Editorial paper special issue “Contact materials: the ‘Other’ in experimental use-wear studies”

Marreiros, Joao; Thaler, Ulrich; Macdonald, Danielle A.

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/20242

Use this identifier to reference this record.

Name:	Description:	Size:	Format:
1-s2.0-S2352409X2300322X-main.pdf		392.32 KB	Adobe PDF	Download

Send Feedback

Authors

Marreiros, Joao

Thaler, Ulrich

Macdonald, Danielle A.

Abstract(s)

Archaeological research focuses on a comprehensive understanding of when, how, and why past human populations changed their behav iour over time. Understanding these processes is fundamental to rec ognising the origins and character of behavioural choices that fashioned cultural and social variability, and consequently shaped our current society (Ambrose, 2010; d’Errico and Stringer, 2011; Stout, 2011). Among these processes, technological changes are known to reflect and impact human decision-making processes, illuminating the emergence and shifts of key human behavioural traits. From the earliest production of sharp-edge stone tools to modern material culture, changes and in novations in technological toolkits are associated with the social, cul tural, and behavioural dynamics of human populations (Ambrose, 2001; Foley and Lahr, 2003; Kuhn, 2020). Although the earliest technologies persisted for thousands of years, and sometimes millions of years, there is regional and chronological variability within typological categories. Even if major technological changes can be identified in the archaeo logical record (both in time and space), the meaning of these changes in the context of early human behavioural dynamics is not always easy to assess. In archaeological research, identifying variability in the archaeo logical record helps us decode and reconstruct past human actions. To do so, archaeologists build concepts, definitions, and interpretations using middle-range theory, including analysis of ethnographic obser vations or hypothesis testing. Hence, when studying the archaeological record, experimental replication of potential past human activities is used to make inferences about how technology was used in the past, allowing archaeologists to reconstruct human behavioural processes (Ascher, 1961; Carrell, 1992; Coles, 1979; Ferguson and Neeley, 2010; Outram, 2008). In other words, experimentation in archaeological research has been used as a crucial method to evaluate hypotheses and assumptions based on researchers’ initial observations and interpretations.