H2020Индивидуална стипендия2022–2024

BaTEx · Wear traces on Basalt Tools: an Experimental case for archaeological interpretation

„Хоризонт 2020“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2022-10-01 → 2024-09-30
Финансиране от ЕС: 178 320 €
Участници: 1
Схема: MSCA-IF

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Следите от износване върху базалтови каменни инструменти се анализират чрез микроскопични техники и експерименти. Това помага да се разберат технологичните избори и начина на живот на древните хора.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

Wear traces on Basalt Tools: an Experimental case for archaeological interpretation

Basalt, in certain geographic and chronological contexts, was the most abundant—and sometimes the only—raw material used for manufacturing lithic implements. Due to its prevalence, basalt has provided valuable insights into the socioeconomic strategies and lifeways of hominins. Despite its widespread presence across numerous archaeological sites, researchers have faced challenges in establishing a unified methodology for studying basalt’s uses in prehistory. This gap has limited the ability to fully exploit basalt as a source for understanding hominin technological choices and subsistence strategies. Basalt thus remains an underutilized resource for establishing reference patterns of hominin behavioural variability across diverse geographic, chronological, and environmental contexts. The Wear Traces on Basalt Tools: An Experimental Case for Archaeological Interpretation (BaTEx) project aimed to address this gap by developing a robust methodological framework through the integration of macro- and microscopic techniques and experimental approaches to facilitate the study of use-wear on basalt. The project focused on (i) building a robust methodological framework through the integration of multiple macro- and microscopic techniques and experimentation to facilitate the study of use-wear on basalt; (ii) conducting a large-scale study of experimental and selected archaeological basalt tools; and (iii) exploiting these new data to deepen our understanding of technological choices and behavioural patterns while demonstrating basalt’s untapped potential.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

Basalt is one of the most common raw materials used for tool manufacture in many prehistoric sites. As a result, it is often the most important-and sometimes the only- source of information about the life and behaviour of early hominins. While studies related to the other aspects (i.e. knapping processes, tool variability) of these assemblages progress, systematic studies on how and what basalt tools were used for remain inexistent. This seriously limits the behavioural, evolutionary and cognitive interpretations of basalt assemblages. BaTEx aims to fill in this existing void by providing the necessary methodological framework using multiple macro- and microscopic techniques and experimentation to permit the functional analysis of basalt tools, and by understanding past exploitation strategies of basalt, its functional significance and its interaction with other raw materials at specific archaeological sites where basalt is important. To achieve this, the project will focus on: 1) Systematic experimentation for developing a reference collection; 2) Adaptation of standardized use-wear analytical methods to basalt; 3) Blind test to assess the robustness of the experimental corpus; 4) Evaluation of the impact of taphonomic processes on trace preservation; 5) Test the potential of use-wear quantification on basalt using surface morphometry and spatial analysis of rough surfaces; and 6) Use the experimental results in archaeological case-studies by means of a traceological study on a selection of archaeological tools hereby demonstrating the validity and the potential of the method. The expected impact of the project is that it will provide functional data on basalt tools allowing, for the first time, to fully study and interpret human activities at key archaeological sites and to properly address technological issues, subsistence patterns and even behavioural and cognitive aspects of basalt assemblages, which cannot yet be faced in the current stage of research.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

UNIVERSITE DE LIEGE · LIEGEКоординаторБелгия