'To be or not to be...' A Taphonomic Perspective on Pseudoartifacts

BORRAZZO, KAREN

Washington

Congreso; 83rd Annual Meeting Society for American Archaeology; 2018

Society for American Archaeology

An anthropocentric perspective governs most of archaeological research into lithic assemblages. Hence, spatial and morphological trends in the lithicrecord are interpreted primarily in terms of human technological behavior without a systematic assessment of unintentional and/or non-human factorsas sources of variation. Surprisingly, controversies on the natural vs. anthropic character of several lithic assemblages or ?industries? did not prompt theadoption of taphonomic approaches by lithic analysts on a regular basis. Here I argue that archaeologist?s lack of knowledge about the effects oftaphonomic mechanisms -whether natural or cultural- on stone and other knappable materials is the main obstacle towards a more comprehensiveanalysis of lithic assemblages. Furthermore, I propose that the study of taphonomic patterns (or background noise) in non-archaeological contexts is amandatory task that researchers need to undertake in every region to achieve a more thorough understanding of lithic assemblage formationprocesses and trends. From the perspective advocated here both naturalistic and experimental constituents of actualistic taphonomic research are keyto identify the agents involved in the formation of any fossil record. I present case studies from Patagonia (Southern South America) to illustrate themain contributions of lithic taphonomy to assess pseudoartifact components in the surface record.