Archaeology of Trants, Montserrat. Part 4. Flaked stone and stone bead industries

Crock, John G.; Bartone, Robert N.

doi:10.5962/p.329340

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Sometimes iconography in the literature allows to circumvent this issue, but sometimes not, as is the case for the 81 rock crystal beads from Golden Rock for which no standardized picture is published and then it is impossible from the picture in the article to know if the beads are cylindrical or discoid (Versteeg and Schinkel 1992). Other differences between different levels of details can also come from the incomplete description of the whole archaeological collection, as for Trants, for which the literature details the type of 123 beads and 7 pendants out of the 523 beads and 12 pendants listed in the article (Crock and Bartone 1998). By not keeping the raw material fragments in this typological study and relying on the previously established rule of keeping only the sites with more than 10 remaining artifacts, we also removed two archaeological sites from the dataset (Grand Case and Hacienda Grande).…”

Section: Datasets and Subsetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The degree of precision of the information on the shapes that these fragments take in the sites is not always very high, and many of them are simply indicated as being raw material or elements of the operational chain waste, but there is still a significant number of crystals mentioned. The presence of flakes is not so rare, and it is therefore likely that the initial stages of the production of these beads, which produce flakes, could have occurred on most sites, even if some sites far surpass others in terms of raw material fragments or preforms, such as Trants and Golden Grove (Crock and Bartone 1998;Mones 2007).…”

Section: Distribution Of Typesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Diversity and similarity in the Ceramic Age lapidary production in the Caribbean islands

Queffelec¹

2023

Preprint

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Personal ornaments are an important part of the archaeological record, as theyprovide valuable insights into various aspects of past human societies. Amongthese ornaments, those made of lithic materials are particularly significant due to their wide distribution and excellent preservation in archaeological sites. In the Caribbean islands, during the Ceramic Age, lapidary artifacts exhibit remarkable abundance and diversity in terms of both raw materials and typology. While archaeologists have previously highlighted differences between the Saladoid and Post-Saladoid periods, this was based on incomplete data without robust mineralogical or typological identification. A South-American origin of the specific lapidary production of the Early Ceramic period has been proposed, following the origin of Ceramic production styles, but relies on the same incomplete data. In this article, I demonstrate that robust analysis of extensive datasets, combining first-hand identification and literature survey, enables to address the questions of spactial and temporal distribution, diversity and similarity of lithic beads and pendants during the Caribbean Age in the Antilles. The study reveals that the Early and Middle Ceramic periods exhibit higher raw material and typological diversity compared to later periods. Furthermore, similarities are greater between sites attributed to the same period than between geographically close sites, both in terms of mineralogy and typology. Finally, I establish that the lapidary production during the Early Ceramic Age differs significantly between South American sites and Saladoid sites in the archipelago. Some indications pointing to the Isthmo-Colombian area are proposed, which will require further research to enhance our understanding to the same level as that of the Caribbean islands, enabling advanced comparisons.

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Section: Datasets and Subsetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Distribution Of Typesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversity and similarity in the Ceramic Age lapidary production in the Caribbean islands

Queffelec¹

2023

Preprint

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“…Based on ethnographic comparisons and traceological study (Walker, 1979), the main hypothesis for the function of small-sized flakes produced by bipolar percussion in the Ceramic Age of the Lesser Antilles is their use as teeth for cassava grater boards. Some authors recommend a more site specific interpretation and not a general application of this hypothesis (Crock andBartone 1998, Bérard 2004), and since no traceological study has been conducted on these artefacts, we prefer not to make any hypothesis on this subject. Technical drawings and surface views from the 3D models acquired by microtomography are presented in Supplementary Information (Figure S1 and S2) to support this interpretation.…”

Section: Artefacts From Archaeological Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Obsidian in the Caribbean Islands? Mysterious Ceramic Age glass artefacts in the Lesser Antilles.

