An Introduction to Stone Artifact Analysis

Abstract

Acquiring familiarity with the identification and analysis of stone artifacts is an important component of archaeological training and can be an important professional skill. Rather than review the huge diversity of approaches to lithic analysis, this chapter aims to arm the student of lithic technology with a set of principles to guide the construction of their research design. It alerts them to the philosophical underpinnings of various kinds of stone analysis, point to some simple but frequently overlooked issues of data management, and provides an overview of some common laboratory techniques and analyses. The chapter includes information on flintknapping, bipolar flaking, overhang removal, faceting, core rotation, retouching, and burination, and provides case studies and suggested readings that offer insight into the process of actually doing stone analysis. As stoneworking is a reductive technology, the measurement of the degree to which this process has progressed often forms the basis of many modern analyses.

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