Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T20:07:04.189Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Material Scientists: Learning the Importance of Colour and Brightness from Lithic Practitioners

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2021

Kathryn Weedman Arthur Open the ORCID record for Kathryn Weedman Arthur [Opens in a new window]
Kathryn Weedman Arthur*
Affiliation:
University of South Florida 140 7th Ave South St. Petersburg, FL33701USA Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, I present Ethiopia's Boreda lithic practitioners’ perception of knapping stone as a living vital being and how it informs their selection of colourful stones and transmission of knowledge to apprentices. In particular, lithic practitioners select stones which are perceived to exhibit evidence of their vitality in the form of light and choose particular colours of stone for their association with transformation and community identity. Furthermore, elders use these attributes of stone to assist apprentices in learning to identify good-quality parent material, ensuring longevity of a tool's life.

Type
Special Section: When Materials Speak about Ontology: A Hunter-Gatherer Perspective
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , May 2021 , pp. 293 - 304
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aiston, G., 1929. Chipped stone tools of the Aboriginal tribes East and North-East of Lake Eyre South Australia. Papers & Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 1928, 123–31.Google Scholar
Albright, S., 1984. Tahltan Ethnoarchaeology. Vancouver: Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University.Google Scholar
Arthur, K.W., 2008. The Gamo hideworkers of southwestern Ethiopia and cross-cultural comparisons. Anthropozoologica 43(1), 67–98.Google Scholar
Arthur, K.W., 2010. Feminine knowledge and skill reconsidered: women and flaked stone tools. American Anthropologist 112(2), 228–43.10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01222.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arthur, K.W., 2018. The Lives of Stone Tools: Crafting the status, skill, and identity of flintknappers. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press.10.2307/j.ctt20p57bpCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arthur, K.W., 2019. Ethnoarchaeologies of listening: learning technological ontologies bit by bit, in Archaeologies of Listening, eds Schmidt, P.R. & Kehoe, A.B.. Gainesville (FL): University of Florida Press, 25–46.10.5744/florida/9780813056241.003.0002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arthur, K.W., 2020. Wombs of the earth: preserving and reconstituting feminine prestige and dignity through heritage, in Engendering Heritage: Contemporary approaches to archaeological and heritage practices, eds Cain, T.C. & Raczek, T.P.. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association (Special issue) 31(1), 41–53.Google Scholar
Atalay, S., 2012. Community-based Archaeology: Research with, by, and for Indigenous and local communities. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Atherton, J.H., 1983. Ethnoarchaeology in Africa. African Archaeological Review 1(1), 75–104.10.1007/BF01116773CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O. & Van Peer, P. 2009. The chaîne opératoire approach in the Middle Paleolithic archaeology. Current Anthropology 50(1), 103–31.10.1086/592234CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bender, B., 1999. Subverting the Western Gaze: mapping alternative worlds, in The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape: Shaping your landscape, eds Ucko, P.J. & Layton, R.. London: Routledge, 31–45.Google Scholar
Binford, L.R., 1973. Inter-assemblage variability—the Mousterian and the functional argument, in The Explanation of Cultural Change, ed. Renfrew, C.. Pittsburgh (PA): University of Pittsburgh Press, 227–54.Google Scholar
Binford, L.R. 1986. An Alyawara day: making men's knives and beyond. American Antiquity 51(3), 547–62.10.2307/281751CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binford, L.R. & O'Connell, J.F., 1984. An Alywara day: the stone quarry. Journal of Anthropological Research 40(3), 406–32.10.1086/jar.40.3.3629763CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bleed, P., 2001. Trees or chains, links or branches: conceptual alternatives for consideration of stone tool production and other sequential activities. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 8(1), 101–27.10.1023/A:1009526016167CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boëda, E., Connan, J., Dessort, D., Muhesen, S., Mercier, N., Valladas, H. & Tisnérat, N., 1996. Bitumen as a hafting material on Middle Palaeolithic artefacts. Nature 380(6572), 336.10.1038/380336a0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bordes, F., 1961. Mousterian cultures in France. Science 134, 803–10.10.1126/science.134.3482.803CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bordes, F., 1973. On the chronology and contemporaneity of different Paleolithic cultures in France, in The Explanation of Cultural Change, ed. Renfrew, C.. London: Duckworth, 218–26.Google Scholar
