Maney Publishing

Stone Tools and Society: Working Stone in Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain by MarkEdmondsReview by: Christopher A. BergmanLithic Technology, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring 1999), pp. 69-70Published by: Maney PublishingStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23273191 .

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69

- BOOK REVIEWS -

Stone Tools and Society: Working Stone in Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain, by Mark Edmonds. B.T. Batsford, Ltd., London (1995).

Reviewed bv Christopher A. Bergman.

Stone Tools and Society presents a good discus sion of stone tools during the Neolithic and early metalworking periods of Great Britain. This book is one in a series of recently published volumes

(see, for example, Steven Rosen's Lithics after the Stone Age: a Handbook of Stone Tools from the

Levant, Altamira Press) that provide insights into the role of lithic tools and materials on the lifeways of later prehistoric peoples.

Edmonds begins his account with a brief over view of approaches utilized in the analysis of lithic

technological organization. He criticizes the view that posits artifacts as "things," divorced from the traditions and lived experiences of their users.

Archaeologists have all too frequently regarded technology as merely an interface between people and nature that is applied in response to a need for efficient resource exploitation. Such a position

neglects the complex interior world of a society that links resource procurement and tool use to such diverse concepts as personal identity, kin

ship, place, and the ancestral past. This volume

represents an attempt to examine Neolithic and

Bronze Age stoneworking within the social con sciousness of people inhabiting Britain between the 4th and 1st millennium BC.

Early Neolithic settlement patterns and sub sistence strategies included seasonal mobility, dispersed communities, limited woodland clear

ance, and small-scale horticulture as an adjunct to animal husbandry. Within this context, modi

fications to the Mesolithic treatment of stone have

been documented with regard to procurement, manufacturing, and functional trajectories. For

example. Early Neolithic assmeblages display a

dramatic increase in the number of bifacial tools

made by invasive percussion and pressure flak

ing. Technological and typological continuity with

the Mesolithic can be detected, however, in blade

and bladelet production, as well as through tool

forms such as the enigmatic "rods" and serrated

flakes (microdenticulates).

Procurement and exchange systems are cov ered in Chapter 3, which deals with ground stone

axes, perhaps the most distinctive products of

early Neolithic tool manufacture. In a manner similar to raw material analyses conducted in

North America, there has been considerable effort in Britain over the past 60 years in pursuing penological research on lithic sources. Twenty five maj or groups of raw materials utilized for axes have been identified in Britain and to this list can be added materials imported from Ireland, Scandinavia, and the continent. A significant feature of Early Neolithic raw material procure ment is the actual mining, as opposed to open cast

extraction, of high quality flint. Locations such as Harrow Hill in Sussex attest to sustained and directed social activity aimed at obtaining usable rock.

The flint mines and outcrops, such as the Great

Langdale rhyolite source (well known even to modern knappers), along with earthen enclosures and causeways, where highly visible aspects of the Neolithic landscape. As such, they were a focal

point for community interaction that probably stretched beyond a single kinship or social group ing. Edmonds believes that the space physically demarcated by an enclosure may have been a location at which social rites and activities related to the dead could be safely undertaken. The

deposition of lithic artifacts, including deliber

ately broken examples, among human remains at these locations undoubtedly reaffirmed the

community's relationship to the landscape.

The Later Neolithic period is characterized by small-scale settlements displaying decreased resi dential mobility. During this period, henge monu ments and stone circles were erected and new

emphasis was placed on embedding personal or

group identity within tool form. For example, the

highly distinctive carved stone balls, displaying motifs also found in passage grave art, seem to

provide a portable point-of-reference for an indi vidual within the larger Neolithic social context.

It was during the Later Neolithic that fine black flint began to be removed from chalk deposits at Grimes Graves, Suffolk. The flint mining opera tion at this location was the largest in Britain, with

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70 Lithic Technology, volume 24, no. l

as many as 500 galleried shafts. Extraction was

apparently seasonally based and continued into the Bronze Age, spanning some 400 years. In a manner similar to the pipestone quarries of Min

nesota, Edmonds posits that numerous commu nities probably utilized Grimes Graves and treated the location as a place to further social and economic interaction.

As evidenced in other parts of the world, the introduction of metal, for the most part, had little initial impact on stoneworking. Bronze Age knappers continued with procurement trends and artifact styles developed in the Neolithic. Al

though some scholars have cited a renaissance in

flintknapping during the period, this is unjusti fied except for a restricted range of artifacts. In

particular, wafer-thin barbed and tangled arrow heads and leaf-shaped daggers were among the

items manufactured by "people accorded a mea sure of status as specialists." It is interesting to note that some of the finest products of the late

prehistoric knapper's art were relegated to funeraiy contexts and the realm of the dead.

This well-illustrated volume presents not only a thorough account of the social dynamics of lithic

technology during later European prehistory, but also a useful overview of Britain's Neolithic and Bronze Age periods. Although the author recog nizes that piying into the mind of prehistoric people carries with it the danger of mere specula tion, he seldom allows his analysis to suffer from

over-interpretation. The past is indeed set in

stone, but Edmonds delivers an interesting re

working of its facets, providing some new insights into the social aspects of lithic technology.

The Fisher Site: Archaeological, Geological and Paleobotanical Studies at an Early Paleo Indian Site in Southern Ontario, Canada by Peter Storck, with contributions by Betty E. Eley, Q.H.J. Gwyn, J.H. McAndrews, André Nolin, An drew Stewart, John Tomenchuk, and Peter H. von Bitter. Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, No. 30. Ann Arbor, MI (co

published by the Royal Ontario Museum), xvi +

311 pages, 96 figures, 81 plates, 94 tables (1997).

Reviewed by William S. Dancy, Ohio State.

Systematic investigation of the Fisher site in the southern Georgian Bay region of south-cen tral Ontario Museum (ROM) began in 1975 with a modest surface collection. The discoveiy at that time of fluted points and debitage in two concen trations led to three seasons of intensive research between 1976 and 1980. As test excavation, block excavation, and surface collection progressed, 19 artifact concentrations distributed over 22 ha were documented, 10 of which contained Barnes

type fluted points, diagnostic of the Paleo-lndian Parkhill Complex.

The site was unknown to local collectors before 1975 and It was discovered as part of a long-term ROM program concerned with the age, technol

ogy, and adaptation of Paleo-Indian occupations of southern Ontario. By the time field research

was terminated, nine of the concentrations had been tested and 1,448 artifacts, along with more than 30,000 pieces of debitage, had been col lected, all of them assignable to the Parkhill

Complex. While no subsurface cultural features were discovered, the mapping of plowzone arti facts produced one of the most detailed descrip tions of a Paleo-Indian locality in eastern North America. The monograph under review here pre sents a complete summary of the field and labora

tory archaeological research at Fisher and the results of geobotanical, paleontological, and geo logical studies.

Following a brief review of previous research on the Parkhill Complex, Chapter 1 summarizes the

histoiy of field investigations and identifies the research problems that evolved through the five

year period of field work. After the initial discov

ery, as awareness grew of the large number of artifact clusters present at the site and the re stricted period of their accumulation, a four-fold research design was forged: (1) to document the artifact clusters, (2) to examine a significant num ber of the clusters for evidence of structures and facilities and to collect dating samples and sub sistence remains, (3) to determine the relation

ships of the human occupation to glacial Lake

Algonquin and the character of the local environ ment, and (4) to find the source of the cherts used at the site.

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