How to Record Stone Tools: Workshop Blog by Arushi Dalal

Archaeology, ancient history and stone tools: how fascinating do all these words sound to you? Well, they certainly do to me or to anyone at Speaking Archaeologically, a.k.a. the College History Association that has gone too far. Which is why, on the fine Sunday morning of August 11, 2019, as Lord Indra of the Vedas  showered his blessings on his human subjects relentlessly, I headed towards the Natural History Museum in Chandigarh.

 It was a nostalgic feeling for me, as the venue for workshop was near my Alma mater. As a student of arts, I had attended numerous workshops, but this one was going to be different, as this one was about stone tools and not much artsy. I was excited as this was the first workshop of the season 2019-2020 at Speaking Archaeologically conducted by one of the members of the Research Wing, Mayank Singh.  We were asked to come prepared with graphs, pencils and tracing papers in advance, so I did.

As I stepped into the museum, I saw a group of Homo sapiens sitting on the floor and all dedicatedly hanging onto every word of an Alauddin Khilji lookalike. Ohh! Wait a minute! That was our instructor for the day, Mayank.

  

 So, how did the Stone Age begin? you ask me. I think the answer is fairly obvious:

 1.Caveman discovers weed

 2.Caveman discovers fire

 3. Stone age begins

 Interesting theory, isn't it?

On a serious note, the Stone Age began when one of those mind boggling hominin species came up with the brilliant idea that if you cannot break open a nut with your own teeth, use a rock instead!

How do we know that? Archaeologists are good at dating- but the only things they date are artefacts, using various radioactive techniques. (Please leave your sympathies for the instructor in the comment box).

The lecture began with a brief account on the importance of lithic assemblages, the classification of the objects obtained and their identification. The lithic assemblages not only contain stone tools, but also the raw material and the debitage.

The Paleolithic period however, has been attributed by certain older anthropologists to the origin of the genus Homo while some others hold the family of the Australopithecus responsible. Over the course of human evolution, the stone tools evolved and so did the technology associated with their production. The lithic studies hence, help us to understand the evolution of humans in terms of culture as well as the advancement of their cognitive abilities.  (Gracious! Feels like, this is just information told in the fashion of a nationalist historian with a Victorian hangover writing a history book, isn't it? But just bear with me, please!)

We were then introduced to the production of stone tools using various methods such as soft hammer and hard hammer technique, levalloisian technique, anvil or block and block technique and how these resulted into different types of stone tools because pretty soon our ape-like ancestors figured out that the stones could be knapped after all. There was also a general introduction to the various stages of stone tools, namely, Lower Palaeolithic, Middle Palaeolithic, Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic and the various stone tools found in these periods. One such Neolithic stone tools is known as iStone (256gb please!).

The production of stone tools also produced debitage in the form of exhausted cores and flakes removed from the core during the modification of stone tools. The kind of the assemblage at a particular site helps us to identify the techniques used for the stone tool production. Too much use of technical words, no? In awe, I looked at Shriya, an archaeologist, who definitely came prepared with answers to all the questions that people keep asking her...

"NO, IT'S NOT AT ALL LIKE INDIANA JONES!"

"NO, WE DO NOT DIG DINOSAURS!"

"NO, IT WASN'T ALIENS!"

So, moving on to the next module of the workshop, which dealt with the analysis of stone tools:

The collection of lithics from the field sure seems fun, but, all this is of no importance if not studied properly. The analysis deals with the classification of the material collected from the site into categories like - finished/unfinished tools, flakes, cores and debitage. All of these are important for an archaeologist, depending upon what aspect of the population (s)he wants to study. 

Our poor fellow-mate-turned-instructor provided us insights into how the dimensions of the tools are recorded using a sliding calliper. These dimensions help us in further classifying the material obtained. The other aspects of analysis are type of material, the number of flake scars on the tool, the position of striking platform etc. Turns out it solely depends on the researcher how many aspects he wants to study. 

Then came the part which I was most excited about: DRAWING THE STONE TOOLS!

 Though, it was not our usual drawing class, it was fun. We clipped our graph and tracing paper together and kept our tools on the sheet. Using clay, we made sure that the edge of tool was parallel to the surface of the sheet. Then using the Set-squares the perimeter of the tool was drawn and the contouring of the flakes done accordingly. The drawing of the tools was important as this helped us in showcasing a lot more details than the photographs.

       

All of the participants tried their hands at taking measurements and drawing the stone tools and it sure was a fun activity. 

The workshop ended… Dobby is a free elf,

Dobby serves no master! 

We all then had a tour of the lithic collection housed at the Natural History Museum, meanwhile Shriya discussing about the next workshop to be conducted (that's her!) along with coffee and giggles! All in all, it was very informative workshop and we all eagerly wait for more like this one. Also, I would like to be buried with a few stone tools, some later date pottery sherds, a couple of medieval coins and an elephant bone… just to confuse future archaeologists!

      Final outcome 

Happy kids working at Speaking Archaeologically

Few more happy kids working at Speaking Archaeologically