Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T10:13:31.187Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Quartz crystal materiality in Terminal Pleistocene Lesotho

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 January 2019

Justin Pargeter  and
Jamie Hampson
Justin Pargeter*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Emory University, 201 Dowman Drive, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA Centre for Anthropological Research & Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, University of Johannesburg, P.O. Box 524, Auckland Park, 2006, Johannesburg, South Africa
Jamie Hampson
Affiliation:
University of Exeter, Department of Humanities, Penryn TR10 9FE, UK
*
*Author for correspondence (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The motivations of prehistoric hunter-gatherers for selecting particular lithic raw materials are often explained in rigidly functional or symbolic terms. By examining the exploitation of crystal quartz at two Terminal Pleistocene rockshelter sites (Ntloana Tšoana and Sehonghong) in Lesotho, southern Africa, the authors reveal that lithic reduction required a form of engagement unique to that material's specific properties. The preferential use of quartz crystals—irrespective of the availability of a wider range of raw materials—demonstrates agency and variability in the technological decisions.

Keywords

LesothoTerminal Pleistocenequartz crystalethnohistorymateriality
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 93 , Issue 367 , February 2019 , pp. 11 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arthur, C. & Mitchell, P.J.. 2012. Metolong cultural resource management phase 4, final report. Unpublished report prepared for the Lesotho Government's Commissioner for Water.Google Scholar
Bagley, J. 2013. Cultural continuity in a Nipmuc landscape. Unpublished MSc dissertation, University of Massaschussets.Google Scholar
Ballin, T.B. 2008. Quartz technology in Scottish prehistory. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.Google Scholar
Barham, L.S. 1992. Let's walk before we run: an appraisal of historical materialist approaches to the later Stone Age. The South African Archaeological Bulletin 47: 44–51. https://doi.org/10.2307/3888991Google Scholar
Binford, L.R. & Stone, N.M.. 1985. ‘Righteous rocks’ and Richard Gould: some observations on misguided ‘debate’. American Antiquity 50: 151–53. https://doi.org/10.2307/280641Google Scholar
Bons, P.D. 2001. The formation of large quartz veins by rapid ascent of fluids in mobile hydrofractures. Tectonophysics 336: 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0040-1951(01)00090-7Google Scholar
Callahan, E. 1987. An evaluation of the lithic technology in middle Sweden during the Mesolithic and Neolithic. Upsalla: Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis.Google Scholar
Carter, P. 1978. The prehistory of eastern Lesotho. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Carter, P., Mitchell, P.J. & Vinnicombe, P.. 1988. Sehonghong: the Middle and Later Stone Age industrial sequence at a Lesotho rock-shelter. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Clark, J.D. 1959. The prehistory of southern Africa. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Conway, T. 1993. Painted dreams: Native American rock art. Hong Kong: NorthWord.Google Scholar
Croes, D.R. 1995. The Hoko River archaeological site complex: the wet/dry site (45CA213), 3,000–1,700 BP. Pullman: Washington State University Press.Google Scholar
Dale, L. 1870. Stone implements in South Africa. Cape Monthly Magazine 1: 23–29.Google Scholar
De la Peña, P. & Wadley, L.. 2014. New knapping methods in the Howiesons Poort at Sibudu (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa). Quaternary International 350: 26–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2014.03.043Google Scholar
Deacon, J. 1992. Arrows as agents of belief amongst the /Xam Bushmen. Cape Town: National Monuments Council.Google Scholar
Delagnes, A., Wadley, L., Villa, P. & Lombard, M.. 2006. Quartz crystal backed tools from the Howiesons Poort at Sibudu Cave. Southern African Humanities 18: 43–56.Google Scholar
Driscoll, K. 2010. Understanding quartz technology in early prehistoric Ireland. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University College Dublin.Google Scholar
Flenniken, J.J. 1981. Replicative systems analysis: a model applied to the vein quartz artifacts from the Hoko River site. Pullman: Washington State University Laboratory of Anthropology.Google Scholar
Goldman, I. 1963. The Cubeo Indians of the Northwest Amazon. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, A.J.H. 1938. Archaeology of the Oakhurst shelter, George. Part II. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa 25: 247–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/00359193709519752Google Scholar
Hampson, J. 2013. The materiality of rock art and quartz: a case study from Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 23: 363–72. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774313000498Google Scholar
