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6. A Matter of Quality and Quantity: Lithic Reduction Products and Materials at La Quina
- University of Arizona Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
In the most fundamental sense, this study of the lithic artifacts from the station amont at La Quina is concerned with the form in which material reached the site and the various processes that contributed to its condition at the time it was buried. The typological analyses in Chapter 5 provide a perspective on artifactual variability that primarily reflects choices made on the part of the knappers in the manufacture of what we interpret as useful implements . The industrial differences distinguished by the typologies provide a framework against which to compare variability in morphological and metrical properties of the full range of lithic materials recovered in the excavation . The simple proposition on which the research presented in this chapter was based is that there is information relevant to the interpretation of typologically based industrial entities in the size and qualitative attributes of the total range of reduction products that were left with each industry in the site. The goal of the analysis is to distinguish uniformity in material treatment and reduction practices from variation that may provide information relevant to the interpretation of differences in activities and the utilization of this portion of the site through time. The three major domains of evidence used here are (a) the different cryptocrystalline raw materials, (b) the distinctive physical features or “morphology” of reduction products, and (c) the metric properties of size, dimensional relationships, and weight. It is assumed here that variability in lithic artifacts from archaeological contexts is the result of (1) the nature of the raw material, which imposes constraints of size, shape, and fracture patterns; (2) the goals, techniques, and abilities of the knappers in their efforts to produce adequate implements; and (3) the natural and cultural forces that affected the products of reduction after their initial production. Interpretations of patterns of material procurement and original material quality proposed in this study can be tested in the future with more intensive surveys of material sources than were possible for our project. Some Comments on Lithic Assemblages in Archaeological Contexts One view of the general sequence of events of procurement and reduction that produced the several basic artifact categories that comprise lithic assemblages recovered from prehistoric contexts is presented in Figure 6.1. In this interpretation, there are two major sets of events: those that took place before the material reached the site, and those that occurred within the contexts of the site. Direct evidence of the first set of events, in the form of a full range of reduction products, is not available in the site, and those events can only be inferred through an examination of properties of the material in the site that are pertinent to the reconstruction of the condition of material at the time it arrived at the site. Such properties include material mass and relative quantities of cortex for each of the distinct raw materials, the presence or absence of other evidence of primary reduction, and distinctive patterns of secondary reduction. Four basic forms in which material was most often introduced into a site are (1) unmodified nodules, (2) partially reduced cores (“nuclei” in Figure 6.1), (3) flakes, and (4) finished implements. Each of these forms was available for further reduction in the site, which could have led to the presence of additional flakes and implements of smaller size than the original pieces, numbers of fragments, and a decrease in the sizes of those cores that were not completely reduced to fragments. Typically, each of the flakes, cores, and implements produced in the site was potentially available for further reduction that would produce more flakes of smaller size, smaller implements, and the by-products of their manufacture , and a further decrease in core size. Theoretically, 6 A Matter of Quality and Quantity: Lithic Reduction Products and Materials at La Quina 124 Neandertal Lithic Industries at La Quina as indicated in the diagram, an indefinite number of reductions of flakes, implements, and cores, with resulting smaller flakes and fragments, was possible, limited only by the practical aspect of the size of the pieces. A reconstruction of even an approximation of the full succession of reduction products that were derived from any particular piece of material introduced into a site is not possible under most circumstances of archaeological recovery. The exceptions are primarily from open sites with brief relatively undisturbed occupation levels in close proximity to material sources (De Loecker 2004; Roebroeks et al. 1997; Van Peer 1992; Volkman 1983), although on rare occasions it might...