application can also
use the phones built in GPS and search for
sites in close proximity to the user. Similarly,
new sources can be recorded directly while in
the field (and updated later from the website).
If there is no internet connection, sources can
be downloaded to the phone earlier while
online. Likewise, sources recorded while
offline can be uploaded the next time the
phone is online.
We foresee that this open access database has
the potential to become an important tool in
lithics research around the world.

This presentation gives a basic introduction to

the Lithotheque online database as well as its
website interface and Android application
interface. At the moment, there are many
publications which describe or simply
mention sources of lithic materials but at as
yet there is no single publication or reference
site that collects all of this information.
Nevertheless, there is a great need for a
centralised source of information on raw
materials. With current high speed internet
access being common place throughout the
world, and relatively universal access to the
internet, inexpensive GPS devices, and smart
phones, it makes sense to put such a database
online and make it available to the public.
Prior to designing this database, it was
necessary to decide what information to
include. With this objective, many researchers
were asked what information they would need
or like in such a database. Additionally, it was
necessary to identify which types of data
currently exists in publications about sources.
Since information will potentially come from
many sources and be used by many
researchers for different purposes, it was
necessary to design a database with many
characteristics so that as much data as
possible from different researchers and
publications can be included.
It was decided that the most efficient way to
expand the contents of the database would be
to design it as a collaborative knowledge base.
In other words, the information in the
database is produced by its users. Registered
users can log in and enter new source
locations based on sources they have

88

Figure 1. Screenshots of the database user interfaces. a. source information page from the online website interface;
b. new sampled source page on the smartphone application; and c. a live map showing the current location (blue
arrow) and nearby sources already in the database (red and green dots).

89

Knappable lithic resources in the Eastern Carpathians

Otis Crandell (a), Mariuca-Diana Vornicu (b) and Vasile Cotiuga (c)
(a) Geology Department, Babe-Bolyai University, str. M. Kogalniceanu, nr. 1, Cluj-Napoca,
Romania. Email: otis.crandell@ubbcluj.ro
(b) History Department, Alexandru Ioan Cuza Univesrity, Bd. Carol I, nr 11, Iai, Romania.
Email: mariucav@gmail.com
(c) Arheoinvest Research Platform, Alexandru Ioan Cuza Univesrity, Bd. Carol I, nr 11, Iai,
Romania. Email: vasicot@uaic.ro
Keywords: lithotheque; chert; jasper; provenance; East Carpathians; Moldavian Plateau;
Romania
corresponding database at Babes-Bolyai
University and described by Crandell (2005,
2006).
There are many materials and sources within
the study area. The materials found during
this study were grouped based on similar
characteristics and geological origin. The
main rock types are: flint (from chalk), chert
(from limestone), biogenic jasper, quartzitic
sandstone, fine grained siliceous sandstone
(often with high opal content), opal (menilite),
and black jasper (lydite). These materials, as
with their parent rocks, are spread out along
the length of the Eastern Carpathians. Due to
the area being a flysch belt, outcrops of the
parent rocks are often mixed and vary in size.
The lithotheque and its database is a useful
resource for archaeologists. It may be used for
comparison with artefacts in order to identify
raw material sources, which in turn helps to
determine trade and exploitation patterns.

The objectives of the study were to catalogue

and characterise sources of knappable stone
materials in Moldavia (Romania) which may
have been used to manufacture tools in
prehistory.
This
presentation
focuses
specifically on sources in the Eastern
Carpathians and the Moldavian Plateau up
until the Prut River.
Most of the sources were identified based on
mention of various materials in the geological
literature. Others were guessed at based on
similar bedrock to areas known to have rocks
of interest to the study. A systematic survey of
potential sources was conducted by a team
from the Geology Department of BabesBolyai University and the Arheoinvest
Research Platform of Alexandru Ioan Cuza
University during which samples were
collected and the source settings were
recorded. Several thin sections were made
from samples from each source location. The
samples collected from different geological
occurrences of knappable materials represent
the physical lithotheque. The macroscopic and
microscopic characteristics of the rock
samples were recorded in a database along
with photos of the rocks and the areas where
they were found, microphotos of the thin
sections, and GPS coordinates of the
collection points. The characteristics and
terminology used in the database were based
on those utilised by the lithotheque and

References
Crandell, O.N. 2005, Macroscopic Analysis
and Characterisation of Chert from
Transylvania for Provenance Purposes,
Sargetia, Acta Musei Devensis, 33: 137-153.
Crandell, O.N. 2006, Macroscopic and
Microscopic Analysis of Chert; A Proposal
for Standardisation of Methodology and
Terminology, Buletinul Cercurilor tiinifice
Studeneti, 12: 7-30.

90

Figure 1. Left: Map of the raw material sources recorded during this study (Note that many locations had more than
one material type present). Right: Examples of raw materials collected. a. & b. flint from the Miorcani mine, c. chert
from the Voievodeasa River, d. opal (menilite) from the Humor River, e. black jasper (lydite) from the Moldoviei
River, f. quartzitic sandstone from the Tarcu River, g. biogenic jasper from Dmuc Valley.

91

Lithotheques, interdiscipline and common language among

archaeologists and geologists: an example from Patagonia
(Argentina)
Mara Victoria Fernndez (a) and Jimena Alberti (b)
(a) Instituto de Arqueologa, Universidad de Buenos Aires CONICET. 217 25 de Mayo St. 3rd.
floor. Buenos Aires (1002), Argentina. Email: vickyenero@yahoo.com.ar
(b) Instituto Multidisciplinario de Historia y Ciencias Humanas, CONICET. 15 Saavedra St. 5th.
floor. Buenos Aires (1083), Argentina. Email: jimealberti@gmail.com
Keywords: lithotheques; raw materials; geology; macroscopic identification; patagonia
argentina
term that refers to a texture of a certain rock
(e.g., porphyric) is used as a rock type (e.g.,
porphyric rhyolite) or that the same term is
used to talk about different type of rocks (e.g.,
ignimbrite). This constrains the exploration of
some of the most relevant issues of
provenance analyses, e.g., human group
mobility, lithic raw material circulation,
exchange of information and people, among
others. Because of this, we believe that a
unification of the terms used to classify and
name rocks that archaeologists use is
necessary to transform lithotheques into
useful and powerful tools to make
comparisons at different scales of analyses
and not only at the local level.
In order to achieve our goal, we have made an
exhaustive bibliographical review in a
macroscale approach (Patagonia, Argentina)
in order to detect the different nomenclatures
and criteria employed to identify and classify
rocks. To accomplish this task we have
worked along with Geologists specialized in
Petrography, Mineralogy and Sedimentology.
We think this interaction is fundamental to
establish any classification of rocks.
In this paper we propose a general
classification for rocks and that are useful to
lithic artifacts manufacture in Patagonia,
based on current geological criteria. We want
to highlight that this proposal is for
macroscopic lithic raw materials identification
(i.e. naked eye or a 10x lens). It seeks to
create wide categories that include different
types of rocks and which do not go against
more precise identifications made using a
petrographic microscope. The short version of
our classification is shown in Table 1.

Lithic technology research was the first

systematic approach to the archaeological
record of Patagonia (Argentina), and has a
long trajectory in the investigation of different
aspects on the issue: techno-morphological
analyses, use-wear analyses, lithic raw
materials
provenance,
geometric
morphometrics, use-residues, among others.
Many of these investigations have been
reinforced with the creation of lithotheques, of
local or regional scale.
Although these lithotheques aim to make
comparisons with the archaeological record,
they fail on the extent of their use. This may
be due to the lack of unified criteria to classify
and name lithic raw materials, probably
because of the short time that archaeologists
and geologists have been working together, in
spite of the long trajectory of the lithic
analyses in Patagonia. This interdisciplinary
research, which implies a considerable effort,
is conditioned in Argentina by the different
theoretical frameworks in geology, the
specialization areas of geologists, objectives
of the archaeological investigations, as well as
different analyses, methods and identification
criteria that have been applied.
In relation to the queries arrived at in our
investigations, we have noticed that this lack
of consensus regarding the classification and
denomination of rocks makes it difficult to
communicate and compare our observations
with those of our colleagues in other areas of
Patagonia, which implies that lithotheques
are, in the end, not useful when the research
aim is to achieve comparisons at the
supraregional level. For example, in the case
of Patagonia, we have found that sometimes a
92

Table 1. Short version of the proposed macroscopic classification of rock types suitable for flaking activities in
Patagonia (Argentina).

ROCK TYPE

MAIN CLASSIFICATION
Crystalline quartz

Silicates

Cryptocrystalline quartz
Opal
Vulcanites

Igneous rocks
Plutonites

Pyroclastic rocks

---------

Sedimentary rocks

Clastic rocks

Metamorphic
rocks

Metamorphite

This classification is based on the

consideration of possible situations from
which we could create a framework that
includes them. Our intention is to give an

SECONDARY CLASSIFICATION
---------Chalcedony
Flint
Jasper
--------Acidic vulcanites
Intermediate to basic vulcanites
Acidic plutonites
Intermediate to basic plutonites
Pyroclastic breccia
Lapillite
Thick grained tuff
Fine grained tuff
Psephyte
Sandstone
Pelites
Foliated
Not foliated
example of the generation of a geologically
based
common
language
from
an
archaeological perspective, which we expect
can be useful among Patagonia lithic analysts.

93

Archaeopetrological approach to the study of the lithotheque from

Charentes basin (France)
Mar Rey i Sol (a), Christophe Delage (b) and Xavier Mangado (a)
(a) SERP, Department of Prehistory, Ancient History and Archaeology. Faculty of Geography
and History, University of Barcelona, Spain. Email: (M. Rey): mreysole@gmail.com; (X.
Mangado) mangado@ub.edu
(b) Muse de Prhistoire La Sabline, Lussac-les-Chteaux, France. Email: (C. Delage)
delage@cwnet.com
Keywords: archaeopetrology; lithotheque; chert; petrological collections; Charente; raw
materials
background of 183 samples of siliceous rocks
(chert, jasper and claystones), has become
over the years an essential and very important
tool for scholars of the siliceous raw materials
from that region.
The importance of the study of a reference
collection, like this lithotheque, falls directly
within research on the analysis and
provenance of archaeological raw materials
because through geological and geographical
contextualization of samples the future
identification of chert tools recovered from
various archaeological contexts is possible.
Our study has combined petrological and
micropalaeontological (both macroscopic and
microscopic) analysis of all samples from two
of the four geological floors of the Upper
Cretaceous represented in the lithotheque Cenomanian and Turonian - so that in the
future they can be combined and related to
archaeological studies on the origin of lithic
industry recovered in the deposits of the area
to understand the reasons for certain human
behaviours.

Prehistoric studies of raw materials have

experienced some methodological innovations
that have resulted in research breakthroughs.
The combination of methods from geology
and archaeology, has led to the development
of a new discipline, Archaeopetrology, which
has allowed researchers to go beyond the
study of chert as a raw material, providing
archaeological responses from petrographys
own methods.
Why choose the Charente basin samples?
The history of research dating back to early
2000, following works like the PCR of Anne
Delagnes and the doctoral thesis of Seon-Jing
Park, in relation to the question of
Neanderthal human mobility and potential
mineral resources of that basin. These works
led
to
the
initiation
of
different
geoarchaeological surveys in search of quality
siliceous raw materials for the manufacture of
stone tools, whose positive results led, in
2002, to the creation of the Regional
Lithotheque of Charente (Angoulme,
France).
This lithotheque, located at the Museum of
Fine Arts in Angoulme and with a

94

The LITHICUB project: a virtual lithotheque of siliceous rocks in the

University of Barcelona
Marta Snchez de la Torre, Xavier Mangado, B. Medina, N. Rodrguez, M. Rey, A. Casado
Seminari d'Estudis i Recerques Prehistriques, Dept. Prehistria, Histria Antiga i Arqueologia,
Universitat de Barcelona, Spain.
Email: (M. Snchez) martasanchezdelatorre@ub.edu; (X. Mangado) mangado@ub.edu; (B.
Medina) barbaramedina79@hotmail.com; (N. Rodrguez) nuria.rb.arq@gmail.com; (M. Rey)
mreysole@gmail.com; (A. Casado) azucenacf@gmail.com
Keywords: lithotheque; siliceous rocks; flint; chert; prehistory; raw materials; macroscopy;
petrography
to make this information available for the
entire scientific community with every
samples macroscopic and microscopic
description.
The Lithicub project is presented through a
web page, which has been created after many
research projects carried out in the Iberian
Peninsula, France and Jordan. The page web
is entirely accessible for those who want to
consult it and also includes detailed
descriptions
of surface quarries and a
glossary with the most important words
related to this research field. Moreover, if
somebody desires to consult the physical
samples, it is possible as they are available in
our laboratories at the University of
Barcelona.

