Lithic procurement as a social phenomenon in the Stone and Bronze Age in southern Norway
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2016-12-21

Quarrying and other types of direct lithic raw material procurement can be perceived as a total social phenomenon. Based on analyses of 21 extraction sites, I have undertaken a chaîne opératoire analysis of the practices involved in direct lithic procurement in the Stone, Bronze and Early Iron Ages in southern Norway. My method is one of contextualisation and comparison of material found at quarries and related workshops and settlement sites, estimations of scale and duration of quarrying, and, to some degree, the rock’s distribution. With this, I demonstrate and interpret spatial and temporal variation in procurement practices. That is, some practices involved in lithic procurement were common cross-regionally, while others defined regions and/or time periods. In some situations, it seems to have mattered more how, from whom or where, you obtained your rock, than the type or the quality of the rock itself. Suggesting also an index of the intensity of quarrying, the different modes of lithic procurements demonstrate the variations of the role the various lithic extraction sites must have played in the prehistoric societies. Some extraction sites even became nodal points in the landscape, entangled in social and symbolic structures. Thus, when contextualised, quarry studies have the potential to provide insight into developing social relations and social-political strategies.

Author - Astrid, Nyland, Oslo, Norway (Presenting author)