Variation in the shape of polished and beveled stone tools as a result of small decisions within borders of shared manufacturing practice

Petr Pajdla
27th August 2020

EAA 2020 Session 268: Rhythms, Routines and Repetition against Culture

Poster here: https://eaa2020stonevariation.onrender.com/
Slides here: https://rpubs.com/knytt/eaa2020stonevariation1

Introduction

What causes changes in the shape ofpolished and beveled stone tools?

Variation in shape of LBK adzes, side view

Problem

The variation in shape can occur in (at least) two points in time:

  • During the manufacturing process
  • During the use and reparations of the tool

Idealized manufacture process (Toth 1992)

The case of LBK pottery

Simplified model of pottery traditions in the LBK (Claßen 2009)

  • exogamy (changing place of residence): women from one pottery tradition comes to a region with a different tradition
  • learning: the newcomer adopts the local main motif of decoration learned from local women
  • change: happens in form of adding secondary motifs of decoration that the newcomer brings from her home community

Implications of the model

  • Change happens only at a certain moment of time: when the newcomer comes into the community and is combining the local and foreign motifs
  • No space for individual invention and agency.

Model for polished and beveled stone tools

If we apply the same model on the polished and beveled stone tools:

Men are mostly local (e.g. Bentley 2012)
→ no foreign input → no change in case of polished stone tools?

Therefore…

  • There is a shared idea of both the:
    • shared manufacturing practice and
    • ideal shape the final artefact will take.

  • Both of these are learned…

  • The variation originates from small decisions taken during the process of manufacture.

Conclusion

The decisions leading to variability in shape and size of polished and beveled stone tools are initially small and insignificant caused by personal preference, skill, technological necessity or a combination of these and cumulatively result in a larger and significant outcome (inspired by the tyranny of small decisions).