Lithic Analysis -Braun

Lithic Analysis

Semester: Fall 2017,

Meeting Time and Place:Thursday 11:10-13:00Philips 510

Instructor: Prof. David Braun (SEH 6690)

Contact information:

“Understanding does not come self-evidently from the
material remains.”
Amick and Mauldin 1989
“Lithic Analysis…It’s a sharp subject!.”
Arthur Jelinek 1999 / “To an increasing degree, scholars are turning away from a narrow concern with artefact morphology and are making determined attempts to investigate the behaviour patterns of early man.”
Glynn Isaac 1967

Course Description:

About this course

How do human interact with their environment? How long have humans been making tools? Are the tools that humans make different from those made by other animals? How do humans display information about their culture through the objects they make?To answer these questions, we need to make an in-depth investigation into the field of Lithic Analysis. This is a graduate seminar that will provide a baseline knowledge of stone tools in the past. By the end of this course we want you “Think Like aLithic Analyst”. In this sense we want you to be able to integrate the theories and methodologies that allow us to understand how and why humans made and modified stone to make them into tools.

Although the field of lithic analysis can sometimes be extremely varied and include details as disparate as microscopic approaches to tool edges as well as the geochemical characterization of stone artifacts, in the end you need to know why and how stone tools are made and used. To date stone artifacts, represent the largest single repository of information about the human past.

What Will You Be Doing?

You will be investigating details of the archaeological record that deal with the measurement and analysis of stone artifacts.You will investigate how archaeologist can craft information about the archaeological record from stone artifacts. We will start with the empirical data about how we measure and classify stone tools and then build out to major theories about the variation of stone artifacts.

The course is structured around a series of questions or debates that deal with specific perspectives on stone artifacts.You will investigate each of these separate debates and questions with an eye towards understanding behavioral systems. You will focus on the material evidence as well as its interpretation, but also an understanding of the major questions confronting archaeologists (see below), methods of inquiry, and problem solving.

You will become acquainted with the major questions about how we can extract behavior from stone artefacts. Such as:

-Why do we find concentrations of stone artefacts in some places?

-How do archaeologists know what humans were doing with stone tools?

-How do we know why some artifacts are found in certain places and others not?

-Can stone tools tell us something about big questions surrounding the uniqueness of humans?

-Can stone tools tell us about what people ate in the past?

-Can stone tools tell us about conflict and group dynamics in the past?

What can you do to succeed in this course?

Take ownership of the learning process

What you get out of this course will be directly related to how much you put into it. In order to get the most out of our class time, your peers will rely on you to do “prep” work in advance. Depending on the topic, this prep work might involve reading a set of articles, submitting text on-line, filling out a survey, giving feedback on a written assignment, or creating a list of discussion questions.

Interact and collaborate with your classmates

You always learn more from your peers than you will from me. Your classmates are a valuable resource to help you fill in holes in your understanding, provide feedback on your work, and expose you to a different perspective than your own. Make a commitment to work both inside and outside of class.

Engage with the material

With all of the material you consider in this course, I want you do keep these questions in mind: What are the main points? How is this relevant to your overall understanding of human behavior? What do you not understand? For material you don’t feel you have mastery of, what action could you take to patch your understanding?

About Me

I have spent my career working on excavations all over Africa (Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Africa). Most of my research involves the early part of the archaeological record. I have spent every summer since college in Kenya. I lived in South Africa for 6 years. I have been studying stone tools for as long as I can remember. I still think they are some of the most interesting aspects of the archaeological record.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Learn the details of major questions that Lithic Analysts are interested in. Be able to understand how these theoretical perspectives are developed.
  2. Develop an appreciation for how we derive significant understanding of human behavior using stone artifacts.
  3. Identify the details of stone artifacts and how they can be measured. Understand how we develop inferences of behavior from stone artifacts.
  4. Understand the difficulties with interpretation of stone artifacts and the difference between inference and data.
  5. Reflect on how your own particular perspective (bias) on the past makes you more or less likely to accept certain claims about the archaeological record.
  6. Recognize the unique perspective provided by the single largest record of human behavior on the planet.

Short Term Assessments

1)In class formative assessments: Over the length of the course you will be expected to interact with the readings in in class activities. These activities will be done as a group or individually. These are developed in a manner that allows you to think critically about the readings and employ this knowledge by applying it to specific situations. It will be difficult to do these in class assessments without doing the reading. There will also short mini-quizzes that will occur at the end of class. These are largely focused on making sure you understood the material from that class so I know what to cover better.

2)Presentation of a research paper: Over the course of the semester we will read several articles about lithic analysis. You will be required to summarize an article at least 3 times during the course of the semester. A template for summarizing these articles will be provided.

3)In class summative assessments: During the course there will be several assignments that identify your ability to integrate information across the lectures. These will usually take the form of short written retrieval questions that ask you to write a quick answer to a question from a previous class.

4)In class Exam: This exam will take place in the middle of the semester and test your ability to integrate ideas from the first half of the course. It will largely be based on the readings from the class.

Long Term Assessments

Research Paper Prospectus

You will develop an idea for an independent research project. That research project will involve the collection of original data and your own personal analysis of that data. In the 4th week of the semester you will develop a proposal for this research project. There will be detailed instructions on exactly what this proposal should look like. You should consult with me about the feasibility of your research project well before the 4th week of class.

