Bones for Tools - Tools for Bones: The Interplay Between Objects and Objectives (McDonald Institute Monographs) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1902937597 ISBN 13: 9781902937595

Publisher: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2012

Synopsis

Animal procurement and tool production form two of the most tightly connected components of human behaviour. They are tied to our emergence as a genus, were fundamental to the dispersal of our species, and underpin the development of our societies. The interaction between these fundamental activities has been a subject of archaeological inference from the earliest days of the discipline, yet the pursuit of each has tended to encourage and entrench specialist study. As a result, our understanding of them has developed in full-view but in general isolation of one from the other. This volume begins the process of integrating what have all too often become isolated archaeological and interpretative domains. Exposing and exploring contexts spanning much of prehistory, and drawing data from a wide range of environmental settings, the book covers both sides of the complex inter-relationship between animals, the technologies used to procure them and those arising from them. In taking a more inclusive approach to the material, technological and social dynamics of early human subsistence we have returned to the earliest of those archaeological associations: that between stone tools and animal bones. In revealing the inter-dependence of their relationship, this volume takes what we hope will be a first step towards a revitalized understanding of the scope of past interactions between humans and the world around them.
Krish Seetah is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, Stanford University. His zooarchaeological research focuses on butchering and the socio-economic context of food.
Brad Gravina is a member of the laboratory Préhistoire a l'Actuel: Cultures, Evironment et Anthropologie (PACEA) at the University of Bordeaux. His research focuses on the final Middle Palaeolithic of Western Europe with an emphasis on lithic technology and taphonomy.

Table of Contents

1. Combining Stones and Bones, Defining Form and Function, Inferring Lives and Roles (BRAD GRAVINA, RYAN J. RABETT AND KRISH SEETAH)

Part 1: Taphonomy and Technology

2. When Bones are Not Enough: Lithic Refits and Occupation Dynamics in the Middle Palaeolithic Level 10 of Roca dels Bous (Catalonia, Spain) (IGNACIO DE LA TORRE, JORGE MARTÍNEZ-MORENO AND RAFAEL MORA)

3. Testing the Spatial Association of Lithic and Faunal Remains: a Case Study from the Lower Palaeolithic Site of Holon (Israel) (HERVÉ MONCHOT, MICHAEL CHAZAN AND LIORA KOLSKA HORWITZ)

4. The Palaeolithic Poor Relation? Taphonomic Approaches to Archaeofaunas and their Implication for the Study of European Lower Palaeolithic Subsistence (GEOFF M. SMITH)

5. Reconstructing Animal-butchering Technology: Slicing Cut Marks from the Submerged Pottery Neolithic Site of Neve Yam, Israel (HASKEL J. GREENFIELD AND LIORA KOLSKA HORWITZ)

6. Cause and Effect: the Impact of Animal Variables on Experimentally Produced Bone Lesions (SHAW BADENHORST)

Part 2: Raw Materials, Operational Sequences and Decision-making

7. Guanaco Butchering by Hunter-gatherers from Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, Southern Patagonia (A. SEBASTIÁN MUÑOZ)

8. Diversity and Applications: Some Bone Tools from the Past to the Present in Southern Africa (INA PLUG)

9. Mammoth Bone Technology at Tocuila in the Basin of Mexico (EILEEN JOHNSON, JOAQUIN ARROYO-CABRALES AND LUIS MORETT)

Part 3: Subsistence and Cultural Practice

10. Don’t Smash Those Bones! Anatomical Representation and Bone Tool Manufacture in the Pampean Region (Argentina, South America) (DANIEL LOPONTE AND NATACHA BUC)

11. Eating Your Tools: Early Butchery and Craft Modification of Primate Bones in Tropical Southeast Asia (RYAN J. RABETT AND PHILIP J. PIPER)

12. Prehistoric Hunter-gatherers in Transition: Environmental Adaptation or Social Transformation? (FARINA STERNKE AND LAURENT-JACQUES COSTA)

Index

Edition details

• Publisher: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1902937597
• ISBN 13: 9781902937595
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 164
• Editor: Seetah Krish, Gravina Brad