The traditional archaeopetrological research

involves exhaustive field-work whose main
goal is to recover numerous lithic samples of
materials that may have been used by human
populations for the manufacture of their lithic
tools. This large amount of samples organized
as a lithotheque becomes the reference point
for the development of future research studies
for those that are interested in the raw
materials, allowing for the saving of money
and time, because repeated or unnecessary
field-work can be avoided. It is indispensable
not only organizing the lithotheque with
multiple search criterion - geological
formation,
outcrop,
sample
or
the
archaeological sites that may be connected
with those outcrops, but one is also required

95

The LitoCAT project: creation of a reference lithotheque of siliceous

rocks from Catalonia
Xavier Terradas and David Ortega
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), IMF Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, C/
Egipcaques, 15. 08001 Barcelona, Spain. Email: terradas@imf.csic.es; ortega@imf.csic.es

Keywords: siliceous rocks; lithotheque; reference collection; north-eastern Iberia; prehistory;

LitoCAT project
are not only in themselves a lithotheque. They
must be documented. Samples have to be
characterized and installed so they can be
accessible to users by different means. Thus,
we manage large documentary evidence in
different formats (cartographic references,
photographs, laboratory reports, etc.). It is
therefore obvious that a solid infrastructure is
required, as well as equipment and scientific
and technical staff to manage it.
All these steps must be involved, in our
opinion, in the creation of a lithotheque. The
whole process is lengthy and expensive. So, in
order to achieve the proposed aims, the
activities must be carefully programmed and
scheduled. This program has been carried out
thanks to a collaboration agreement between
the General Direction for the Cultural
Heritage of Catalonia and the Spanish
National Research Council (CSIC-IMF,
Barcelona). There still remain many scientific
challenges to face in the future if economic
conditions allow it.

The main objective of the LitoCAT project is

to provide a research platform opened to the
scientific community interested in the
availability of siliceous rocks during
prehistory in the territorial frame of the Northeastern Iberian Peninsula and adjacent areas,
an area of about 50,000 km2.
With this aim in view, one of the first actions
has been to create a reference collection of
siliceous
rocks
purposely
planned,
transcending the common model of
lithotheques, provided with the means to serve
and be useful to the local and foreign
researchers interested in this issue. In this
way, work has focused on all resources that
may provide siliceous rocks, whether or not
they were exploited in prehistoric times.
In order to achieve this, it was first necessary
to build up and document collections, which
should
be
thorough,
complete
and
representative of different types of siliceous
rocks of the geographical and geological
entities considered. However, the collections

96

A proposal for the creation of a lithotheque in the province of New

Brunswick, Canada
Christian C. L. Thriault
University of New Brunswick, Canada. Email: ufas.ct@gmail.com
Keywords: New Brunswick; lithotheque
from the previously underexplored northern
part of the province.
This paper will present the various lithic
materials I have identified within the scope of
this research. I will briefly describe these finegrained siliceous geological specimens,
discuss the potential for the further
identification of fine-grained materials, and
explore the macroscopic diversity within and
between geological formations. I will explore
the potential for creating a lithotheque for the
province of New Brunswick and some of its
possible uses. Using the lithic materials
recovered during the course of my various
fieldtrips,
supplemented
with
similar
archaeological samples, I will elaborate a
possible structure for such a lithotheque.
This will include the consideration of
potentially useful variables such as color
variations,
weathering
and
heating.
Macroscopic and microscopic techniques will
be used to demonstrate the potential of using
such lithotheque in better defining aspects of
the archaeological record at a regional level.

The Canadian province of New Brunswick

has a complex structural or bedrock geology.
The region contains a diversity of rock
formations dating from the Precambrian to the
Mesozoic, many of which have been
subjected
to
repeated
physical
transformations.
This
diversity
and
complexity makes it difficult to establish
correlations between particular archaeological
materials, sources and source areas, and
geological formations, as wells as to identify
the potential use of such materials by
prehistoric groups. Only a few thorough
studies have attempted to make such
correlations. Furthermore, researchers have
not yet been able to identify any major
prehistoric quarry sites in the province.
During the course of recent research I have
attempted to redress this deficit, and through
geoarchaeological
prospection
I have
identified a wide variety of previously
unknown siliceous materials that could have
been used for making flaked stone tools in
prehistory. Most of these have been recovered

97

Session 7.
Gemology: siliceous rocks as gemstones
This session will look at a different application of siliceous rocks as gemstones. One of the most
common categories of material used to produce gemstones is in fact quartz and other silicates,
often microcrystaline quartz varieties such as agate, opals, jaspers and many others as well as
obsidian. Presentations in this section may be reports on specific materials, methods of
processing the stones, gemstone workshops or historical examples of stone jewellery.
Presentations may be related to any time period from prehistory to the present and may be
related to gemstones produced as a large scale industry, in small scale traditional workshops or
by hobbyists.

98

Obsidian bijouterie, mirrors and vessels in the prehistoric Near East;

examples from Domuztepe (Turkey) and Tell Arpachiyah (Iraq)
Stuart Campbell and Elizabeth Healey
Department of Archaeology, School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, University of Manchester.
UK. Email: (S. Campbell) stuart.campbell@manchester.ac.uk; (E. Healey)
elizabeth.a.healey@manchester.ac.uk
Keywords: Arpachiyah; Domuztepe; obsidian bijouterie; manufacturing processes; provenance
study is an integrated, interdisciplinary one in
which we will discuss the origins of the
obsidians, which were analysed using PIXE at
the AGLAE facility in the Louvre, and the
methods of their manufacture. This included
the examination of a large quantity of
debitage found in same context as the links to
see if it could have resulted from the
manufacture of blade blanks for the links; we
also used interferometry and experimental
replication (in conjunction with Laurence
Astruc, CNRS) to examine the polished
surfaces to see if we could determine the
technique(s) of manufacture used to make
these highly finished objects.

