Tiziana Gallo

Birdstones are an enigmatic and diverse group of objects found across eastern North America with concentrations around the Great Lakes region. Via specula- tive interpretations of form, analogical comparison with other regions, and consideration of basic contextual information, archaeologists think of birdstones as parts of canoes, flutes, unspecified ceremonial assemblages, and, most fre- quently, atlatls. Discourse and debate about birdstones largely neglects issues of material vibrancy and semiotic process, including the processes by which archae- ologists and others began to name and typify these objects in the late nineteenth century. This paper rethinks birdstones through a ‘more than representational’ approach that combines assemblage theory with Peircean semiotics. Although both lines of thought align with relational ontologies, non-representational critiques, and post-anthropocentrism, archaeologists rarely consider the two together. This approach helps us chart how birdstones emerged and evolved through a complicated set of human-nonhuman interactions that continue into the present.

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Quantitative microscopy characterizing the surface texture of wear traces has helped develop a more standardized chipped stone tool microwear practice. However, to date, these surface metrology methods have not been used to characterize ground stone tool surfaces. To expand the range of raw materials and tool types tested with these methods, we explore the application of imaging confocal microscopy for the quantification of an assemblage of experimental hoes, modelled after Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age artifacts from China. Surface texture properties of sediment wear are compared to wear from wooden hafts to identify whether confocal microscopy can distinguish between different wear types. The results show that there is a significant difference between sediment and hafting wear and suggests further research is needed to identify how experimental conditions affect polish measurements within wear types. This preliminary study indicates that imaging confocal microscopy has excellent potential for the quantification of microwear traces on ground stone tools and may contribute to our understanding of earth working tools in prehistory.

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Ground stone tools encompass a wide array of implements important in the economic organization of many prehistoric and early historic societies; however, functional analysis of ground stone artefacts has been relatively limited in comparison to chipped stone tools. The appearance of microwear on ground stone artefacts is normally
more complex and complicated than on chipped stone artefacts, as the mineral and textural components of the raw materials chosen for ground stone artefacts often are more heterogeneous. Currently, the baseline principles for analyzing microwear on ground stone artefacts are primarily based on the studies of non-cutting tools such as
grinding and abrading implements.
Our research uses experimental ground stone shovels and hoes crafted from oolitic dolomite to understand the
raw material's effect on microwear development and to distinguish the microwear patterns associated with
varying sediment conditions in the Neolithic and Early Bronze archaeological sites in the Middle Yellow River
and Lower Yangzi River in China. The research combines detailed petrographic analysis of the raw material,
measurement of the worked material's physical properties, and careful examination of microwear using both
high-power and low-power approaches. The results not only advance the methods for microwear analysis on
heterogeneous raw materials, but also enrich the microwear dataset for understanding earth-working activities
associated with ground stone tools. Applying our results to analysis of archaeological counterparts will add
additional lines of evidence to evaluate the importance of farming and construction activities in Neolithic and
Bronze Age subsistence systems.