An Introduction to Stone Tool Life History and Technological Organization

Abstract

It is relatively easy for most people to understand differences in life histories with organisms such as dragonflies and mollusks, because these organisms undergo dramatic morphological transformations during their life histories. However, if we did not know that glochidia living in the gills of fish were the larval phase of mussels, we might classify them as totally different organisms because of their different appearance and different habitat. However, biologists have followed the life histories of these and countless other organisms and have demonstrated the metamorphoses that have taken place. Archaeologists working as taxonomists do not have the benefit of observing the life histories of stone tools. We find and record artifacts in a static state. However, as a result of replication experiments, renewed ethnographic observations, and detailed lithic analytical strategies, it has become apparent to researchers that lithic tools often undergo a series of transformations from the time they are produced or drafted into service until the time they are ultimately discarded. Such transformations relate to all manner of social and economic situations of the tool users. Tools are sharpened when they become dull. They are reconfigured or discarded when they are broken. They are modified to suit a certain task in a certain context. Their uses are often anticipated and they are produced in anticipation of those uses. These and countless other examples of tool transformations can be characterized as part of the life histories of lithic tools.

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