Obsidian was used as a raw material for tool

manufacture over a wide geographic area of
the prehistoric Near East, although at most
sites it is an exotic material. This means that
the quantity is limited and at only a few sites
does it form more than about 30-40% of the
lithic tool kit. Much more rarely it is used to
make non-utilitarian items. Bead and pendants
of obsidian, shaped by grinding and polishing,
begin to be made in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic
c. 8500 B.C. Most objects are simple forms,
but a unique find is a fragment of a very
skilfully made bracelet from Askl Hyk in
Central Anatolia and somewhat later some
mirrors from atalhyk. It is not until the
mid-6th millennium BC that a wide range of
highly finished objects, including beads,
pendants, links, mirrors and vessels, are
regularly found.
In this poster we will focus on some of the
objects of this period found at Domuztepe
(S.E.Turkey) and Arpachiyah (N. Iraq). These
sites show a high level of sophistication in
their material culture, although they are smallscale pre-urban societies. In both communities
flint is mainly used for tool manufacture, but
obsidian, from various far-off sources, is also
used. Apart from tool use obsidian at
Domuztepe is used to make bijouterie (with
an increasing range of shapes) and also
symmetrical shaped, highly finished mirrors
(see Figure 1) and vessels. At Arpachiyah a
necklace with six large oval links of obsidian
and some 36 rectangular links were found on
a shelf in a burnt structure. The design and
execution of these objects suggest highly
skilled workmanship. Our approach to their

Figure 1. An obsidian mirror (dt3494) found at

Domuztepe. The left view shows the finely ground
strap handle, and pecked upper surface. The right view
shows the highly polished surface of the mirror. Scale
1cm.

99

Session 8.
Obsidian: methodological issues of obsidian provenance
studies and a new perspective of archaeological obsidian
This session has two specific goals and focuses. 1. Introducing new methodological prospects of
obsidian analysis or the synthesis of archaeological obsidian studies in specific areas; and 2.
Discussing a way of standardization of geologic obsidian samples and sharing among different
laboratories. Recent obsidian researches are advancing and extending inter-regionally and
internationally, as well as in various analytical bases. In particular, results of recent obsidian
source identification clarified that the activities of obsidian procurement by prehistoric people
extended in wide area across the present nation states. This situation demands us to discuss and
push us to make certain rule of data sharing and exact sample sharing, in order to prevent from
possible confusion as risk management. In this context, methodological issues of obsidian
provenance studies and the standardization of geologic obsidian will serve various sound bases
of obsidian archaeology.
Session organisers: Akira Ono, Hiroyuki Sato, and Tristan Carter

100

From conservative to cosmopolitan: interrogating the reconfiguration

of near eastern obsidian exchange networks from the Epi-Palaeolithic
to Chalcolithic
Tristan Carter
Department of Anthropology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Email:
stringy@mcmaster.ca
Keywords: obsidian, prehistory, Near East, exchange, longue dure, complexity
In reconstructing the use of Anatolias obsidian
sources it has long been appreciated that there
were major differences over time. The first

longevity (or conservatism) of cultural

traditions and regional connectivity.
In the 1960s Renfrew commented how
Chalcolithic obsidian exchange was far more
cosmopolitan, with an increased range of
raw materials travelling over longer distances.
We now appreciate that these changes occur
during the Late Neolithic with the first
appearance of northern Cappadocian obsidian
in the Levant, together plus the use of other
Lake Van source, and obsidian from northeastern Anatolia and Armenia.
Drawing on new analyses of assemblages
spanning the Epi-Palaeolithic to Chalcolithic
we discuss the major reconfiguration of
cultural traditions and the fragmentation of
deep-time exchange networks in the context
of regional socio-political change more
generally.

use-at-distance of obsidian can be dated to the

later Palaeolithic. From here until the early
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B we witness the almost
exclusive use of four sources, despite the fact
that there are numerous obsidian-bearing
volcanoes in Anatolia. The big four
comprise Gll Da and Nenezi Da in
southern Cappadocia, plus Bingl and Nemrut
Da in eastern Anatolia. While Cappadocian
products were consumed by central Anatolian,
Cypriot and southern Levantine populations,
Lake Van region obsidian was procured by
communities in south-eastern Anatolia and the
eastern wing of the Fertile Crescent; it is only
amongst the people of northern Mesopotamia
do we see raw materials from both regions
being used. These circulation patterns were
reproduced over millennia, a remarkable

101

Towards a more developed understanding of lithic reduction

sequences in Bronze Age Sardinia: new data from Nuraghe Pidighi
and Bingia 'e Monti
Kyle P. Freund
Department of Anthropology, McMaster University; Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Email:
freundkp@mcmaster.ca
Keywords: Sardinia; Bronze Age Nuragic Period; obsidian; x-ray fluorescence; lithic reduction
strategies
chain of events leading up an artifact's
discard.
Our results indicate that the
inhabitants of both Nuraghe Pidighi and
Bingia 'e Monti exploited the same subsources
of obsidian. Moreover, the majority of
artifacts are in the secondary and tertiary
stages of reduction, suggesting that the initial
phases of obsidian working occurred near or
at the source areas. Despite the similarities in
how the obsidian was procured, there are
marked differences in how these materials
were subsequently reduced. While the
creation of small lunates and thin flakes
through direct percussion is common at both
sites, the people of Nuraghe Pidighi practiced
a tradition of non-prismatic blade production,
a mode of production not previously
documented in Nuragic times. These data are
considered within the larger framework of
West Mediterranean Bronze Age obsidian
consumption, taking into account the range of
socio-economic and cultural processes that
mediated its use.

While there is a large body of literature on

prehistoric obsidian use in Sardinia and the
West Mediterranean, little of this work is
focused on post-Neolithic assemblages. This
presentation aims in part to redress this
research bias by focusing on obsidian
procurement and lithic reduction strategies in
Bronze Age Nuragic Sardinia (ca. 1700-800
BC). There are four island sources of obsidian
in the West Mediterranean, although only
obsidian from the four subsources of Sardinia
are known to have been exploited by Nuragic
peoples.
This paper offers an integrated
approach to obsidian procurement, reduction,
use, and discard through the analysis of 369
obsidian artifacts from two sites in central
Sardinia. This study was achieved by
combining obsidian sourcing data obtained
through energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence
(EDXRF)
spectrometry
with
technotypological characterization. As such, it
becomes possible to reconstruct the entire

