Lucy Wilson

Ceramic fabric analysis and survey archaeology: the Sphakia Survey

Macroscopic Fabric Analysis, the systematic study and description of ceramic fabrics with the aid of a handlens and other simple equipment, has grown in importance along with systematic archaeological survey. Microscopic Fabric Analysis, or ceramic petrology, is better known, but more expensive and time-consuming. Using examples drawn from Sphakia Survey material, the authors show that Macroscopic Fabric Analysis of large pottery collections with a high proportion of coarse ware sherds, when combined with targeted microscopic analysis, provides detailed, reliable information on crucial topics such as chronology, in this case from FN/EM I–Turkish; function (cooking, transport, storage, and beehives); and regional interaction. The authors also discuss issues connected with publication, including the use of electronic publications such as the Sphakia Survey website, and the rigorous comparison of individual fabrics, and they make a case for adopting standard ceramic terminology.

Terrain Difficulty as a Factor in Raw Material Procurement in the Middle Palaeolithic of France

Abstract The interpretation of stone tool assemblages is difficult. How can provisioning choices, travel, and technological organization, when combined with the vagaries of use, discard, deposition, and preservation, be identified through material remains? The choice of lithic raw material sources in the past depended on many factors. The distance from source to site, often mentioned in archaeological studies, can be misleading if simple distance is measured as if the world is a flat sheet extending in all directions. The transportation of raw materials requires physical effort and effort expenditure depends not only on distance but also on topography, so the choice of a raw material in the past may have been influenced by the relative terrain difficulty around different sources. Calculation of the energy required to walk from several lithic sources to two Middle Palaeolithic archaeological sites in southern France, when contrasted with the use of the raw materials from each source, demonstrates that terrain difficulty needs to be taken into account to understand past behavior.

The role of geoarchaeology in extending our perspective

Abstract Specialists and the general public alike are very aware of human impacts on our environment. Climate change, deforestation, desertification, soil erosion and other topics are currently much in the news, but human influence on the environment is not a new phenomenon. Geoarchaeologists study the traces of human interactions with the geosphere dating back to ancient times, as well as up to and in the present. Geoarchaeological investigations provide the key to recognizing landscape and environmental change within a region, as well as reconstructing ancient landscapes and palaeoclimatic regimes. Such an interdisciplinary approach makes it possible to interpret the ways that humans affect the geosphere, through such things as subsistence and resource exploitation activities, settlement location, and local and regional land-use patterns. This approach also allows us to determine the effects of environmental change on human societies. For millennia, humans have been coping with, or provoking, environmental change. We have exploited, extracted, over-used but also in many cases nurtured the resources that the geosphere offers. In the geoarchaeological perspective, human life has never been separate from nature. Geoarchaeology can thus provide a more inclusive and longer-term view of human–geosphere interactions, and serve as a valuable aid to those who try to determine sustainable policies for the future.

Human Interactions with the Geosphere

Human impact on our environment is not a new phenomenon. For millennia, humans have been coping with – or provoking – environmental change. We have exploited, extracted, over-used, but also in many cases nurtured, the resources that the geosphere offers. Geoarchaeology studies the traces of human interactions with the geosphere and provides the key to recognizing landscape and environmental change, human impacts and the effects of environmental change on human societies. This collection of papers from around the world includes case studies and broader reviews covering the time period since before modern human beings came into existence up until the present day. To understand ourselves, we need to understand that our world is constantly changing, and that change is dynamic and complex. Geoarchaeology provides an inclusive and long-term view of human–geosphere interactions and serves as a valuable aid to those who try to determine sustainable policies for the future.

Refitting Bifacial Production Waste – The Case of the Pottery Neolithic Wadi Rabah Refuse Pit from Ein Zippori, Israel

ABSTRACT A refitting project was performed on a lithic assemblage from the Late Pottery Neolithic Wadi Rabah refuse pit (Locus 8071) found at Ein Zippori, Israel. The assemblage includes mainly waste products from bifacial tool manufacture and maintenance processes. The refitted sequences reflect initial reduction stages as well as advanced re-sharpening and recycling activities. The reconstructed reduction processes include decortication by removal of large flakes, and further shaping by removal of different types of thinning-flakes, probably using a hard hammer. Additional processes reflected by refitting, include post-polish re-sharpening, which in some cases was presumably performed using a soft hammer. Finally, evidence of recycling of bifacial tools into cores is also apparent. The presence of refitted waste, attesting to a range of different reduction stages, performed in the same unknown workshop, perhaps by the same knapper, sheds light on the extent of involvement that the knapper/s had in the life-histories of bifacial tools.