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Section 3: Material Culture and the Use of Stone Tools

Summary | Raw materials | Items of material culture | Other tasks | Arrows | String | Survival in a prehistoric context

3.1 Raw materials

Stone | Hafts | Wood and bark | Bamboo | Rattan | Feathers and shell | Bone

The traditional material culture of the Wola contains almost 200 individually named items and uses 255 different raw materials (Hardy and Sillitoe 2003; Sillitoe 1988). Items can be divided into six categories (Sillitoe 1988); tools, weapons, consumption utensils, clothing, finery and self-decoration and musical instruments while raw materials fall into the following categories (Table 1).

Table 1. Raw materials
Raw material categoryNumbers of items and
varieties in category
Trees and shrubs94
Palms and pandans 12
Vines and climbers 16
Ferns 8
Bamboos and canes 10
Grasses and herbs 23
Mosses 5
Fungi 1
Mammals 23
Birds 31
Insects 3
Fish and reptiles 3
Sea shells 8
Rocks, stone, soils 13
Other, miscellaneous 5

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Last updated: Wed Oct 8 2003