Burton, J., 1984. Axe Makers of the Wahgi. PhD dissertation, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Cane, S.B., 1992. Aboriginal perceptions of their stone tool technology: a case from the Western Desert, Australia. Australian Archaeology (35), 11–31.10.1080/03122417.1992.11681466CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, J.E., 1991. Flintknapping and debitage disposal among the Lacandon Maya of Chiapas, Mexico, in The Ethnoarchaeology of Refuse Disposal, eds Staski, E. & Sutro, L.D.. Tempe (AZ): Arizona State University, 63–88.Google Scholar
Clark, J.L., 1993. Gold, sex, and pollution: male illness and myth at Mt. Kare, Papua New Guinea. American Ethnologist 20(40), 742–57.Google Scholar
Colwell-Chanthaphonh, C. & Ferguson, T.J. (eds), 2007. Collaboration in Archaeological Practice: Engaging descendant communities. Lanham (MD): AltaMira.Google Scholar
Cunningham, J.J. & MacEachern, S., 2016. Ethnoarchaeology as slow science. World Archaeology 48(5), 628–41.10.1080/00438243.2016.1260046CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darras, V., 2014. Ethnohistorical evidence for obsidian's ritual and symbolic uses among the PostClassic Tarascans, in Obsidian Reflections: Symbolic dimensions of obsidian in Mesoamerica, eds Levine, M.B. & Carballo, D.M.. Boulder (CO): University Press of Colorado, 45–74.10.5876/9781607323013.c002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deloria, V. Jr, 1992. Indians, archaeologist, and the future. American Antiquity 57(4), 595–8.10.2307/280822CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellicott, R.J.I., 1977. ‘41. The Application of the Law in Practice: Colonial Policy.’ Law Reform Commission Act 1973. Legal Document, Report 31. Australian Law Reform Commission. https://www.alrc.gov.au/publication/recognition-of-aboriginal-customary-laws-alrc-report-31/4-aboriginal-customary-laws-and-anglo-australian-law-after-1788/australian-law-as-applied-to-aborigines/Google Scholar
Gallagher, J.P., 1977. Contemporary stone tool use in Ethiopia: implications for archaeology. Journal of Field Archaeology 4, 407–14.Google Scholar
Gero, J.M., 1991. Genderlithics: women's roles in stone tool production, in Engendering Archaeology: Women and prehistory, eds Gero, J.M. & Conkey, M.W.. Oxford: Blackwell, 163–93.Google Scholar
Gosselain, O.P., 2016. To hell with ethnoarchaeology! Archaeological dialogues 23(2), 215–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gonzalez, W.J., 2012. Methodological universalism in science and its limits. Imperialism versus complexity, in Thinking about Provincialism in Thinking, eds Bryzechczyn, K. & Paprzychka, K.. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 155–76.Google Scholar
Gould, R.A., 1980. Living Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gould, R.A. & Saggers, S., 1985. Lithic procurement in Central Australia: a look at Binford's idea of embeddedness in archaeology. American Antiquity 50(1), 117–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gusinde, M., 1931. The Fireland Indians Vol. 1. The Selk'nam on the life and thought of a hunting people of the Great Island of Tierra del Fuego. Mödling: Verlag der Internationalen Zietschrift.Google Scholar
Hampton, O.W., 1999. Culture of Stone: Sacred and profane uses of stone among the Dani. College Station (TX): Texas A&M University Press.Google Scholar
Hoffman, C., 2003. Symbols in stone, part two: quartz ceremonial items from the Little League Site, Middleborough, MA. Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society 65(2), 63–72.Google Scholar
Irwin, L., 1996. The Dream Seekers: Native American visionary traditions of the Great Plains. Norman (OK): University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Jones, R., 1990. Hunters of the dreaming: some ideational, economic, and ecological parameters of the Australian Aboriginal productive system, in Pacific Production Systems: Approaches to economic prehistory, eds Yen, D.E. & Mummery, J.M.J.. Canberra: Australian National University, 25–53.Google Scholar
Jones, R. & White, N., 1988. Point blank: stone tool manufacture at the Ngilipiji Quarry, Arnhem Land, 1981, in Archaeology with Ethnography: An Australian perspective, eds Meehan, B. & Jones, R.. Canberra: Australian National University, 51–97.Google Scholar
Kehoe, A.B., 1990. Points and lines, in Powers of Observation: Alternative views in archaeology, eds Nelson, S.M. & Armelagos, G.J.. Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan/American Anthropological Association, 23–37.Google Scholar
Kimmerer, R.W., 2013. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Minneapolis (MN): Milkweed Editions.Google Scholar
Leroi-Gourhan, A., 1942. Evolution et techniques I—L'Homme et la Matière. Paris: Albin Michel.Google Scholar
