Nicola Stern

Technological Organization

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Date: 27-10-2016

DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199766567-0158

Abstract: In the English-speaking world, technological organization—also referred to as the organization of technology—is the predominant interpretative framework for inferring what the features of stone artifact assemblages can tell us about past human behavior, regardless of their chronological or geographical distribution. Lewis Binford originally conceived of technological organization as “the organizational characteristics within a technology which may be manipulated differently to effect acceptable adaptations for different situations” (see Binford 1979, cited under Technological Organization and Mobility, p. 255). Since then, technological organization has come to be defined more formally as “the study of the selection and integration of strategies for making, using, transporting, and discarding tools and the materials needed for their manufacture and maintenance” (see Nelson 1991, cited under General Overviews, p. 57). Studies of technological organization seek to investigate how stone tool technology can solve adaptive problems. This approach developed from ethnoarchaeological studies of the relationships among artifact assemblages, subsistence activities, and land-use patterns—such as John Yellen’s observations of the !Kung bushmen in the Kalahari Desert (see Yellen’s Archaeological Approaches to the Present: Models for Reconstructing the Past, New York: Academic Press, 1977), and Lewis Binford’s study of the Nunamiut Eskimos in Alaska (see Binford’s Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology, New York: Academic Press, 1978). The literature on technological organization has identified a number of archaeological “signatures” for organizational differences that reflect different patterns of land use and planning (see Binford and Stone’s “Righteous Rocks” and Richard Gould: Some Observations on Misguided “Debate,” American Antiquity 50.1 (1985): 151–153). While this literature is vast, an overall sense of cohesion is lacking. This article identifies the key literature on the organization of technology, the different problems it can investigate, and how these problems can be approached. It is ided into eight parts: (1) general overviews, (2) fundamental principles of this approach, (3) analytical strategies using time and risk as measures, (4) the relationship between mobility and technology, (5) features of stone artifact assemblages from which information about mobility can be generated, (6) the impact of artifact use-life and the probability of discard on archaeological visibility, (7) ex les of technological strategies that have been identified in the archaeological record, and (8) tool design.

Late Pleistocene lake level history of Lake Mungo, Australia

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 06-2020

DOI: 10.1016/J.QUASCIREV.2020.106338

Symbolic behaviour and the peopling of the southern arc route to Australia

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 06-2009

DOI: 10.1016/J.QUAINT.2008.10.002

Holocene and recent aeolian reactivation of the Willandra Lakes lunettes, semi-arid southeastern Australia

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 29-01-2019

DOI: 10.1177/0959683618824790

Abstract: The Willandra Lakes in semi-arid southeastern Australia provide some of the most continuous combined palaeoenvironmental and archaeological records on the continent. These are best preserved within the transverse shoreline (lunette) dunes on their downwind margins. Following final lake retreat c. 15 ka avulsion of the dominant fluvial inflow eastwards, the Willandra lunettes periodically reactivated, experiencing erosion, aeolian redeposition and alluvial sheetwash. These reworked sedimentary archives reflect regional climatic conditions rather than those of the entire catchment. Yet the focus of most study in the region to date has remained on the late Pleistocene. The general paucity of Holocene data has contributed to a perception that people largely abandoned the area in favour of the perennial Murray and Darling Rivers to the south and west. Our study reconstructs past geomorphological conditions and patterns of human mobility in adjacent Lakes Mungo and Durthong over the last c. 15 ka subsequent to final lake retreat, including the most recent 150 years since Europeans established pastoralism in the region. Our data show that Indigenous people did not abandon the area as previously assumed, but developed effective strategies for responding to the changed environmental conditions. Final lake retreat transitioned into a phase of aeolian accumulation c. 15–12 ka, indicating locally dry conditions. Subsequent aeolian reactivation peaked during arid phases experiencing less rainfall in the early Holocene and twice in the most recent 1000 years prior to European settlement in the area. Alluvial sheetwash was deposited onto lake floors during the mid-Holocene, and again in the early decades of European settlement. Aeolian reactivation, likely driven by European pastoral activities, increases in the most recent 150 years. Our study underscores the necessity of integrating geomorphological and archaeological investigations over landscape scales in order to optimise our understanding of interactions between people and their environment through time.

FxJj43: A window into a 1.5-million-year-old palaeolandscape in the Okote Member of the Koobi Fora Formation, northern Kenya

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 11-03-2002

DOI: 10.1002/GEA.10018

Fish otolith microchemistry: Snapshots of lake conditions during early human occupation of Lake Mungo, Australia

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 2018

DOI: 10.1016/J.QUAINT.2016.10.026

The microstratigraphic investigation of hearth features at Lake Mungo, Australia

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 12-2022

DOI: 10.1016/J.JASREP.2022.103711

Establishing the integrity and stratigraphic origin of stone artefact scatters on the surface of the Lake Mungo lunette in south-eastern Australia

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 06-2017

DOI: 10.1016/J.JASREP.2017.05.002

Special Research Initiatives - Grant ID: SR200200357

Start Date: 2021

End Date: 12-2024

Amount: $261,172.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP150100487

Start Date: 03-2015

End Date: 09-2022

Amount: $472,343.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Linkage Projects - Grant ID: LP0775058

Start Date: 04-2007

End Date: 12-2009

Amount: $570,884.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP1092966

Start Date: 2010

End Date: 07-2015

Amount: $652,000.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE140100151

Start Date: 2014

End Date: 12-2015

Amount: $400,000.00

Funder: Australian Research Council