MID-LATE HOLOCENE TOALEAN SITES IN SOUTH SULAWESI: A TECHNOLOGICAL ANALYSIS.

The prehistoric archaeologist's resource base is often comprised of lithics which, due to their durability-, often serve as one of the foremost indicators of past cultural activities. As a result archaeology has conducted much research into stone artefacts, and many different approaches to the analysis of lithic technologies have developed, each concentrating on specific aspects. In the past the analysis of lithic materials usually took the form of a typological approach which aimed to divide stone artefacts into types on the basis of the presence and/or absence of specific attnbutes. As a result these traditional typological analyses tended to concentrate on the identification of formal tools and by and large neglected the analysis of the unused manufacturing byproducts, or debitage. In more recent times the importance of stone debitage analysis using systematic techniques has been recognised. One of the first archaeologists to have understood the value of technological analysis was Donald Crabtree who argued that "the final finishing stage in the production of many types of stone tools serves to erase the visible traces of previous stages in the lithic reduction process, so one must examine quarry and workshop debris in order to go beyond typological considerations and discover technological processes in stone tool production"( In Ritchie & Gould 1985:35). Indeed the neglect of debitage may be criticised on the basis that " being an immediate byproduct of manufacturing activity, debitag. Download di sini