Diversity in mastic-mounted stone adzes and the use of mastic in precolonial South Africa: evidence from Steenbokfontein Cave

• Autores: Antonieta Jerardino
• Localización: Antiquity, ISSN 0003-598X, Vol. 75, Nº 290, 2001, págs. 859-866
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Composite tools and hafted tools were used world-wide over the last 35,000 years, and possibly earlier than that (Boëda et al. 1996; Holdaway 1996). Evidence for the use of composite tools in South Africa is provided by a small number of arrows from ethnohistorical and archaeological collections (Binneman 1994; Deacon & Deacon 1999: 158–9), a handful of mounted stone artefacts, and a significant number of mastic stained stone artefacts from archaeological sites (Deacon & Deacon 1999). On the basis of the limited sample of near intact mounted artefacts found in South Africa, it appears that small scrapers were side-mounted (at almost 90° to the axis of the handle) and fixed asymmetrically by surrounding resin (Deacon & Deacon 1980: 31–2). Adzes, on the other hand, were end-mounted (on one extreme, and along the same plane, of the handle) and held by a large ovoid lump of mastic (Hewitt 1921; Goodwin & Van Riet Lowe 1929: plate 42; Sampson 1974: figure 105). From their analysis of the available material two decades ago, Deacon & Deacon (1980: 37) concluded that the size and form of the insert was determined largely by the mode of hafting.