Lyons, D. & Casey, J., 2016. It's a material world: the critical and on-going value of ethnoarchaeology in understanding variation, change and materiality. World Archaeology 48(5), 609–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogundiran, A. & Ige, O.A., 2015. ‘Our ancestors were material scientists’: archaeological and geochemical evidence for indigenous Yoruba glass technology. Journal of Black Studies 46(8), 751–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pastrana, A. & Athie, I., 2014. The symbolism of obsidian in Postclassic Central Mexico, in Obsidian Reflections: Symbolic dimensions of obsidian in Mesoamerica, eds Levine, M.B. & Carballo, D.M.. Boulder (CO): University Press of Colorado, 75–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pokotylo, D.L. & Hanks, C., 1989. Variability in curated lithic technologies: an ethnoarchaeological case study from the Mackenzie Basin, Northwest Territories, Canada, in Experiments in Lithic Technology, eds Amick, D.S. & Mauldin, R.P.. (BAR International series S528.) Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 49–65.Google Scholar
Riley, A.R., 2012. Indians and guns. Georgetown Law Journal 100, 1675–745.Google Scholar
Rosen, S.A., 1997. Lithics after the Stone Age: A handbook of stone tools from the Levant. Walnut Creek (CA): AltaMira.Google Scholar
Sackett, J.R., 1973. Style, function, and artifact variability in Paleolithic assemblages, in The Explanation of Culture Change: Models in prehistory, ed. Renfrew, C.. Pittsburgh (PA): University of Pittsburgh Press, 317–25.Google Scholar
Sackett, J.R., 1990. Style and ethnicity in archaeology: the case for isochrestism, in The Uses of Style in Archaeology, eds Conkey, M.W. & Hastorf, C.A.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 32–43.Google Scholar
Schmidt, P.R. & Kehoe, A.B., 2019. Archaeologies of Listening. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schiffer, M.B., 1972. Archaeological context and systematic context. American Antiquity 37, 156–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, H.V., 2008. Colonialism, landscape and the subterranean. Geography Compass 2(6), 1853–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shott, M. & Weedman, K.J., 2007. Measuring reduction in stone tools: an ethnoarchaeological study of Gamo hidescrapers from Ethiopia. Journal of Archaeological Science 34, 1016–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sillitoe, P. & Hardy, K., 2005. Living lithics: ethnoarchaeology in highland Papua New Guinea. Antiquity 77, 555–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, L.T., 1999. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Smith, C. & Wobst, H.M., 2005. Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonizing theory and practice. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Stout, D., 2002. Skill and cognition in stone tool production. Current Anthropology 43(5), 693–722.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taçon, P., 1991. The power of stone: symbolic aspects of stone use and tool development in Western Arnhem Land, Australia. Antiquity 65, 192–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taussig, M., 1980. The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America. Durham (NC): University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Taussig, M., 2009. What Color is the Sacred? Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tindale, N.B., 1965. Stone implement making among the Nakako, Ngadadjara, and Pitjandjara of the Great Western Desert. Records of the South Australian Museum (1965), 131–64.Google Scholar
Ucko, P.J. & Layton, R., 1999. The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape: Shaping your landscape. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Viveiros de Castro, E., 1998. Cosmological deixis and Amerindian perspectivism. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4(3), 469–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weedman, K. J., 2000. An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Stone Scrapers among the Gamo people of Southern Ethiopia. Doctoral dissertation, University of Florida.Google Scholar
Weedman, K. J., 2002. On the spur of the moment: effects of age and experience on hafted stone scraper morphology. American Antiquity 67(4), 731–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weedman, K.J., 2005. Gender and stone tools: an ethnographic study of the Konso and Gamo hideworkers of southern Ethiopia, in Gender and Hide Production, eds Frink, L. & Weedman, K.J.. Walnut Creek (CA): AltaMira, 175–96.Google Scholar
Weedman, K. J., 2006. An ethnoarchaeological study of hafting and stone tool diversity among the Gamo of Ethiopia. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 13(3), 188–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, R.H., 1990. Notes on the Underground: An essay on technology, society, and the imagination. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.Google Scholar