Rachel A. Horowitz and Grant S. McCall's edited volume, Lithic Technologies in Sedentary Societies, makes a substantial contribution to the study of lithic technology, presenting case studies of stone artifacts in sedentary societies in South Asia, the Near East, Mesoamerica, and North America. Stone tools are some of the most common and durable types of artifacts, and they provide a proxy by which to examine the economic importance of locally available raw materials that cannot be preserved in the archaeological record—such as foodstuffs and other perishable goods—and to understand the social and political connections involved in lithic economies.
The book has nine chapters. Horowitz and McCall's introductory chapter (Chapter 1) reviews some of the general trends in global analyses of lithic technology and discusses directions for future research as well as the relevance of lithic studies to broader anthropological questions. They put a particular emphasis on the value of studying a whole lithic assemblage, which consists of all detritus from the reduction process, including cores and debitage as well as formal and informal tools. Such an approach provides a more holistic picture of past production processes than focusing on specific formal tools or modified objects—the focus of many studies of lithic technology, particularly in sedentary societies. I strongly agree with the editors that we need to develop a better analytical framework for relating the characteristics of understanding informal stone tool industries in sedentary societies with the notable economic dynamics they are capable of reflecting.
Mary A. Davis (Chapter 2) overviews the state of chipped stone studies across the Indus region and presents her exciting new data of stone artifacts from recent excavations at the site of Harappa, Pakistan. She suggests that mass production of chert blades and bladelets was carried out at quarry and workshop sites by specialists during the Bronze Age. Finished blades and nearly finished cores were distributed across almost 1 million km2. A wide variety of crafting (including for trimming wheel-thrown pottery, based on a high-powered microwear analysis on chert blades from a pottery workshop) and domestic tasks utilized these blades, despite the accessibility of copper, because the chert blades were not only efficient but also relatively cheap, flexible, and multifunctional.
Francesca Manclossi and Steven A. Rosen (Chapter 3) find uniformity and stability in the informal flint industries through the Early, Middle, and Late Bronze Ages—almost three millennia— associated with metal technologies in Israel. Their analysis shows a very simple knapping strategy—direct percussion with a hard hammer stone—which does not require deep knowledge and skills. The low technical investment and the elementary production/consumption system represent domestic contexts, widespread within the society, that played a leading role in the daily life of ancient people in the southern Levant. Unfortunately, the one thing that detracts, to some extent, from this volume is the inexcusably poor quality of some of the images, such as Figures 2.1 and 3.10, which are often pixelated to the point of illegibility.
The three Mesoamerican chapters (Chapters 4–6) center upon the significance of formal and informal tools in various aspects of Mesoamerican economies, demonstrating that household residents participated in many aspects of lithic production, especially of informal tools. Jason S. R. Paling (Chapter 4) indicates that the Preclassic households of San Estevan in Belize as well as K'o and Hamontún in Guatemala were involved in the small-scale production of informal tools that may reflect preparation for agricultural activities or other household economic organization. I particularly liked both Chapters 5 and 6.
Chapter 5, by Horowitz, examines the organization of extraction and production of chert raw materials at three chert extraction and production sites (Callar Creek Quarry, San Lorenzo, and Succotz) in the Mopan Valley, Belize, during the Late and Terminal Classic periods. She demonstrates that the study of items produced with locally available chert provides a view of economic organization that is different from studies that focus on items produced from imported obsidian through long-distance exchange. At Callar Creek Quarry, production focused on generalized core and flake tool manufacture, while chert production at San Lorenzo focused on flake tools as well as biface production and finishing. Chert production at Succotz demonstrates an exclusive focus on formal tool production—that is, general utility bifaces. The production intensity at Succotz was much greater than that at the other two sites. The density of flakes—2 million per cubic meter—suggests that, in the Succotz household workshops, the amount of biface production was beyond the household level. Although production at the three sites can be considered intermittent crafting in a domestic context, the local residents had an important role in the ancient Maya economy, particularly concerning utilitarian goods.
Chapter 6, by McCall, Horowitz, and Dan M. Healan, represents an outstanding model for the study on the chert artifacts from Chalcatzingo, Mexico, which indicate the intensive reduction of cores to the point of exhaustion, resulting in high frequencies of very small informal flakes and cores. The results of their study clearly point to a great deal of raw material economizing and stress, thereby contradicting some long-held notions about the nature of the expedient knapping of locally available raw materials in sedentary societies in terms of abundant locally available lithic raw material as well as its stockpiling in residential contexts. Moreover, contrasting obsidian blade production in craft workshops with the everyday expedient reduction of chert in non-elite residences at Chalcatzingo highlights some dynamics of social inequality and of the control of long-distance exchange as an elite strategy for acquiring wealth and maintaining political power.
Fumiyasu Arakawa (Chapter 7) uses the results of both mass analysis and metric analysis of the lithic artifacts from the central Mesa Verde region of American Southwest as a maker of sociopolitical organization, particularly for examining territoriality and the movement of populations. Notably, to address gendered differences in the production and use of stone tools at Yellow Jacket Pueblo, Arakawa focuses on projectile points made of Cretaceous Dakota/Burro Canyon silicified sandstone as reliable indicators of men's activities, while pecking stones made of Morrison rocks serve as indicators of women's activities and space.
Jayur Madhusudan Mehta, McCall, Theodore Marks, and James Enloe's (Chapter 8) study uses portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) data to suggest that Cahokia did not control Carson's ability to acquire Burlington chert. Instead, many different agents were active in providing Carson's communities with Burlington chert, indicating the complex network of exchange in the Lower Mississippi Valley during late prehistory. John C. Whittaker (Chapter 9) sees economic analysis of stone tools in terms of their efficiency as a theme common to almost all of the chapters in the volume. To his mind, blade industries represent the most ubiquitous demonstration of the efficiency principles of stone tool manufacture. He uses two examples of very late blade industries—the production of flint blades for agricultural sickles and threshing sledges all around the Mediterranean from ancient times until recently and the historic European gunflint industries—to illustrate how they embody the economic principles of efficiency and related issues.
Together, the volume demonstrates the important information that lithic artifacts can provide about anthropological questions, such as economic activities, political organization, resource and production management, and the relationship between societal and technological change. I would recommend this volume to scholars, graduate students, and nonprofessional readers who are interested in lithic technologies or sedentary societies.
