Time, Energy and Stone Tools
Time, Energy and Stone Tools
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USDTime, Energy and Stone Tools aims to refocus archaeological and anthropological interest in technology by demonstrating that theory-building is possible if tool manufacture and use are conceived as products of both environmental factors and social needs. Drawing particularly on optimisation theory in ecology, the eleven contributors examine within a broad spatial and temporal framework a wide range of variable including time, energy, raw materials, risk management and information flow and its place in social relationships. Most concentrate on hunter-gatherer adaptation but key papers examining the impact of agriculture and growing social complexity are also included. A challenging overview by Michael Jochim stresses at once the key role of theory in aiding our understanding of early technology and the embeddedness of tool use in the wider behavioural setting.
Product details
July 2009Paperback
9780521115285
136 pages
280 × 210 × 7 mm
0.32kg
Available
Table of Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1. Tools as optimal solutions Robin Torrence
- 2. From shopper to celt: the evolution of resharpening techniques Brian Hayden
- 3. The occupational history of sites and the interpretation of prehistoric technological systems: an example from Cedar Mesa, Utah Eileen Camilli
- 4. Trade or embedded procurement?: a test case from southern Illinois Carol A. Morrow and Richard W. Jefferies
- 5. Economies in raw material use by prehistoric hunter-gatherers Robert Jeske
- 6. Lithic technology and mobility strategies: the Koster site Middle Archaic Rochelle Lurie
- 7. Re-tooling: towards a behavioural theory of stone tools Robin Torrence
- 8. A cost-benefit study of the functionally similar tools Roger A. Boydston
- 9. Reliable and maintainable technological strategies in the Mesolithic of mainland Britain Andrew Myers
- 10. Assessing social information in material objects: how well do lithics measure up? Joan M. Gero
- 11. Optimisation and stone tool studies: problems and potential Michael A. Jochim
- References
- Index.