102

Human activity in and around obsidian sources: a case study from

sites around the Hiroppara wetland in the central highlands of Japan
Jun Hashizume (a), Yoshimitsu Suda (a), Kazutaka Shimada (b), Yuuki Nakamura (c), Akira Ono (a)
(a) Center for Obsidian and Lithic Studies, Meiji University, Nagano, Japan. Email: (J.
Hashizume) j_hashi@meiji.ac.jp; (Y. Suda) geosuda@meiji.ac.jp; (A. Ono): onoak@meiji.ac.jp
(b) Meiji University Museum, Tokyo, Japan. Email: moirai3sis2@gmail.com
(c) Kanagawa Alchaeology Foundation, Kanagawa, Japan. Email: nacamula@livedoor.com
Keywords: obsidian sources; Central Japan; Hiroppara wetland; Jomon Period; Upper
Paleolithic
Paleolithic to Jomon periods). The
archaeological traces of human activities
relating to obsidian exploitation during the
Upper Paleolithic and the Jomon periods are
densely concentrated around the obsidian
sources in this area. However, little
paleoenvironmental research has been
conducted. In 2011, we collected samples for
paleoenvironmental analysis from the
Hiroppara wetland peat layers to a depth of 3
m.
Second, we are investigating prehistoric
landscape use, combined with obsidian
exploitation in light of paleoenvironmental
change. To accomplish this aim, we have been
excavating sites adjacent to the Hiroppara
wetland. Through geochemical obsidian
provenance analysis, radiocarbon dating, and
tephrochronology, we are attempting to
reconstruct the changes in the activities and
landscape use of the prehistoric people of this
area. As a result of the 2011 and 2012
excavations, Jomon period artifacts, an Upper
Palaeolithic bifacial point industry with blade
cores, and a blade industry including an
obsidian
concentration
have
been
discovered. In addition, soil samples were
collected for paleoenvironmental analysis.

A number of obsidian sources are distributed

throughout the central highlands of Japan. At
present, over 10 archaeological obsidian
sources containing outcrops (primary sources)
and secondary scatters (secondary sources)
have been identified (Figure 1). From the
Upper Paleolithic (ca. 3816 ka cal yr BP) to
the Jomon period (ca. 162.8 ka cal. yr BP),
these were important lithic raw materials used
with a high degree of frequency in central
Japan. The Center for Obsidian and Lithic
Studies (COLS) at Meiji University has
conducted
archaeological
and
paleoenvironmental research in this area. This
presentation is a preliminary report of our
research.
The Hiroppara wetland is located about 1.5
km to the north of Wada-toge (Wada Pass),
which is a well-known obsidian source area,
at an altitude of 1,400 m above sea level
(Figure 1). Through the general surveys
conducted by the former Wada Village Board
of Education in 1989, 1990, and 1991, several
prehistoric sites were documented around the
wetland. In 2011, the COLS began new
research on this wetland and the prehistoric
sites around it.
Our research aim is to find an answer to the
following questions: How did the
paleoenvironment in the obsidian source area
change during the last glacial period and the
early Holocene, and how did prehistoric
human activities relate to these changes?
First, we aim to analyze the peat layers of the
Hiroppara wetland and sediments from
archaeological sites adjacent to the wetland
using a multidisciplinary approach to
reconstruct the paleoenvironment from the
Late Pleistocene to the early Holocene (Upper

References
Oyokawa, M., Miyasaka, K., Ikeya, N., Suda,
Y., Hashizume, J., Hori, K., and Yatou, S.
2013 Field Survey of Obsidian sources in
the Kirigamine Region of the Central
Highlands, Nagano Prefecture, Japan: the
Wada-toge nishi and Tsuchiyabashihigashi obsidian sources. Natural Resource
Environment and Humans 3 (in press, in
Japanese with English abstract).
103

Figure 1. Map of obsidian source distribution and Hiroppara wetland location (modified from Oyokawa et al., 2013).

104

Maritime transportation of obsidian across the Pacific during the early

Upper Palaeolithic Japan
Nobuyuki Ikeya (a) and Michael D. Glascock (b)
(a) Numazu City Cultural Heritage Investigation Center, 46-1, Ohzuwa, Numazu City, Shizuoka
Prefecture, Japan. Email: ikeoska@ka.tnc.ne.jp
(b) Archaeometry Laboratory, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA. Email:
glascockm@missouri.edu
Keywords: obsidian; EDXRF; NAA; Early Upper Paleolithic; sea crossings
This study focuses on archaeological evidence
for sea crossings in the Early Upper
Paleolithic (EUP) based on obsidian
provenance analysis.
Provenance analysis using energy dispersive
X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) for Paleolithic
obsidian industries from the foot of Mt.
Ashitaka has been carried out since 1994 by
our group (including the Numazu City
Cultural Heritage Investigation Center,
Ikeyas personal laboratory, Numazu National
College of Technology).
Mt. Ashitaka is a volcano located in the
southeastern region of Mt. Fuji, and is well
known for having dense distributions of EUP
(Phaseof Ashitaka-Hakone Paleolithic) sites
along its southeastern foothills. These sites are
characterized by the substantial use of
obsidian for the production of stone tools. The
results from provenance analysis of 2568
obsidian artifacts from ten EUP industries
using EDXRF have revealed that 620 of the
artifacts brought to the foot of Mt. Ashitaka
came from Kozushima Island, located
approximately 110 km away. On the basis of
calibrated 14C dates and tephrochronology,
these EUP industries are estimated to have
been produced between ca. 38 ka32 ka. This
period can be understood as the initial stage of
Paleolithic Japan and indicates the timing of
modern human migration to the Japanese
Archipelago.

Kozushima is a small volcanic island located

in the Pacific Ocean approximately 50 km
away from the tip of the Izu Peninsula.
Composed almost entirely of rhyolitic ejecta,
the island offers four well-known sources for
obsidian, including Onbasejima, Sanukazaki,
Sawajiri, and Nagahama. However, a land
bridge from the mainland to Kozushima
Island was never formed, even during the Last
Glacial Maximum. For that reason, the
existence of Kozushima obsidian on the
mainland
raises
extremely
important
questions regarding maritime transportation in
the Upper Paleolithic. These data also provide
a new perspective to questions related to the
means and routes used by modern humans to
arrive on the Japanese Islands.
Considering the importance of these data, it
was necessary to validate the EDXRF results
by another higher-resolution method. Of the
obsidian artifacts excavated from the EUP
site on the foot of Mt. Ashitaka, 15 samples
whose sources were previously identified by
EDXRF at the Numazu City Cultural
Heritage Investigation Center were submitted
to neutron activation analysis (NAA) at the
Archaeometry Laboratory of the University of
Missouri, without revealing the EDXRF
results. The samples included twelve
Kozushima obsidians which were confirmed
by NAA, and completely coincided with the
EDXRF findings.

