Mass and attribute analysis of the quartz lithic assemblage from the Grandfather Quarry (HbMd-4), near Granville Lake, Northern Manitoba
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Date
2013-09-09
Authors
Beardsell, Robert J.
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Abstract
Quarries are fixed locationally, whereas most seasonally abundant food resources in northern latitudes are not. Toolstone procurement must therefore be ‘factored in’ to other resource procurement strategies. As sources of useable toolstone, quarries are the logical starting point for the study of how stone tool-using societies organized their technologies in accordance with their subsistence and social needs. Yet they have often been ignored by archaeologists because of the logistical problems presented by their typically enormous and variable assemblages.
Quartz differs from more common, crypto-crystalline raw materials such as chert, flint or chalcedony. It is harder, more brittle, and has different fracture properties. It is less common archaeologically than crypto-crystalline toolstone, and archaeologists tend to either avoid quartz assemblages altogether, or to automatically and uncritically analyze them in the same manner as crypto-crystalline toolstones without considering their different properties.
The Grandfather Quarry (HbMd-4) offers an opportunity to address these problems at once. Using Lithic Technological Organization theory, a mass analysis (after Ahler 1989), modified and combined with an attribute analysis, demonstrates that this method is a useful tool for examining large, complex assemblages such as those found in quarry sites. While more time-consuming and labour-intensive than a standard mass analysis, the modified version allows for the collection of a large number of attribute data that lend robusticity to the results and provide academic rigour. This research also demonstrates that quartz assemblages can indeed be examined using the same methods as for other raw materials, provided the unique properties of quartz as a toolstone are considered. It is shown that although the overall quality of toolstone from this source is quite poor, the Grandfather Quarry was likely the only reliable source, or at least one of a very few reliable sources, of quartz toolstone in the Churchill River Basin. All useable toolstone was intensively exploited, but rare nodules of higher quality quartz were set aside for in situ reduction into cores, tools and bifaces.
Lastly, the unexpected discovery of microblade technology at the quarry opens new avenues for future research in the northern Manitoba Boreal Forest.
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Keywords
archaeology, lithic analysis, quarry studies, quartz, lithic technological organization