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Module Description

The purpose of this module is to provide you with a set of analytical skills which you can bring to bear on stone artefact (lithic) assemblages.Ìý The skills should enable to conduct lithic analysis in both research and heritage management.Ìý The module will principally focus on lithic technology – the ways in which stone tools were made.Ìý Technology is the most readily accessible aspect of stone artefacts, and it is informative for anthropologically salient issues such as ancestor-descendant relationships among cultures, and comparisons of skill within societies and between species.Ìý We will also touch on the two other principal realms of stone tool analysis, provenancing – determining the geological source of artefacts; and use-wear and residues – determining the function of stone tools.Ìý The module will look at stone tool types and ways of production from across prehistory, including groundstone artefacts.Ìý The module will review the principal traditions of lithic technological analysis, in particular the French chaine operatoire and diacritical analysis approach, and the American reduction sequence and attribute analysis approach.Ìý Towards the end of the module we will look at some new 3D methods for lithic analysis.Ìý The module is fundamentally practical in nature, therefore you will be provided with your own artificial lithic assemblage of around 100 experimentally produced lithics designed to replicate artefacts from the Thames Valley.Ìý These lithics will be both for learning with during practicals and to analyse for your assessments.Ìý

Module Aims

On successful completion of this module, students will:

- know how to identify stone artefacts and differentiate them by technological class and material

- be familiar with some of the most prominent stone artefact types

- be able to illustrate stone tools, take a range of metric measurements on them, and determine the order of flake removals

- be capable of differentiating knapping technologies using qualitative and quantitative evidence

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this module, students will have learnt:

- to produce illustration and data driven reports

- practical application of different statistical techniques

Teaching Methods

The module is taught through lectures and practicals.ÌýStudents will be required to undertake set readings and examine the lithics provided to identify particular artefact types.Ìý