The Role of Debitage Size in Assessing the Spatial Organization of Lithic Production. The Case of Lake Onega Axe and Adze Workshops (Russia)
Alexey Yu. Tarasov, Mikhail Zobkov, Sergey Stafeev · Lithic Technology · 2020
The paper discusses the potential of metrical values of lithic debris as a proxy for distinguishing between lithic production sites where different stages of a generally identical reduction sequence took place. One of the most striking features of lithic workshops is the huge number of waste flakes, and this factor makes the use of aggregate analytical approaches unavoidable and allows obtaining essential (for the needs of archaeological interpretation) information at relatively reasonable expenditure of time. In the approach advocated in this paper, the previously suggested methods were supplemented with a new technique of artifact processing using image recognition systems. The approach was tested on the assemblages of the Eneolithic workshops for the production of stone axes and adzes from the western shores of Lake Onega (Russia).