105

Figure 1. Discrimination diagram of La/Hf versus Ce/Th compositional data using NAA for the geologic obsidian
and artifacts of Doteue site layer BBV.

106

Prompt Gamma Activation Analysis of the Nyrlugos obsidian core

depot find
Zsolt Kasztovszky (a), Boglrka Marti (a), Zoltn Kis (a) and Katalin T. Bir (b)
(a) Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Centre for Energy Research, Budapest, Hungary. Email: (Z.
Kasztovszky) kasztovszky.zsolt@energia.mta.hu; (B. Marti) maroti.boglarka@energia.mta.hu;
(Z. Kis) kis.zoltan@energia.mta.hu
(b) Hungarian National Museum, Budapest, Hungary. Email: tbk@ace.hu
Keywords: PGAA; non-destructive investigations; provenance; obsidian cores; Carpathian
obsidians
the study of relatively large objects like the
Nyrlugos cores.
The study of the hoard as a batch is an
important contribution to the assessment of
prehistoric trade and allows us to know more
about the Carpathian sources, especially the
Carpathian 1 (Slovakian) source region.

The obsidian core depot find is one of the

most important lithic assemblages in the
collection of the Hungarian National Museum
(HNM). The original set comprised 12 giant
obsidian cores from Nyrlugos, of which 11
are currently on the permanent archaeological
exhibition of the HNM. One of the cores is
known to be in Debrecen.
This unique find was published first by J.
Hillebrand (1928) who attributed the hoard to
the Copper Age based on the presence of
giant flint blades from the Early and Middle
Copper Age Tiszapolgr and Bodrogkeresztr
cultures. The obsidian source area was
defined as the Tokaj Mts., about 100 km to
the NW from Nyrlugos. More recently, the
discovery of giant cores from Middle
Neolithic context (Bnesz 1991) suggests an
earlier dating.
The size and beauty of these exceptional
artefacts
preclude
invasive
analysis.
Fortunately, using Prompt Gamma Activation
Analysis, we can measure major chemical
components and some key trace elements of
stone artefacts with adequate accuracy to
successfully
determine
provenance
(Kasztovszky
&
Bir
1994,
1996;
Kasztovszky
et
al.
2008).
Recent
methodological developments also facilitated

References
Bnesz, L. (1991): Neolitick dielna na vyrobu
obsidinovej industrie v Kaove. Vychodoslovensky
Pravek 3968.
Hillebrand, J. (1928): A nyirlugosi obsidiannucleus
depotleletrl (On the Nyirlugos obsidian core depot
find). Archaeolgiai rtest Budapest 42 39-42.
Kasztovszky, Z. & Bir, K. T. (2004): A krpti
obszidinok osztlyozsa prompt gamma aktivcis
analzis segtsgvel: geolgiai s rgszeti
mintkra vonatkoz els eredmnyek AMhely
2004 1/1 915.
Kasztovszky, Z. & Bir, K. T. (2006): Fingerprinting
Carpathian Obsidians by PGAA: First results on
geological and archaeological specimens. In:
Proceedings of the 34th International Symposium
on Archaeometry, 3-7 May 2004. E-book,

http://www.dpz.es/ifc/libros/ebook2621.pd
f - Zaragoza 2006 301308.
Kasztovszky Z., Bir K. T., Mark A., Dobosi, V.
(2008): Cold Neutron Prompt Gamma Activation
Analysisa
Non-Destructive
Method
for
Characterization of High Silica Content Chipped
Stone Tools and Raw Materials. Archaeometry
50/1 1229.

107

The obsidian evidence for the scale of social life during the
Palaeolithic
Theodora Moutsiou
Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. Email: dora81m@yahoo.com
Keywords: obsidian; Palaeolithic; Europe; Africa; social evolution
the cognitive and behavioural abilities of the
individuals involved in the transfers.
Obsidian-bearing sites spanning the temporal
framework of the Palaeolithic and located in
Africa and Europe are analysed with the aim
of elucidating the evolution of modern social
behaviour. Obsidian is a rock that forms only
under very special conditions; its geological
sources are infrequent and distinguished from
each other on the basis of unique chemical
properties. As such it is possible to
reconstruct the distances of its movement and
use these data to infer the scale of social life
during the Palaeolithic. A strong correlation
between obsidian use and long distances is
observed implying that the hominins involved
in the circulation of the specific material were
behaving in a socially modern way.
According to the obsidian data the evolution
of modern social behaviour has been a gradual
process that was initiated in East Africa at
least during the Middle Stone Age.

The concept of modern hominin behaviour

has received a lot of attention in recent
archaeological research but the problem of
developing a precise definition remains
unsolved. Despite the different approaches,
there is a general consensus that sees planning
depth, intentionality, choice and a sense of
aesthetics as essential components of a mind
that functions in a modern way. The social
aspect of modern cognition is reflected on the
ability of hominins to engage in intensive
interactions and to build and maintain
extended social networks. Archaeologically,
modern social behaviour can be detected
through the investigation of raw material
movement. By concentrating on materials that
are rare, distinctive and whose origins can be
reliably identified it is possible to reconstruct
the dimensions of the exchange networks
involved in their circulation. Using this
information, the scale of social interactions
can be inferred. The greater the distances of
raw material movement the more advanced

108

Obsidian Studies in Japan and the role of the Center for Obsidian and
Lithic Studies, Meiji University
Akira Ono (a), Yoshimitsu Suda (a), Shigeo Sugihara (b), Tarou Kannari (a) and Jun Hashizume (a)
(a) Center for Obsidian and Lithic Studies, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan. Email: (A. Ono):
onoak@meiji.ac.jp; (Y. Suda) geosuda@meiji.ac.jp; (T. Kannari) tarou.pbox@gmail.com; (J.
Hashizume) j_hashi@meiji.ac.jp
(b) Emeritus Professor, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan. Email: sugihara@kisc.meiji.ac.jp
Keywords: Japanese obsidian; COLS; geological standardization; obsidian research networks;
XRF
systems; 2) the reconstruction of obsidian
formation
mechanisms
and
the
standardization of obsidian samples through
various
geochemical
analyses;
3)
palaeoenvironmental reconstruction during
MIS3 and MIS2, with a particular relation to
Palaeolithic and Jomon subsistence; and 4)
the establishment and development of
international obsidian research networks.
More than 160 geologic obsidian sources have
been recognized in the Japanese Islands, and
the COLS has analyzed obsidian artifacts
from approximately 500 archaeological sites.
Parallel to the archaeological provenance
research,
the
Instrumental
Analysis
Laboratory at the COLS promotes the
international
project
for
geological
standardization of obsidian. The aims of this
project are 1) to compare chemical data
among laboratories, and 2) to establish
standard geological reference samples for the
non-destructive analysis of obsidian artifacts.
This project offers an opportunity to establish
a worldwide protocol for the non-destructive
analysis of obsidian artifacts, as well as a
method for the source identification of
archaeological obsidian artifacts. The COLS
will continue to advance basic obsidian
analysis and the research into humanenvironment interactions.

