A significant step in the history of society was the onset of metallurgy. It is however unclear when metal first started to be used as a standard, functional material in prehistory. Much of the...Show moreA significant step in the history of society was the onset of metallurgy. It is however unclear when metal first started to be used as a standard, functional material in prehistory. Much of the earliest evidence of metal artefacts within the archaeological record was deposited in a potentially ritual context, which suggests that the origin of the use of the metal as a functional material cannot be based on the presence of metal objects within the archaeological record. The deposition of supposedly ritual objects in the past does provide evidence for the presence of metal as a material, however this does not necessarily correlate to the presence of everyday, working metal objects and tools. While stone tools could have been immediately discarded once they are broken and so their stratigraphic placement in the archaeological record can be approximately correlated with the date that they were used in the past, metal tools can be re- melted and so recycled over a much longer period of time. It could therefore be argued that he earliest stratigraphic location of metal tools in the soil does not necessarily correlate with their time of origin in prehistory. In order to address this problem, many studies have instead studied the presence of metal indirectly, by investigating the microwear traces left by different tool materials in order to determine whether certain traces can be considered characteristic of metal tool use. These studies have ranged from an examination of cut marks in butchered bones to an investigation of drilling technology during bead production. The present study used experimental archaeology complemented by microwear analysis to investigate traces left by stone, antler, and metal tools during the production of amber beads, focusing particularly on the cutting and drilling stages of bead production. From an analysis of the experimentally produced pieces, it was then possible to create a list of distinguishing features for each tool material. This list of distinguishing features was then compared to those traces identified on archaeological collections from three sites in the northern Netherlands: the Late Neolithic settlement site at Kolhorn, a coffin burial in a tumulus at Emmerdennen, and grave goods from several tumuli at Hijken Hooghalen. The results demonstrated that it is possible to identify which tool material had been used to create the archaeological pieces, and thus potentially contribute towards existing studies in microwear analysis of tool traces, and potentially also further towards detecting the onset of metal as a functional material in prehistory.Show less
Research master thesis | Archaeology (research) (MA/MSc)
open access
Bodily ornaments are abundant in the circum-Caribbean region. Made of a variety of raw materials, most notably shell, stone and minerals, they have been recovered from the archipelago and...Show moreBodily ornaments are abundant in the circum-Caribbean region. Made of a variety of raw materials, most notably shell, stone and minerals, they have been recovered from the archipelago and surrounding mainlands. Most studies have focused on iconographic analysis of the motifs depicted on pendants and on the sourcing of exotic raw materials from which they were made. Technologies of production have also received attention, with emphasis on workshop contexts from the Early Ceramic Age (400 BC – AD 600/800) which present abundant debitage. For the later period (until AD 1492), considerably less is known. This research proposes a theoretical framework focused on the cultural biographies of ornaments. The main objective is to approach how pre-Colonial indigenous communities have dealt with ornaments, including the collection of raw material, production sequence, use, reuse and deposition. A chaîne opératoire approach is also put forward, in order to assess technological choices, gestures, techniques, toolkits and skill levels. Two case studies from the Late Ceramic Age are discussed: the Valencia Lake Basin in north-central Venezuela (AD 800 – 1200) and the northwest of the Dominican Republic, especially the site of El Flaco (AD 1200 – 1400). Microwear analysis was conducted on 161 beads and pendants using optical light microscopy, with magnifications of up to 200x. Experimental replications of specific techniques with local tools and contact materials were also made to serve as analogues to the microscopic evidence. An overview of the biographies of ornaments among lowland South American indigenous societies was made in order to shed light into the patterns observed in the archaeological material. Analysis has shown that in the Valencia Lake Basin the production of ornaments had an important role, involving high skill and the use of a specialized toolkit for shell working. The ornaments display different degrees of wear and indicate different systems of attachment with strings, regardless of type and depositional contexts. In El Flaco, bead making was only limitedly present and restricted to specific raw materials. Most beads, made of calcite and igneous rocks, probably entered the site through exchange networks. In general, the beads are intact and present limited use-wear, with different intensities and distribution regardless of the type. This combined approach (microscopic, experimental and ethnographical) permitted a new insight into the role of ornaments in these contexts and on how their biographies were connected to social relations at local and regional levels.Show less
