The Design of Arctic Small Tool Tradition Toolkits: An Example from Matcharak Lake, Alaska
This article presents the results of an analysis of stone tools and debitage from a 3600–4000 cal BP Arctic Small Tool tradition (ASTt) component at Matcharak Lake (AMR-186), located in the Alaskan Brooks Range. The goal of this study is to understand how ASTt technology is organized at a caribou hu...
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crsagepubl:10.2190/na.36.1.a 2023-05-15T14:55:18+02:00 The Design of Arctic Small Tool Tradition Toolkits: An Example from Matcharak Lake, Alaska Tremayne, Andrew H. 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/na.36.1.a http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2190/NA.36.1.a en eng SAGE Publications http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license North American Archaeologist volume 36, issue 1, page 1-31 ISSN 0197-6931 1541-3543 Archeology Archeology journal-article 2015 crsagepubl https://doi.org/10.2190/na.36.1.a 2022-08-12T11:31:03Z This article presents the results of an analysis of stone tools and debitage from a 3600–4000 cal BP Arctic Small Tool tradition (ASTt) component at Matcharak Lake (AMR-186), located in the Alaskan Brooks Range. The goal of this study is to understand how ASTt technology is organized at a caribou hunting camp located far from a high quality toolstone source, and to use this information to evaluate ASTt mobility and settlement patterns in northern Alaska. Reconstructions of the stone-tool reduction sequences demonstrate that ASTt people made use of blade and biface technologies, but they primarily transported small finished tools and biface cores to produce large flakes for tool blanks and microblade cores. The stone-tool assemblage recovered from at Matcharak Lake is one designed to maximize utility, transportability, and relatively rapid production, which is an adaptive feature of a culture that has high residential mobility in an environment with limited access to raw material sources and an economy specialized on caribou. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic arctic small tool tradition Brooks Range Alaska SAGE Publications (via Crossref) Arctic North American Archaeologist 36 1 1 31 |
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Open Polar |
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SAGE Publications (via Crossref) |
op_collection_id |
crsagepubl |
language |
English |
topic |
Archeology Archeology |
spellingShingle |
Archeology Archeology Tremayne, Andrew H. The Design of Arctic Small Tool Tradition Toolkits: An Example from Matcharak Lake, Alaska |
topic_facet |
Archeology Archeology |
description |
This article presents the results of an analysis of stone tools and debitage from a 3600–4000 cal BP Arctic Small Tool tradition (ASTt) component at Matcharak Lake (AMR-186), located in the Alaskan Brooks Range. The goal of this study is to understand how ASTt technology is organized at a caribou hunting camp located far from a high quality toolstone source, and to use this information to evaluate ASTt mobility and settlement patterns in northern Alaska. Reconstructions of the stone-tool reduction sequences demonstrate that ASTt people made use of blade and biface technologies, but they primarily transported small finished tools and biface cores to produce large flakes for tool blanks and microblade cores. The stone-tool assemblage recovered from at Matcharak Lake is one designed to maximize utility, transportability, and relatively rapid production, which is an adaptive feature of a culture that has high residential mobility in an environment with limited access to raw material sources and an economy specialized on caribou. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Tremayne, Andrew H. |
author_facet |
Tremayne, Andrew H. |
author_sort |
Tremayne, Andrew H. |
title |
The Design of Arctic Small Tool Tradition Toolkits: An Example from Matcharak Lake, Alaska |
title_short |
The Design of Arctic Small Tool Tradition Toolkits: An Example from Matcharak Lake, Alaska |
title_full |
The Design of Arctic Small Tool Tradition Toolkits: An Example from Matcharak Lake, Alaska |
title_fullStr |
The Design of Arctic Small Tool Tradition Toolkits: An Example from Matcharak Lake, Alaska |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Design of Arctic Small Tool Tradition Toolkits: An Example from Matcharak Lake, Alaska |
title_sort |
design of arctic small tool tradition toolkits: an example from matcharak lake, alaska |
publisher |
SAGE Publications |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/na.36.1.a http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2190/NA.36.1.a |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic arctic small tool tradition Brooks Range Alaska |
genre_facet |
Arctic arctic small tool tradition Brooks Range Alaska |
op_source |
North American Archaeologist volume 36, issue 1, page 1-31 ISSN 0197-6931 1541-3543 |
op_rights |
http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.2190/na.36.1.a |
container_title |
North American Archaeologist |
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36 |
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1 |
container_start_page |
1 |
op_container_end_page |
31 |
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1766327097782960128 |