Functional Perspectives on Lithic Standardization

ABSTRACT

Functional data accumulated over the recent decades confirm that tool use mechanics, working edge maintenance, and hafting are important factors determining stone tool form. Yet such data are rarely considered in studies on lithic standardization, and tool hafting has entered the discussion mostly in the form of untested hypotheses. In this paper, we examine the effects of tool use, resharpening, and hafting on lithic standardization by drawing on recent use-wear data on Paleolithic domestic tools and projectiles. We evaluate morphological constraints posed by different tool use tasks and hafting systems, and the effects of these on blank selection. We conclude that the concept of standardization can be useful in making sense of lithic assemblage patterning, but it needs to be redefined to accommodate functional considerations. We advise shifting the focus from stone tool form to working edge qualities and hafted tool design, which drastically alters the perspective on inter-assemblage variability.

KEYWORDS:

• Standardization
• lithic use-wear
• hafting
• blades
• tangs
• backing

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Laurent Chiotti (Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle) and Ivan Jadin (Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences) for granting access to the Abri Pataud and Maisières-Canal material. All the members of TraceoLab are thanked for their contributions to the research discussed here and Olivier Touzé, Sonja Tomasso and Damien Flas for their advice that helped improve an earlier version of this manuscript. The authors thank the editors for their invitation to contribute to this special volume and two anonymous reviewers for their input.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013, ERC Grant Agreement No. 312283, EVO-HAFT, Veerle Rots), by the Kone Foundation under Grant 088817 (Noora Taipale), and by the Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS). A part of NT’s travel costs were covered by the ECOPRAT project funded by the Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS) under Grant J.0172.16.

Notes on contributors

Noora Taipale

Noora Taipale is a postdoctoral fellow at TraceoLab, University of Liège and obtained her PhD in 2020. Trained in lithic technological and functional analyses at the University of Helsinki (Finland), Uppsala University (Sweden) and University of Liège (Belgium), she specialises in use-wear analysis of stone tools. Her main research interests include variability in hafted tool and projectile technologies, the role of raw material qualities in stone tool industries, and the interactions between lithic technology, environment, and human social organisation.

Veerle Rots

Veerle Rots is a Senior Researcher at FNRS (Fund for Scientific Research) and a Research Professor at University of Liège, Belgium. She earned her PhD at KU Leuven in 2002 on the topic of hafting and developed a methodology for identifying hafting on the basis of microscopic evidence. At Liège, she is the director of TraceoLab, a research group focused on functional analysis of wear traces and residues of stone tools and on experimentation, with a special interest in topics like hafting and projectiles. Veerle Rots is involved in several archaeological projects in both Europe and Africa.