The Ontario Archaeological Society, Hamilton Chapter presents, an illustrated lecture by Dr. Jeff Bursey, University of Toronto, New Directions Archaeology, titled
Moving On With Lithics: Four Studies in the Value of Alternate Approaches to Lithic Analysis.
Abstract
Beginning with my doctoral research, I began looking at the analysis of stone tools and their byproducts as having the potential to reveal more than is often contained within cultural-historical approaches. Specifically, I began to look at stone tool technology as being related to questions of mobility and raw material availability but capable of revealing much more. In fact, beyond relatively simple questions of tool function, I argue that stone tool technology has the capacity to inform research on prehistoric cognition and even aspects of ideology, etc., that can be argued to be seen in other aspects of culture to this day.
In this talk, I will give a brief overview of four projects I have worked on recently that I think have the ability to lead to some interesting new directions in lithic studies. First, I will briefly overview my Ph.D. dissertation. For this I reconstructed the lithic reduction sequence for the Early Archaic Kirk Corner-notched (Nettling) horizon around the west end of Lake Ontario. I hope to show that this was a highly integrated lithic reduction system dependent upon high quality, massive chert sources, that was designed to meet the demands of a people who used a from of high residential mobility. I will also briefly discuss some apparent cognitive patterns. From this, I will switch to a group that was also dependent upon a source of high quality raw material but had relatively low residential mobility. Specifically, I will discuss the end scrapers recovered from the Anderson site, a Uren village on the lower Grand River. I will illustrate how these specialized artifacts were manufactured in a way that is different from the manufacture of bifaces. Some examples will also indicate how learning to produce end scrapers may have come about through the consideration of a potential juvenile example.
From this point, I will switch over to two studies that are distinctly different from the southern Ontario cases. The Shawanaga site was a site located north of Parry Sound that dated to the Early to Middle Archaic and best described as being from the Shield Archaic. Ground stone tools, which will be described, help date the occupation because analogs are known from well-dated contexts including in the Laurentian and Maritime archaic sequences. My focus, however, will be on the chipped lithics which, although relatively sparse, can be used to address the composition of the tool kit, particularly with regards to specific tools that were not left at the site. Finally, and building from this, I will look at another assemblage, excavated from the Maskinonge site, that was found in southern Ontario but which I argue is not representative on southern Ontario sites. Specifically, although the assemblage is primarily Late Woodland, I argue that, following some of the ideas of Tim Ingold, the diversity in raw materials reflects mobility and interaction patterns of highly mobile hunter-gatherers and thus was the product of northern Algonkians moving about in what was ?Iroquoia?.
In short, I argue that lithic studies can be used to address questions beyond simple typologies and culture-historical ?diagnostics?. Furthermore, I hope to demonstrate that many of the insights generated come about through the careful analysis of flakes, cores and broken and exhausted tools as well as thinking about the diversity or uniformity of raw material selection beyond being simply the product of geography.
WHEN: Thursday, November 20th, 2008
WHERE: Fieldcote Museum, 64 Sulphur Springs Road, Ancaster,
Ontario, CANADA
TIME: 7:00pm Light Refreshments Following
This Public Lecture is FREE and open to the public.
ALL WELCOME