This poster introduces the characteristic

features of obsidian studies in Japan since the
early 1970s, and explains the role of the
Center for Obsidian and Lithic Studies, Meiji
University (COLS). A systematic provenance
study
of
obsidian
from
Japanese
archaeological sites began in the early 1970s,
initially using the fission-track dating method
to source the artifacts raw materials. In the
1980s,
hand-in-hand
with
many
archaeological excavations, obsidian sourcing
projects shifted to using X-ray fluorescence
analysis (XRF) geochemical methods,
particularly non-destructive energy-dispersive
X-ray fluorescence analysis (EDXRF). For
the elucidation of the intra-site structure of an
archaeological obsidian assemblage it is
necessary to analyze all tools. EDXRF
analysis is non-destructive, fast, and costeffective, with raw material sourcing attained
in a relatively straightforward manner using
scatter plots in conjunction with multivariate
statistics. The COLS was founded in 2001,
and was newly organized in 2010 for the
further enhancement of obsidian studies and
international research collaboration networks.
The research focuses are: 1) the advancement
of archaeological research enhancing obsidian
exploitation in a geologic source area, lithic
tool production studies, and the reconstruction
of prehistoric raw material circulation

109

Change in exchange: Neolithic exploitation of geological sources in

Eastern Europe
Danielle Riebe
University of Illinois at Chicago and The Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, USA.
Email: driebe@fieldmuseum.org
Keywords: obsidian, exchange, Neolithic, compositional analysis
Chemical compositional analyses were
conducted in 2012 on these materials using
portable x-ray fluorescence (P-XRF) and laser
ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass
spectrometry
(LA-ICP-MS).
The
compositional data revealed that the majority
of the archaeological samples originated from
the island of Melos and that both quarries on
the island were exploited to various degrees
over time. However, due to instrumentation
bias in the original analysis, the samples were
reanalyzed in the summer of 2013. The new
analytical results were then compared to
recently obtained C14 dates from the site of
Alepotrypa. With this new set of data, it is
now possible to discern diachronic patterns in
how this Peloponnesian community exploited
the two Melian quarries.

Long-distance trade in prehistoric Eastern

Europe is often modeled through lithics and
Neolithic Greece is no exception. Evidence
for early exploitation of obsidian from the
island of Melos has been traced back to the
Upper Paleolithic levels at Franchthi Cave
and the reliance on Melian obsidian continued
well into the Bronze Age. Extensive research
on the Melian quarries has been conducted
since the 1960s, and as technology improves,
new techniques have been applied to Melian
material to reveal new facets of information.
In this paper, I present the results of a
reanalysis
of
obsidian
archaeological
materials from the cave site of Alepotrypa on
the Mani Peninsula, Greece and geological
samples from the two quarries/sources on
Melos, Sta Nychia and Demenegaki.

110

Geological and geochemical study in Shirataki obsidian lava complex,

Northern Hokkaido, Japan
Kyohei Sano (a), Keiji Wada (b), Hiroyuki Sato (c), Masami Izuho (d), Masayuki Mukai (e)
(a) Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Graduate School of Sciences, 33 Kyushu
University, 6-10-1 Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japan. Email:
kyo_hei_ne_jp@yahoo.co.jp
(b) Department of Earth Science, Hokkaido University of Education at Asahikawa, Hokumon 9,
Asahikawa 070-8621, Japan. Email: wada.keiji@a.hokkyodai.ac.jp
(c) Department of Archaeology, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, The University
of Tokyo, 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033 Japan. Email: hsato@l.u-tokyo.ac.jp
(d) Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1-1
Minamiosawa, Hachioji, 192-0397, Japan. Email: izuhom@tmu.ac.jp
(e) Asahikawa City Museum, 3-7 Kagura, Asahikawa, 070-8003, Japan. Email:
mukaimasayuki2006@yahoo.co.jp
Keywords: Shirataki; obsidian lava; lava structure; chemical compositions; rock texture
subdivided into two groups respectively and
can be further subdivided identified into four
compositional groups of glasses: AK-A and
AK-B from Akaishiyama series, TI-A and TIB from Tokachi-ishizawa series. These
analytical results show that it is useful to
identify the precise locality source of
Shirataki obsidian artifacts.

The Shirataki obsidian is the most important

source of obsidian artifacts in Hokkaido and
surrounding area. The Shirataki obsidian tools
have spread throughout not only Hokkaido
island but also Sakhalin, southern Kurile and
northern Honshu islands, more than 500 km
from the source, in the Paleolithic era and the
following Jomon era.
Obsidian lavas in Shirataki, Hokkaido,
northern part of Japan, were erupted at 2.2Ma
and formed obsidian monogenetic volcanoes
composed of 10 obsidian flow units. In the
Shirataki obsidian-rhyolite field, there are
many outcrops of densely compact obsidian
layers. The internal structure of single
obsidian lava consists of a brecciated perlite
layer, compact obsidian layer, banded
obsidian layer, and central rhyolite layer.
In this study, the chemical compositions of
bulk-rock and glass for Shirataki obsidian
were determined by X-ray fluorescence
(XRF) and electron probe microanalyzer
(EPMA) respectively. Shirataki obsidians are
clearly divided
into
two
bulk-rock
compositional groups. These are referred to
Akaishiyama series (AK- series) and Tokachiishizawa series (TI- series). Furthermore,
obsidians in Shirataki area can be classified
into four chemical groups based on glass
chemical composition and rock texture
(Figure 1).
In the FeO* - CaO diagram, Akaishiyama and
Tokachi-ishizawa series compositions are

Figure 1. CaO-FeO* diagram for Shirataki Obsidian

glass. Obsidian in Shirataki can be divided for four
groups (TI-A, TI-B, AK-A, AK-B).

