Quantifying Pseudoartifacts in the Archaeological Record: an Actualistic Approach in Lithic Artifact Taphonomy

BORRAZZO, KAREN

Río Grande do Sul

Workshop; 2nd Workshop on Actualistic Taphonomy; 2021

Centro de Estudos Costeiros, Limnológicos e Marinhos, CECLIMAR, UFRGS Litoral Norte

Several studies showed that the presence of pseudoartifacts in the lithic archaeological record is not rare, especially within contexts where lithic raw material of good flaking quality is locally available. Water transport, rock fall and trampling are among the taphonomic processes that modify lithics by pressure and percussion in a manner that may mimic human flint knapping. Therefore, once we recognize that taphonomic process/es and raw material are in place within any archaeological context under study, the necessary next step in the research is to assess the contribution of pseudoartifact to the lithic assemblage. This was the case at Casa de Piedra de Roselló (Chubut, Argentina), a rock shelter from central Patagonia in which we conducted actualistic research in order to 1) test if pseudoartifact production was feasible, and 2) to characterize morphometric properties of the by-products resulting from the interaction of local taphonomic processes and lithic raw material. We reported the data obtained from the first stage of this taphonomic investigation in the 1st TAAS edited volume. Here we present the subsequent naturalistic and experimental studies carried out to estimate the contribution of the lithic taphonomic background noise to Casa de Piedra de Roselló lithic assemblage. They included in situ rock fall experiments, surface and stratigraphic sampling of clasts, and the techno-morphological analysis of both experimental pseudoartifacts and the lithic artifacts recovered from the archaeological excavation.