EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY & MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC BONE TOOLS
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EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY &
MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC BONE TOOLS:
SOME BASIC NOTES, ADVICE & EXAMPLES
MILLÁN MOZOTA HOLGUERAS
E. Técnicos Especializados OPIS A2
Departamento de Antropología & Arqueología
IMF-CSIC
Doctor Vinculado IIIPC
Universidad de Cantabria
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Q: What do I really need
to begin with?
• You need questions.
• Archaeological questions.
• Not really a super-question.
• But reasonable, realistic questions:
– Born during your study of archaeological materials.
– That can actually be solved (or at least evaluated) through experimentation.
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Ok, got questions
What now?
• You need planning.
• No, really, an experimental program is called
a program for some reason.
• Even if you want to do some “explorative
experience” you need to plan it.
• Plan everything: from the obtaining of
materials, to the recording of information, and
of course the physical experimentation itself.
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That implies a lot of things…
• Indeed, let’s compartmentalize it:
– Archaelogical question(s): You already have it.
– Experiment(s): You do that because you need
information, but this information has to be:
• Reliable
• Verifiable
• Communicable
– So, you don’t need only information, you need data.
– Now that this is clear, just think about:
• What data do you need to solve your question?
• How could you make the experiment(s) to get the data?
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– It should be organizad in variables (yes, the statistical ones)
– Quantitative is better than qualitative.
– Numerical scales are better than presence-absence.
– Meassurements are better that other numerical data.
But… Why?
– Because you will be able to do a better work in your analysis if your data is statistically usable (and it is used).
A word about the data…
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– Independent variables:
• Traits that you think are relevant to solve
your archaeological questions.
• Example: In my program about “Fracturing
bones to obtain retoucher blanks”:
– Taxonomical origin of bone
– Anatomical origin of bone
– Bone freshness (green-dry)
– General fracture strategy
– Etc…
About the variables (I)
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– Dependent variables: • From a conceptual point of view they are the aspects
that change when the independent variables change.
• But thay are also the way you want to organize the
data resulting from your experiments.
• In the same example as above (Fracturing bones…):
– Shape of fractures
– Number of usable blanks
– Number of non-usable fragments
– Blanks: Length, Width (both straigh & along cortical
surface), Thickness…
– Blanks: % of total diaphysis circunference.
– Derivative: Indexes, transformations…
About the variables (II)
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…enough of text and concepts
Lets see some pictures!
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Dry vs. green bone: hands on
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Dry vs. green bone: processed data
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Breaking bones for the marrow fat
vs. retoucher blank production: hands on
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Breaking bones for the marrow fat
vs. retoucher blank production: processed data
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Use “Quina”-like retouch
vs. “Simple” retouch: tools and traces
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Use “Quina”-like retouch
vs. “Simple” retouch: processed data
Widespread chipping appears frecuently in retouchers used for “Quina”-like retouch. Same damage scarcely appears in retouchers used for “Simple” retouch.
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Use Retouching flint
vs. Retouching quartzite: tools and traces
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When retouching flint the number of longitudinal striations is lower than when doing quartzite retouching. And the lenght of linear impressions is typically longer than in quartzite retouching tasks.
Use Retouching flint
vs. Retouching quartzite: tools and traces