111

Standardization of obsidian compositional data for provenance

studies: petrology and data compilation of intra-laboratory results for
obsidian from the Shirataki source, Northern Japan
Yoshimitsu Suda (a), Jeffrey Ferguson (b), Michael D. Glascock (b), Vladimir K. Popov (c), Sergei
V. Rasskazov (d), Tatyana A. Yasnygina (d), Jong Chan Kim (e), Noriyuki Saito (f), Hironobu
Takehara (g), Kenji Wada (h), Akira Ono (a), Andrei V. Grebennikov (c) and Yaroslav V. Kuzmin (i)
(a) Center for Obsidian and Lithic Studies, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan. Email: (Y. Suda)
geosuda@meiji.ac.jp; (A. Ono) onoak@meiji.ac.jp
(b) University of Missouri Research Reactor Center, Missouri, USA. Email: (J. Ferguson)
fergusonje@missouri.edu; (M. Glascock) glascockm@missouri.edu
(c) Far East Geological Institute, Far Eastern Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences,
Vladivostok, Russia. Email: vladpov@mail.ru
(d) Institute of the Earths Crust, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Irkutsk,
Russia. Email: (S. Rasskazov) rassk@crust.irk.ru; (T. Yasnygina) ty@crust.irk.ru
(e) Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, Seoul National University, Republic of Korea.
Email: jckim@phya.snu.ac.kr
(f) Palynosurvey Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan. Email: saito-n@palyno.co.jp
(g) Paleo Labo Co., Ltd., Toda, Japan. Email: takeharah@paleolabo.jp
(h) Hokkaido University of Education, Asahikawa, Japan. Email: wada@asa.hokkyodai.ac.jp
(i) Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences,
Novosibirsk, Russia. Email: kuzmin@fulbrightmail.org
Keywords: obsidian; Instrumental analysis; geochemistry; Hokkaido Island; Japan
BAR international Series 2152, pp.137-153)
indicate that many archaeological artifacts
found on the Sakhalin Island are made from
Shirataki obsidian. On the other hand, proper
source characterization requires multiple
reference samples made of the obsidian to
accurately
determine
the
element
concentrations of artifacts. In the context of
the provenance studies, a geochemical
database of major geologic obsidian sources is
necessary. These commonly mean that the
establishment of the obsidian source samples
and sharing of the samples are fundamental to
successful provenance studies and are
necessary to verify the existence of long
distance exchange networks across mountain
ranges, down to rivers and seas.
The aims of this project are to: 1) compare
the results of quantitative analysis among
independent laboratories, and 2) establish
obsidian geochemical reference standards, and
3) compile the quantitative values for the
Shirataki obsidian source. Four obsidians
from different geologic sites were selected for
this study. These were named JOSH-1, JOSA1, JOO-1 and JOR-1 after the locations of the

The Center for Obsidian and Lithic Studies

(COLS), Meiji University, held an
international symposium on Methodological
issues of obsidian provenance studies and the
standardization of geologic obsidian on
November 5-6, 2011 in Nagano, Japan. The
symposium was organized by Prof. A. Ono
(the director of COLS). The participants and
presenters at this symposium included
geologists, archaeologists and analytical
chemists who are interested in provenance
studies of lithic raw materials. A presymposium excursion at the Shirataki source
in northern Japan (Hokkaido island) was
included in this symposium. Most of the
participants joined this excursion which
visited several key geologic obsidian
outcrops. Afterward, the obsidian collected
from four different outcrops were shared
among the participants and laboratories at the
closing ceremony and this research project
concerning
data
compilation
and
standardization was started.
In the context of archaeological study, works
by Izuho and Hirose (2010: BAR international
Series 2122, pp.9-25) and Kuzmin (2010:
112

analysis stands to examine the chemical

homogeneity and the petrology of the
samples. Other methods serve to determine
the whole-rock element concentration in the
samples.
In this presentation, we first detail the
occurrence and petrology of the obsidian.
Next, the results of data compilation and their
geochemical characteristics are presented.
Finally, the utilization of common standards
will be proposed.

obsidian outcrops (Hachigosawa, Ajisainotaki, Oketo and Rubeshibe, respectively). A

variety of analytical techniques were used,
including: EPMA at the National Institute of
Polar Research; WDXRF at the COLS, the
Palynosurvey Co., Ltd., the Paleo Lab Co.,
Ltd. and the Hokkaido University; ICP-MS at
the Korea Basic Science Institute and the
Institute of the Earths Crust, Siberian Branch
of Russian Academy of Sciences; and
EDXRF and NAA at the University of
Missouri Research Reactor Center. EPMA

113

Shirataki obsidian exploitation and circulation in prehistoric Northern

Japan
Miyuki Yakushige and Hiroyuki Sato
Department of Archaeology, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, The University of
Tokyo, 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan. Email: (M. Yakushige)
nostalgiaporelpasado@yahoo.co.jp; (H. Sato) hsato@l.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Keywords: Shirataki; obsidian; Northern Japan; prehistory; Hokkaido
Hokkaido was connected with the Sakhalin
Island and the Asian Continent by a land
bridge exposed by lower sea levels during the
glacial period and Shirataki obsidian was
transported via a land route. However, the
transport of Shirataki obsidian to Honshu
Island implies seafaring because a land-bridge
never formed at the Tsugaru Strait between
Hokkaido and Honshu during the glacial
period in spite of sea regression.
The distribution of Shirataki Obsidian did not
expand gradually over time, but underwent
repeated episodes of expansion and
contraction. The context for this was differing
adaptive strategies and mobility patterns.

Obsidian was an important lithic raw material

to prehistoric people. Presently more than 80
archaeological obsidian sources have been
identified in Japan, and 21 of these are in
Hokkaido, northern Japan. Of these, Shirataki,
Oketo, Tokachi, and Akaigawa are major
sources.
Shirataki is located in eastern
Hokkaido (Figure 1). Obsidian from the
Shirataki source was a principal lithic raw
material in Hokkaido and circulated from the
southern part of Sakhalin to the northern part
of Honshu Island in the Late Upper
Paleolithic. The distribution of Shirataki
obsidian expanded in the early Neolithic to
the northern end of Sakhalin and the central
region of Honshu Island. In the Pleistocene,

Figure 1. Major obsidian sources in Hokkaido and the sites associated with Shirataki obsidian beyond Hokkaido.

114

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