Tools versus Cores: Alternative Approaches to Stone Tool Analysis - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847181171 ISBN 13: 9781847181176

Verlag: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

The papers in this volume address an incredibly basic question in stone tool studies, namely whether a particular lithic artifact should be classified as a tool, thus implying that at some time in the past it was used directly to perform activities, or whether it should instead be classified as a core, meaning that its purpose was to produce flakes some of which were then made into tools. This question is so basic that it would seem archaeologists should have solved it by now, and in most instances this is the case. This volume, however, looks at some of the remaining problem cases in part to find out if they can be solved, but mainly because the really difficult cases raise the more challenging and interesting methodological issues, which can in turn lead us to question and overhaul long-held assumptions and long-used approaches to the study of stone tools. This is, in fact, what happens in this volume with papers that discuss assemblages from Lower/Middle Paleolithic sites in Europe and southwest Asia to more recent Holocene sites in the New World and Australia. In some instances the very idea of classifying these artifacts as one or the other is entirely discarded; in other instances, it is assumed they fit in both categories, and the behavioral implications are assessed. The end result in each case is a richer understanding of the past less encumbered by categories archaeologists bring to the study.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Shannon McPherron is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. His interests lie in expanding our understanding of behavioral evolution prior to the arrival of anatomical moderns through the excavation of Paleolithic sites and the analysis of stone tool assemblages. Currently he works in France and in North and East Africa.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1847181171
• ISBN 13: 9781847181176
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 310
• Herausgeber: McPherron Shannon P.
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar