Estimating Core Number in Assemblages: Core Movement and Mobility During the Holocene of the Fayum, Egypt

Modeling Relationships Between Space, Movement, and Lithic Geometric Attributes

“…Both are logically compelling, as they provide reasons why tula were generated by people in the past. But without knowing actual tool functions, or how those functions operated within broader ecological or social systems (Boyd 2006; Phillipps and Holdaway 2016), arguments linking mobility to tool classes are difficult to defend without recourse to additional information. As demonstrated in the case of the tula, arguments based on tool function seemingly indicate both a risk-reduction strategy by nomadic foragers and maintenance of an expanding and specialized tool kit by logistical foragers.…”

“…One resolution is to use proxies that bear directly on occurrences of movement, where objects form patterns in artifact assemblage composition as they move across a landscape, regardless of their actual function (Clarkson 2008; Close 2000). For stone artifacts, this includes using geochemical sourcing to calculate distances between an artifact and its raw material source (e.g., Cochrane et al 2017; Nash et al 2016), refitting studies that reconnect the products of stone artifact reduction sequences back into original wholes (e.g., Close 2000; Spry 2014), and techniques that use geometric attributes of artifacts to determine the presence or absence of expected reduction products within an assemblage (e.g., Douglass et al 2008; Lin et al 2016; Phillipps and Holdaway 2016). Each of these has its own advantages, but all measure archaeological patterns that are sensitive to the movement of the constituent objects.…”

Flaked stone assemblage variability across the Weipa region of western Cape York Peninsula, Queensland

“…The value for the silcrete ratio is lower, indicating more movement of flakes away from the assemblages where they were found. Calculating core and flake volume indicates similar results (Phillipps and Holdaway 2016). The combined volume of flakes expressed as core equivalents using the mean volume of cores manufactured from each material indicates that the combined flake volume represents many fewer cores than the number recorded.…”

Kom W and X Basin: Erosion, Deposition, and the Potential for Village Occupation

“…In this sense, the Kom W site is similar to other locations on the Fayum north shore where evidence of the use of domesticates exists alongside evidence for food storage but without extant evidence for the existence of permanent habitation structures. Determining the nature of occupation at Kom W and environs must be based on further analysis of the artifacts from the site and the surrounding area (Emmitt 2019;Phillipps and Holdaway 2016). Wengrow (2006, p. 83) describes the Neolithic and early Predynastic occupation in Egypt as an example of "complexity without villages."…”

“…Their interpretation of the site as a village settlement is therefore not surprising, particularly given knowledge of the Neolithic in the mid-twentieth century. However, recent reassessment of archaeological remains in Egypt, particularly those found in other parts of the Fayum north shore, suggests that previous interpretations need careful assessment in light of a contemporary knowledge of post-depositional formation processes in the region (Emmitt 2019;Holdaway et al 2016;Phillipps and Holdaway 2016;Phillipps et al 2016a). Here, we further consider the archaeological record at Kom W with the study of the geomorphic processes that affected the deposits before and after Caton-Thompson and Gardner excavated the site in the 1920s, and have continued to impact the site into the twenty-first century.…”