Production, use, and maintenance trajectories of a specialized agricultural stone tool from the high elevation deserts of Northwestern Argentina

SENTINELLI, NATALIA; HOCSMAN, SALOMÓN

Buenos Aires

Simposio; 11th International Symposium on Knappable Materials ?From toolstone to stone tools?; 2017

IMHICIHU, CONICET

A specialized agricultural stone tool isoften recovered at fully agro-pastoralist sites from Northwestern Argentina(Escola y Hocsman 2011). A sample of these tools and associated debitage fromAntofagasta de la Sierra is analyzed. It has been suggested (Escola et al. 2013)that these very big artifacts started their use lives as knifes with a largeedge, a very low edge angle -less than 35°- and a slightly asymmetricaledge, and during their life histories the angles of the cutting edges becamemore and more asymmetrical and with a large edge angle, due to frequentreactivation. Specifically, we are interested in elucidate the production, useand maintenance trajectories of these artifacts.   We also report themethodology of analysis of tools and debitage that aims to the reconstructionof the production/use/maintenance trajectories. This method implies the use ofphotographs. The images are analyzed using simple software. The use of thescale tool in AutoCAD allows us to make precise measurements, which are verydifficult to obtain on the tools and flakes themselves. In addition, thismethod allows us to calculate the angles that the edges of these tools differentmoments of their life histories. Through descriptive statistics and indexesapplication we can evaluate the degree of edge angle transformation.