A Primer on Lithics: A Lecture by Dr. James N. Cole

 I remember the first day of my undergraduate History class. Our professor had shown some Acheulean handaxes, and one of my classmates just observed ,"But how do you know this is a stone tool? It's just a piece of stone!"

I think that aptly sums up my experience with lithics, till the day I sat for Dr. James N. Cole's lecture.

This time when Dr. Cole's lecture on the lithics got finalized and we got to know about the dates, there was a subtle difference in the way I perceived it. I was now a student of Archaeology, already two months into my Masters. Did it make a difference to the way I would approach the lecture? I don't think there was, barring the fact that I had heard the word "lithics" in my last two months for at least a hundred times, in the classroom discussions.

Okay, I will be brutally honest about how I first approached the lecture. I was obviously elated to have Dr. Cole back, and get to listen to him once more. But why, lithics? Out of everything else? The last time he came to speak, it was cannibalism and wow, what an eye-brow raising, sensational topic it was? Lithics, so far as I knew till then (italics to be noted) was supposed to be the stuff of the most boring classroom lectures and heated academic debate among aging archaeologists (looking back at their past collections and fancying upon them?) I knew technical terms like "discoids" and "end scrapers", which you can throw at the face of an unassuming audience and blow them off their senses. Even an axe has to be held with hands? Wow!

I think Dr. Cole was reading my mind by sitting on the other side of the screen, and he really explained the most basic of the basic terminologies and concepts of lithics. His lecture started with the concepts of core, flake, handaxe, hammerstone, distal and ventral side, flaking and so on. He followed the framework of the "Lithic Modes", first proposed by Graham Clark and then later modified and critiqued by other scholars. Dr. Cole started with the "Lomekwian" industry, which is the earliest culture identified with the Lomekwi 3 type-site of Kenya, Africa. His lecture then followed the chronology of lithic cultures, from Oldowan through Acheulean and Magdalenian and right into the Neolithic cultures. He went into the finer details of the different assemblages, and yet managed to keep it all precise and engaging. Dr. Cole was kind enough to include the last bit on Mesolithic and Neolithic into his lecture, because hardly will you find any academician going beyond his/her area of research and engaging in a lecture on that. Again, he switched on his table lamp and showed us the tool specimens closely under light. That was a visual treat for me, sitting on the other side of a digital screen, separated by timezones and miles of physical distance. It felt like a loving teacher engaging with his close students, and the warmth of expression was overwhelming.

Dr. Cole always makes you think and think deeper, through some subtle comments and observations that he throws in between his lectures. He made me think why some of our observations on the so-called "finished tools" may be faulty, and again, he made it a point to highlight how the rich repertoire of organic assemblage lies ignored and under-researched. This time, it was not just a footnote in some academic paper on lithics, but actually a bold reiterating on his part. He also observed the possibility of handaxes and massive handaxes (one of his specializations) having some socio-cultural significance.

     

Praises and questions, in equal measure, flew in at the end of his "long" lecture (it did not feel too long, but time flew by, unknowingly). Here was another exciting moment for a student of archaeology, when Dr. Parth Chauhan and Dr. James Cole got involved into a stimulating short exchange on the near absence of cleavers in the European Palaeolithic record, and some other questions. What more did I need to end this wonderful session than to bear witness to this marvelous sight. 

                 

A Personal Note: Apologies, if I sounded too "un-objective" and used to many "loaded" statements. After all, Archaeology does not offer me too much of that privilege. But yes, I emerged a little bit more stronger and knowledgeable about lithics, and these words might suffice my gratitude to Dr. Cole for all of that.