'Durable Residues': Addressing the use of microwear, a case study from March Hill

Ivan Briz y Godino1, Myrian Álvarez2, Penny Spikins3 and Andrew Needham3

1. ICREA-Dept d'Arqueologia i Antropologia, Institució Milà I Fontanals-CSIC. C/ de les Egipcíaques 15, 08001 Barcelona, Spain. ibriz@bicat.csic.es
2. Área de Antropología, Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas-CONICET, Bernardo Houssay 200, Ushuaia 9410, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. myrianalvarez@cadic.gov.ar
3. Dept of Archaeology, University of York, The King's Manor, York YO1 7EP, United Kingdom

Summary

Different cultural and research traditions have led to distinctively different approaches to lithics analysis. An integration of different approaches can often give new 'ways of seeing' artefact assemblages and distribution patterns and provide valuable insights into past activities. Here we present the preliminary results of a project integrating detailed analytical techniques, focused on processes of production and consumption and social dynamics in ethnarchaeological contexts in Tierra del Fuego with existing detailed lithic analysis at Mesolithic sites in the Central Pennines. Such methods, taken from Argentina (Álvarez) and Spain (Briz), that were developed in ethnoarchaeological contexts employed detailed edge morphological analysis and use wear. When applied to site A at March Hill, these techniques yielded interesting new insights about activities at the site, and provided a test case for such techniques.

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