Distance and decay: an uneasy relationship.

Distance and decay: an uneasy relationship. Stone, and particularly stone which can be used in the manufactureof flaked stone artefacts, is not uniformly distributed over the face ofthe earth. Users of stone tools have frequently been faced with thenecessity of transporting stone from the place(s) where it occurs to theplace(s) where they wish to use it. In the literature concerning thetransportation of lithic lith��ic?1?adj.Consisting of or relating to stone or rock.Adj. 1. lithic - of or containing lithium2. lithic - relating to or composed of stone; "lithic sandstone" raw materials, there has been some emphasis ondistance-decay models, of which one major prediction is that artefactsshould become smaller as the distance between the source and the placeof manufacture or use increases. While this is intuitively satisfying,it has also been recognized that the prediction is not always applicableto specialized or highly shaped types of artefacts, such as projectile projectilesomething thrown forward.projectile syringesee blow dart.projectile vomitingforceful vomiting, usually without preceding retching, in which the vomitus is thrown well forward. points (Hofman 1991: 347), for which use may be a more importantdeterminant of size than is portability (Nelson 1991: 76). In contrast,simple artefacts - and particularly unretouched flakes - have beenexpected and sometimes found (Feder 1980: 200; Newman 1994: 499;Peterson et al. 1997: 237) to fulfil the predictions of distance-decaymodels. This paper examines an instance in which, even for the simplest,unretouched pieces, acceptable size-ranges were tightly constrained,presumably pre��sum��a��ble?adj.That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. by intended use or mode of use, and portability was ofsecondary concern. The sample: Early Neolithic of el-Adam type After the long period of aridity which marked the last stages ofthe Pleistocene, rainfall returned to southwestern Egypt probably byabout 11,000 b.p., as the African monsoon belt intensified and expandednorthward (Close 1992; 1996b). The earliest evidence for humanreoccupation of the region dates to the 10th millennium b.p. and hasbeen called Early Neolithic of el-Adam type (Wendorf & Schild 1984:409-11). In artefacts, sites of this variant are characterized by a finebladelet technology, including numerous backed bladelets (often straightbacked and pointed); endscrapers may be important, as may alsodouble-backed perforators, notches and microburins. These are associatedwith grinding-stones (usually well-made handstones), worked ostrich ostrich,common name for a large flightless bird (Struthio camelus) of Africa and parts of SW Asia, allied to the rhea, the emu and the extinct moa. It is the largest of living birds; some males reach a height of 8 ft (244 cm) and weigh from 200 to 300 lb eggshell (both beads and fragments of engraved bottles) and rare sherdsof decorated pottery (Close 1995). Most of the faunal remains are ofhare and gazelle gazelle,name for the many species of delicate, graceful antelopes of the genus Gazella, inhabiting arid, open country. Most gazelles are found only in Africa, but several species range over N Africa and SW Asia; the Persian, or goitered, gazelle ( , but there is also a consistent presence of a fewcattle bones, which have been interpreted as the remains of probabledomesticates (Close & Wendorf 1992). However, the archaeologicalrecord The archaeological record is a term used in archaeology to denote all archaeological evidence, including the physical remains of past human activities which archaeologists seek out and record in an attempt to analyze and reconstruct the past. in general is that of small and highly mobile groups ofgatherer-hunters, and the adaptation of el-Adam groups might be bestdescribed as one of 'cattle-assisted gatherer-hunters'. The data used here come from three el-Adam sites. Two are at Nabtaplaya, about 100 km west of Abu Simbel: E-91-3 was a small surfaceconcentration and E-91-4 was in situ In place. When something is "in situ," it is in its original location. ; both were collected completely.The third site, E-77-7, lay in the basin of El Gebal el Beid, some[TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 1 OMITTED] 35 km northeast of Nabta, and hadbeen partly exposed by erosion. The three assemblages all share featuresof Early Neolithic of el-Adam type as a whole, but there are also somedetailed points of similarity between E-77-7 and the Nabta sites. Theseinclude the motifs on the decorated eggshell from all three sites, andtwo remarkable, large, double end-scrapers from E-77-7 and E-91-3, bothmade somewhere other than in the sites where they were found and boththe same in form, manufacture and evidence of use [ILLUSTRATION FORFIGURE 1E OMITTED]. Such very specific similarities make it possiblethat the Nabta and El Gebal el Beid sites might, in part, result fromactivities by the same groups of people. In any case, the three sites belong to the same cultural traditionand the occupations of all three showed a marked appreciation of flintas a raw material. E-77-7, however, is [less than]10 km from the Eocenescarp scarp:see escarpment. where flint is available, while the Nabta sites are [greaterthan]40 km away. This results in an interesting pattern of bothsimilarities and differences among the sites in the way in which flintwas treated. Flint technology In basic flint-flaking technology, there are no differences at allamong the three assemblages. The desired products were fine bladelets,which were preferentially selected as blanks for the manufacture ofbacked pieces [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2D-N OMITTED]. As noted above,other types of retouched tools exist in the assemblages, but, when theyare of flint, they are made on byproducts from the manufacture ofbladelets [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2U-X OMITTED], rather than on'dedicated' blanks. Some large end-scrapers are even made onweathered Levallois flakes (for example, Close 1984: [ILLUSTRATION FORFIGURE 15.8 OMITTED]), recycled from earlier Palaeolithic sites. Core-preparation included the use of lames a crete, butdecortication decortication/de��cor��ti��ca��tion/ (de-kor?ti-ka��shun)1. removal of the outer covering from a plant, seed, or root.2. removal of portions of the cortical substance of a structure or organ. was never extensive and pieces with some dorsal cortexwere still being produced late in the use-lives of the cores. E-77-7 hasmore primary and core-trimming flakes per core than the Nabta sites(TABLE 1), but this seems to reflect the presence of phantom cores atE-77-7: cores which were brought in, partially prepared or exploited,and then taken away when the group left. At all three sites, cores wereexploited using a single-platform technique [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1A,C-D OMITTED]. Several cores (a majority at E-91-3 only) have more thanone platform [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1B OMITTED], but the strongpredominance in the debitage The term debitage refers to the totality of waste material produced during lithic reduction and the production of chipped stone tools. This assemblage includes, but is not limited to, different kinds of lithic flakes, shatter, and production errors and rejects. of bladelets with unidirectional dorsalscars indicates that the platforms were used sequentially, and, in mostcases, their flaking-surfaces are actually on different faces of thecore. The relative frequencies of platform-types on flint cores are alsovery similar (TABLE 1). The cores at E-77-7 would appear to have been by far the mostproductive in terms of numbers of bladelets (including retouched tools)and chips per core (TABLE 1). However, the numbers are so high that someof the cores exploited at E-77-7 must have been curated afterwards, asnoted above. It seems likely that the figures from the Nabta sites(15-25 bladelets per core) are much closer to the number of bladeletsremoved from any one core at any one site. The higher chip:bladeletratios at E-91-4 and E-77-7 compared with E-91-3 probably reflect thefact that the first two assemblages are derived from excavation whilethe last is a surface collection. Occupants of all three sites evidently desired the sameend-product: a fine, thin and rather elongated bladelet. The meandimensions of flint debitage at the three sites are almost identical(TABLE 1), as are also the distributions of those dimensions[ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3-5 OMITTED]. This is particularly clear in thedistribution of the thicknesses [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED].Thickness is the dimension least amenable to secondary modification, andis thus the dimension which must be most closely controlled duringproduction. This is less true of width, which may be later reduced bybacking [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 4 OMITTED], and is least true oflength, which is quickly and easily reduced by snapping (Close &Sampson 1998). The lengths of the unretouched bladelets therefore showthe most variability [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 5 OMITTED], although, evenin the case of length, the distributions are still very similar acrossthe three sites. The flint cores abandoned at the two Nabta sites are almost exactlythe same size, while those at E-77-7 are significantly (p[lessthan]0.05) larger (TABLE 1). The cores abandoned at the Nabta sites areno longer large enough to produce bladelets