SCALE OF PRODUCTION AT PREHISTORIC QUARRIES: A PILOT STUDY IN EXTENDING THE “ANALYTICAL CORE UNIT” CONCEPT

Abstract

Prehistoric toolstone quarries often contain dense deposits of flake debris. Flakes can be sampled efficiently using standard probabilistic techniques in order to estimate their quantity. But the number of cobbles reduced to produce that debris is an equally valid measure of production scale. It cannot be estimated directly, partly because many cobbles are reduced to blanks and preforms that were exported from the quarries. “Analytical Core Concept” (ACU) relates count of particular kinds of flakes to weight loss experienced by the cobbles reduced to generate them. We use their and other experimental data that relate number of all flakes to cobble weight loss to generate two independent ACU estimates drawn from the Modena obsidian quarry in Nevada, USA. The estimates produce similar results, which suggest a robust relationship between cobble weight loss and flake quantity that can be applied elsewhere to measure production scale at quarries.

Keywords:

• “Analytical core”
• Obsidian
• Quarry
• Reduction experiments
• Flake quantity

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael J. Shott

Michael J. Shott researches the prehistory of hunter-gatherers and how the archaeological record forms. He has conducted fieldwork in the U.S. Midwest and Great Basin, Mexico, and South America. Shott teaches archaeology at the University of Akron, Akron, OH, USA.

Correspondence to: Michael J. Shott, Department of Anthropology and Classical Studies, University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA. Email: [email protected]

Eric C. Olson

Eric Olson studies the archaeology of Adena societies and is conducting research on patterns of distribution of prehistoric copper, lithics, and ceramics in Hopewell culture of the American midcontinent. He is a graduate student in Anthropology at Ball State University, Muncie, IN, USA.