Estimating the scale of stone axe production: A case study from Onega Lake, Russian Karelia

The industry of metatuff axes and adzes on the western coast of Onega Lake (Eneolithic period, ca. 3500 – 1500 cal. BC) allows assuming some sort of craft specialization. Excavations of a workshop site Fofanovo XIII, conducted in 2010-2011, provided an extremely large assemblage of artefacts (over 3...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Lithic Studies
Main Authors: Alexey Tarasov, Sergey Stafeev
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: University of Edinburgh 2014
Subjects:
lithic technology
neolithic
eneolithic
karelia
fennoscandia
stone axe
adze
gouge
craft specialization
mass-analysis
image recognition
Archaeology
CC1-960
Onega
Fennoscandia
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.2218/jls.v1i1.757
https://doaj.org/article/0b4bb65ad1094522b030a1f152994de3
Description
Summary:The industry of metatuff axes and adzes on the western coast of Onega Lake (Eneolithic period, ca. 3500 – 1500 cal. BC) allows assuming some sort of craft specialization. Excavations of a workshop site Fofanovo XIII, conducted in 2010-2011, provided an extremely large assemblage of artefacts (over 350000 finds from just 30 m2, mostly production debitage). An attempt to estimate the output of production within the excavated area is based on experimental data from a series of replication experiments. Mass-analysis with the aid of image recognition software was used to obtain raw data from flakes from excavations and experiments. Statistical evaluation assures that the experimental results can be used as a basement for calculations. According to the proposed estimation, some 500 – 1000 tools could have been produced here, and this can be qualified as an evidence of “mass-production”.

Similar Items