An analysis of the Ingaladdi assemblage : a critique of the understanding of Lithic technology

Abstract

Despite the changes in method and theory which have occurred in the study of prehistory over the last one hundred and fifty years the understanding of lithic technology has been dominated by a single perspective. This has been based on three central assumptions: (1) the form of an artifact reflects prior mental or cognitive processes which supply the formal cause, (2) the clear delineation of products as ends and (3) the neutrality of the experience of the production process which converts the cognitive into the material. This thesis presents a critique of these assumptions and demonstrates the utility of applying an alternative perspective to the problem of understanding technological change in north-western Australian stone assemblages. This is carried out via an analysis of the Ingaladdi site. The central component of the criticism of the 'traditional model’ is that it has failed to recognize lithic technology as a form of practical knowledge or 'knowing how’. The implication of the alternative understanding of lithic technology as 'knowing how’ is that stone artifacts were not and should not be seen as a series of materialized ideas or products but as a series of experienced manufacturing processes. It is the organizational structure of these reduction processes which constitute lithic technology in time and space of the archaeological record. This approach to the understanding of prehistoric technology, when applied to the Ingaladdi material, reveals two previously unrecognized elements. Firstly, the early underlying material, previously characterized as a crude and amorphous flake and core 'industry’ is seen to reflect a complex organization based on a two tiered structure utilizing both local lithic materials and that which maintains a relationship termed the 'standing reserve’. It is suggested that the amorphous nature of the early assemblages derives from their inability to separate lithic reduction from wider production processes and that it was the inherent disjunction between the structural and situational 'logic’ which preconditioned the later technological change. The second major aspect of the analysis shows that, despite their marked typological difference from the underlying, the major component of the later assemblage, the lancet flake, can be derived directly from the earlier flake production process. The transformation follows a major shift from 'on-site’ to 'off-site’ primary core reduction - the principal organizational difference between the early and later assemblages. Some implications for the understanding of technological, economic and social relations in Australian prehistory are discussed and the thesis concludes with a more detailed examination of the origins of the 'traditional’ and alternative models of lithic technology. Show more