Research Paper

You will be able to prepare an abstract and write an evidence-based research paper based on the original data you collect for the courses. This paper will be in the form of a research project and will involve the analysis of original lithic analysis data. Further details on this paper will be forthcoming.

Final Exam

This exam will be a cumulative assessment for the whole course. It will be a series of questions that you have to answer by extracting information from the readings and in class activities. It will be a take home exam and expected to be referenced.

Course Schedule

Week / Topics and Major Questions / In (After) Class Activity / Assessments / Readings
1 / Introduction to Lithic Analysis / What do you know about Lithic Analysis?
Introductions / Tools and their features
2 / Middle Range Research and Stone Tools
-How do We Understand What Stone Artifacts Mean? / Develop a middle range research project / Mini-quiz, Retrieval Question / Binford, Gifford-Gonzalez, Shea, Dibble
3 / Fracture Mechanics and Knapping Experiments
-How Do We Know What Features Are Important? / Measure the Mechanical Properties of Stone. / Controlled Vs. Non-Controlled: Inference vs.Data?
Mini-quiz, Retrieval Question / Dibble And rezre, Magnani, Archer et al., Cotterel and Kamminga, Braun
4 / Typology
-How Do We Group Artifacts? / Create a Bordian Graph for Practice Assemblage. / Mini-quiz, Retrieval Question / Brown, Dibble and Debenath, Ford, Spaulding, Steward, Gowlett, Shea
5 / Style Vs. Function
-What Does Variation Mean? / Reduction Intensity-Which Method Works Best / Mini-quiz, Retrieval Question / Bordes, Binford, Barton, Sackett, Dibble, Close, Eren
6 / The Curation Concept
-What the Heck is Curation, Why Should I Care? / Is It Curated? Use Different Definitions.
Develop Curation Curves / Project Prospectus Due / Binfod, Shott, Shott+Silllitoe, Andrefsky
7 / Technological Organization
-Can We Tell Something About The Organization of Toolkits from their Forms? / Calculate the Cortex Ratio.
1 minute thesis / Peer review of ProjectProspectus
Mini-quiz, Retrieval Question / Bamforth, Miliken, Kuhn, Morrow, Nelson, Holdaway and Douglass, Shott
8 / Projectiles or Not?
-Can We Determine if A Stone Tool Was A Projectile? / Diagnostic Impact Fractures---Let’s Spear a Pig (or at least their ribs)! / Mini-quiz, Retrieval Question / Shea, Lombard, Villa, Wilkins, Sahle
9 / Reduction Sequence Versus ChaineOperatoire
-Who Is Right Americans or the French about Lithic Analysis / Diacretic Models-How Good Are They?
Reduction Sequences- How Good Are They at predicting the Past? / Mini-quiz, Retrieval Question
Project Update Presentations. / Shott, Conard, Braun, Tostevin, Soressi, Van Peer,
10 / In Class Test
11 / Dr. Braun in Argnetina
12 / Stone Tools and Evolution
-Do Stone Tools Evolve? / The Muddiest Point Exercise / Bettinger Model of Stone Tool Evolution- Apply to an Assemblage / Bettinger, Eerkens, Fitzhugh, Lycett-Norton, Powell, Mesoudi,
13 / Lithic Sourcing
-How do we Know Where Rocks Come From? / Which Technique Should I Use? / Inference VS. Data (GRID): Lithic Sourcing Data
Mini-quiz, Retrieval Question / Braun, Eerkens, Shackley, Frahm, Stevens
13 / Cognition and Stone Tools
-Can We Tell What they Were Thinking? / Information Chains-How Do They Work? / Mini-quiz, Retrieval Question / Wynn+Tierson, McPherron, Davidson+Noble, Stout, Nonaka, Tennie et al.
14 / Final Presentations / Final Paper Due

The following material is required information for a syllabus in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences:

Grading

The grades will be calculated as follows:

  1. Class discussion (5%)
  2. Mini-quizzes and Retrieval Questions (8%)
  3. Article summaries (8%)
  4. In Class Activities (8%)
  5. In class exam (16%)
  6. Project prospectus (20%)
  7. Final Paper (35%)

Support For Students Outside The Classroom

Disability Support Services (DSS) (see also above under “Exams”)

Any student who may need an accommodation based on the potential impact of a disability should contact the Disability Support Services office at 202-994-8250 in the Marvin Center, Suite 242, to establish eligibility and to coordinate reasonable accommodations. For additional information please refer to:

University Counseling Center (UCC)202-994-5300

The University Counseling Center (UCC) offers 24/7 assistance and referral to addressstudents'personal, social, career, and study skillsproblems. Services for students include:

-crisis and emergency mental health consultations

-confidential assessment, counseling services (individual and small group), and referrals

Security

In the case of an emergency, if at all possible, the class should shelter in place. If the building that the class is in is affected, follow the evacuation procedures for the building. After evacuation, seek shelter at a predetermined rendezvous location.

University policy on observance of religious holidays

In accordance with University policy, students should notify faculty during the first week of the semester of theirintention to be absent from class on their day(s) of religious observance. For details and policy, see: students.gwu.edu/accommodations-religious-holidays.

Academic integrity code

Academic dishonesty is defined as cheating of any kind, including misrepresenting one's own work, taking credit for the work of others without crediting them and without appropriate authorization, and the fabrication of information. For details and complete code, see: studentconduct.gwu.edu/code-academic-integrity

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