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Diversity in mastic-mounted stone adzes and the use of mastic in precolonial South Africa: evidence from Steenbokfontein Cave

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Antonieta Jerardino
Antonieta Jerardino*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa, chopi@beattie.uct.ac.za
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Extract

Composite tools and hafted tools were used world-wide over the last 35,000 years, and possibly earlier than that (Boëda et al. 1996; Holdaway 1996). Evidence for the use of composite tools in South Africa is provided by a small number of arrows from ethnohistorical and archaeological collections (Binneman 1994; Deacon & Deacon 1999: 158–9), a handful of mounted stone artefacts, and a significant number of mastic stained stone artefacts from archaeological sites (Deacon & Deacon 1999). On the basis of the limited sample of near intact mounted artefacts found in South Africa, it appears that small scrapers were side-mounted (at almost 90° to the axis of the handle) and fixed asymmetrically by surrounding resin (Deacon & Deacon 1980: 31–2). Adzes, on the other hand, were end-mounted (on one extreme, and along the same plane, of the handle) and held by a large ovoid lump of mastic (Hewitt 1921; Goodwin & Van Riet Lowe 1929: plate 42; Sampson 1974: figure 105). From their analysis of the available material two decades ago, Deacon & Deacon (1980: 37) concluded that the size and form of the insert was determined largely by the mode of hafting.

Keywords

mastichaftingstone adzesSteenbokfontein CaveWestern Capesouthern Africa
Type
Special section
Information
Antiquity , Volume 75 , Issue 290 , December 2001 , pp. 859 - 866
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2001

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