of desirable length. Theabandonment of larger flint cores at E-77-7 probably reflects lesscareful husbandry of the material (even though other flint cores weresimultaneously being curated), since the scarp was so much closer. Inevitably, flint makes up a much higher proportion of the debitageat E-77-7 than at E-91-3 or E-91-4, but in all three sites flint waspreferentially selected for the manufacture of retouched tools (TABLE1). The extreme uniformity in final products is very clear in thedimensions of the backed flint bladelets in the three assemblages (TABLE1; [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURES 6-7 OMITTED]). The backed pieces at E-77-7are somewhat longer than those at E-91-3 and E-91-4, but the differenceis not significant (p[greater than]0.05). The mean widths andthicknesses are almost identical (TABLE 1), and the distributions of thewidths and thicknesses [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 6-7 OMITTED] are verytightly constrained and closely similar in all three sites. Relationship between distance transported and artefact See artifact. size E-77-7 is much closer to the source of flint than are the Nabtasites, so the predominance of this preferred raw material in theassemblage is not unexpected, and is, indeed, predicted bydistance-decay models. The evidence indicates that more flint cores wereflaked at E-77-7 than are now present - that is, more flint wasavailable than was immediately needed - so it is also not unexpectedthat flint should be less carefully husbanded than at Nabta. What issurprising, however, is that the (unretouched) flint debitage at thethree sites is the same size. This is not the only instance in whichdistance-decay models seem inapplicable in��ap��pli��ca��ble?adj.Not applicable: rules inapplicable to day students.in��ap to some very simple artefacts:in later Neolithic sites in the Safsaf area to the west of Nabta, theneed for quantities of unretouched flakes of a certain size overrode o��ver��rode?v.Past tense of override. considerations of portability to such an extent that it is likely thatdomestic cattle were pressed into service to carry the cores (Close1996a). For el-Adam Early Neolithic of Nabta and Gebal el Beid, thesituation seems to have been a little different, and to arise from theextreme emphasis on the production of bladelets. This was the drivingforce behind the lithic technology (cf. Perles 1992: 234-5), andparticularly as it was applied to flint. The exploitation of flint wasdedicated to the production of one class of retouched tools, backedbladelets. These simply had to be of a certain size and shape, perhapsbecause of considerations of hafting Hafting is a process by which an artifact, often bone, metal, or stone, is attached to a handle or strap. This makes the artifact more useful by allowing it to be fired (as in the case of an arrowhead), thrown (as a spear), or leveraged more effectively (as an axe or adze). . The bladelets struck as blanks forthose tools were therefore manufactured within the appropriate, and verynarrow, size-range, regardless of whether the cores could have yieldedlarger pieces (as at E-77-7), and regardless of the distance from thesource of the flint. Similarly, when blanks of suitable size could nolonger be produced, the cores were simply abandoned (as at E-91-3 andE-91-4), even though the sites are quite far from the flint-source andeven though the cores could still have produced flakes of smaller size.In a technological system so single-minded as that applied to flint inel-Adam Early Neolithic, distance-related decay was, apparently, not anoption. Acknowledgements. The fieldwork and analyses on which this paper isbased were supported by a grant from the US National Science Foundationto Fred Wendorf and the author. The artefacts were illustrated by GallWendorf. References CLOSE, A.E. 1984. Report on Site E-80-4, in Wendorf, Schild &Close: 325-49. 1992. Holocene occupation of the Eastern Sahara, in F. Klees &R. Kuper (ed.), New light on the Northeast African past: 155-83.Cologne: Heinrich-Barth Institut. 1995. Few and far between: early ceramics in North Africa, in W.K.Barnett & J.W. Hoopes (ed.), The emergence of pottery: technologyand innovation in ancient societies: 23-37. Washington (DC): SmithsonianInstitution Press. 1996a. Carry that weight: the use and transportation of stonetools, Current Anthropology 37: 545-53. 1996b. Plus ca change: the Pleistocene-Holocene transition innortheastern Africa, in L.G. Straus, B.V. Eriksen, J.M. Erlandson &D.R. Yesner (ed.), Humans at the end of the Ice Age: the archaeology ofthe Pleistocene-Holocene transition: 43-60. New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of (NY): Plenum. CLOSE, A.E. & C.G. SAMPSON. 1998. 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