Briggs, C. Stephen. (2009). Erratics and re-cycled stone. Internet Archaeology 26. Implement Petrology theme. Vol 26, https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.26.34.
 Title The title of the publication or report |
Erratics and re-cycled stone | ||||
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Subtitle The sub title of the publication or report |
scholarly irrelevancies or fundamental utilities to lithic studies in prehistoric Britain and beyond? | ||||
Issue The name of the volume or issue |
Internet Archaeology 26. Implement Petrology theme | ||||
Series The series the publication or report is included in |
Internet Archaeology | ||||
Volume Volume number and part |
26 | ||||
Biblio Note This is a Bibliographic record only. |
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Licence Type ADS, CC-BY 4.0 or CC-BY 4.0 NC. |
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
International Licence |
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Publication Type The type of publication - report, monograph, journal article or chapter from a book |
Journal | ||||
Abstract The abstract describing the content of the publication or report |
There are many theories explaining later prehistoric 'trade' and 'exchange systems' in stone artefacts. Evidence matching the petrographic information of transported implements with the country rock (local bedrock) where 'factories' produced flaked stone axes is felt to be compelling. Consequently, across Europe it is widely believed that the only way 'factory' rock could have reached the places where artefacts have been found was by human carriage. The discovery of implement working floors, or 'factories' in montane areas (c. 1900-1970) on primary exposures of stone, lithologically almost identical to polished axes found considerable distances from them, has led to a belief in the industrial, economic or social processing and carriage of finished products. There are caveats to this proof of evidence, however.Natural processes constantly redistribute incalculable numbers of durable erratic pebble- to boulder-sized clasts, so why could these not have been used for making prehistoric artefacts? There is abundant evidence in the archaeological record that artefacts were crafted from such material. And although there is now an archive of petrographic thin-sections available to help to identify the origins of the artefacts, no comparable data are available on re-cycled stone. Implement provenancing is therefore unlikely to be of lasting scientific value until investigative programmes have accumulated far more accurate petrographic data on pebbles and erratics from superficial deposits. Comparisons between some British-Irish implement distribution patterns with those of glacial erratics suggests the available evidence already better fits an interpretation of deterministic and opportunistic stone procurement rather than one involving long-distance travel by prehistoric peoples. Extensive, long-term sampling and provenancing programmes are now needed to address this requirement. | ||||
Year of Publication The year the book, article or report was published |
2009 | ||||
Locations Any locations covered by the publication or report. This is not the place the book or report was published. |
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Source Where the record has come from or which dataset it was orginally included in. |
BIAB
(biab_online)
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Created Date The date the record of the pubication was first entered |
18 Mar 2010 |