Leck,

Bellot-Gurlet,

Carazzo

et al. 2023

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The Caribbean islands witnessed a population expansion of horti-ceramicists during the Early Ceramic Age (ca. 500 BC to 750 AD) from the Orinoco Valley to Puerto Rico. We examined 18 lithic artefacts from Guadeloupe and Dominica, initially thought to be obsidian, a material believed to be absent from those islands. We investigated the volcanic or meteoritic origin of this unique and yet unknown material through observation (binocular, SEM, microtomography) and geochemical analyses (PIXE, SEM-EDS, ED-XRF, EPMA, LA-ICP-MS). Elementary analyses rule out the hypothesis of an origin from a meteoritic impact (i.e. identification as tektites). Most of the artefacts have an andesitic composition (< 63% SiO2), which appears to be unique among 'massive' glasses. The only artefact with a rhyolitic composition has been traced back to the Guadeloupe's Volcan du Tuf where glassy fragments have been collected and analysed. The geological source of the other vitreous artefacts that exhibit an andesitic composition could be from a sub-local subduction-arc volcanism (maybe from Martinique), although no volcanic vitreous material of this kind has ever been reported worldwide. These results once again highlight the regional mobility of Early Ceramic populations, the production of standard lithic products using a highly original, albeit low-quality, local lithic resource, and provide valuable references for future identification of similar materials.

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“…In the ethnographic cases, the lubrication of the perforation is attested but the drills are made of harder materials than the one to be perforated or, in the cases where this difference in hardness is weak, coupled with a harder abrasive (Gurova, Bonsall, et al, 2017;Gwinnett and Gorelick, 1998;Kenoyer, 1991Kenoyer, , 1986Kenoyer and Vidale, 1992;Ludvik et al, 2015). Observations on archaeological Saladoid objects are limited to the mention of unfinished quartz beads with cones at the bottom of the perforation, without photography, which would indicate the use of a hollow (tubular) drill bit without specifying its nature (Cody, 1991;Crock and Bartone, 1998). Observations of stigmata on the inner surface of the perforations would also confirm the use of an abrasive (Falci et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technological analysis and experimental reproduction of the techniques of perforation of quartz beads from the Ceramic period in the Antilles

Raymond¹,

Fouéré²,

Ledevin³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Personal ornaments are a very specific kind of material production in human societies and are particularly valuable artifacts for the archaeologist seeking to understand past societies. In the Caribbean, Early Ceramic Age sites have yielded a highly diverse production both in terms of raw materials and typology. In recent years they have been the subject of renewed interest, mainly based on the diversity and provenance of raw materials, and on typological similarity, used as proxies for exchange networks, social interactions and the evolution of these phenomena through the Ceramic Age. Meanwhile, the chaîne opératoire for lithic beads and pendants has not been investigated in detail, including the process of creating narrow perforations in quartz beads several centimeters long. This hard material (7 on the Mohs scale), represented as rock crystal and amethyst in the collections, is indeed very difficult to perforate without the use of metal drills or harder minerals used as drill-bits or abrasives such as diamond or emery. In this work we demonstrate that it is possible to produce these perforations with cactus thorns and crushed quartz as abrasive powder. We also show that the wear created by our experimental work is fully comparable to the stigmata visible on the archaeological artifacts. This process, using only materials available to Ceramic Age people, also accounts for the absence of both adequate drills and production wastes of quartz beads in the archaeological record. The investment of Ceramic Age inhabitants of the Lesser Antilles in the production of the many beads made of very hard material recovered in archaeological excavations is once again highlighted. The perforation process, not investigated in detail so far in this archaeological context, has to be taken into account in the value of these highly symbolic artifacts, in addition to the exotic provenance of the raw material.

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Archaeology of Trants, Montserrat. Part 4. Flaked stone and stone bead industries

Cited by 11 publications

References 11 publications

Diversity and similarity in the Ceramic Age lapidary production in the Caribbean islands

Diversity and similarity in the Ceramic Age lapidary production in the Caribbean islands

Obsidian in the Caribbean Islands? Mysterious Ceramic Age glass artefacts in the Lesser Antilles.

Technological analysis and experimental reproduction of the techniques of perforation of quartz beads from the Ceramic period in the Antilles

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