Hampson, J. 2016. Rock art and regional identity: a comparative perspective. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315420738Google Scholar
Harner, M. 1982. The way of the shaman. New York: Bantam.Google Scholar
Ingold, T. 2007. Materials against materiality. Archaeological Dialogues 14: 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203807002127Google Scholar
Kannegaard, R.N. 2015. Quartz crystal microblade function in the Salish Sea region of Washington State during the Locarno Beach phase (3500–2400 BP). Unpublished MSc dissertation, Western Washington University.Google Scholar
Kelly, R.L. 2013. The lifeways of hunter gatherers: the foraging spectrum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139176132Google Scholar
Knutsson, K. 1988. Making and using stone tools: the analysis of the lithic assemblages from Middle Neolithic sites with flint in Västerbotten, northern Sweden. Uppsala: Uppsala University.Google Scholar
Lemaitre, S. 2012. Thunderbirds and horned snakes: cosmogony at Canadian rock art sites, in Fauconnier, F. & Lemaitre, S. (ed.) Rock art in the Americas: mythology, cosmogony and rituals: 21–30. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Lewis-Williams, J.D. & Pearce, D.G.. 2004. San spirituality: roots, expression, and social consequences. Cape Town: Double Storey.Google Scholar
Lombard, M. 2009. The Howiesons Poort of South Africa amplified. South African Archaeological Bulletin 64: 4–12.Google Scholar
Lombard, M. 2011. Quartz-tipped arrows older than 60ka: further use-trace evidence from Sibudu, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 1918–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2011.04.001Google Scholar
Lombard, M., Wadley, L., Jacobs, Z., Mohapi, M. & Roberts, R.G.. 2010. Still Bay and serrated points from Umhlatuzana rock shelter, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 37: 1773–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.02.015Google Scholar
Luedtke, B.E. 1992. An archaeologist's guide to flint and chert. Los Angeles: Institute of Archaeology, University of California.Google Scholar
Lumholtz, C. 1900. Symbolism of the Huichol Indians. New York: Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History.Google Scholar
Márquez, B., Mosquera, M., Pérez-González, A., Arsuaga, J., Baquedano, E., Panera, J., Espinosa, J. & Gómez, J.. 2013. Evidence of a Neanderthal-made quartz-based technology at Navalmaíllo rockshelter (Pinilla del Valle, Madrid region, Spain). Journal of Anthropological Research 69: 373–95. https://doi.org/10.3998/jar.0521004.0069.306Google Scholar
Mitchell, P.J. 1988. The early microlithic assemblages of southern Africa. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Mitchell, P.J. 1993. Archaeological investigations at two Lesotho rock-shelters: Terminal Pleistocene/Early Holocene assemblages from Ha Makotoko and Ntloana Tsoana. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 59: 39–60. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00003741Google Scholar
Mitchell, P.J. 1996. The Late Quaternary of the Lesotho highlands, southern Africa: preliminary results and future potential of ongoing research at Sehonghong shelter. Quaternary International 33: 35–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/1040-6182(95)00097-6Google Scholar
Mitchell, P.J. & Steinberg, J.. 1992. Ntloana Tsoana: a Middle Stone Age sequence from western Lesotho. The South African Archaeological Bulletin 47(15): 26–33. https://doi.org/10.2307/3888989Google Scholar
Mourre, V. 1996. Les industries en quartz au Paléolithique. Terminologie, méthodologie et technologie. Paléo 8: 205–23. https://doi.org/10.3406/pal.1996.1160Google Scholar
Mossop, E.E. (ed.). 1935. The journal of Hendrik Jacab Wikar. Cape Town: The Van Riebeeck Society.Google Scholar
Pargeter, J., Loftus, E. & Mitchell, P.J.. 2017. New ages from Sehonghong: implications for the Late Pleistocene occupation of the Lesotho highlands. Journal of Archaeological Science Reports 12: 307–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.01.027Google Scholar
Parkington, J. 2005. Book review: San spirituality: roots, expression, and social consequences. Journal of African Archaeology 3: 165–66. https://doi.org/10.3213/1612-1651-10046Google Scholar
Pearson, J.L. 2002. Shamanism and the ancient mind. Lanham (MD): Altamira.Google Scholar
Reher, C.A. & Frison, G.C.. 1991. Rarity, clarity, symmetry: quartz crystal utilization in hunter-gatherer stone tool assemblages, in Montet-White, A. & Holen, S. (ed.) Raw material economies among prehistoric hunter-gatherers: 375–97. Kansas City: University of Kansas.Google Scholar
Reichel-Dolmatoff, G. 1997. Rainforest shamans: essays on the Tukano Indians of the northwest Amazon. London: Themis.Google Scholar
Reynolds, F. 2009. Regenerating substances: quartz as an animistic agent. Time and Mind: the Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture 2: 153–66. https://doi.org/10.2752/175169709X423664Google Scholar
Ripinsky-Naxon, M. 1993. The nature of shamanism: substance and function of a religious metaphor. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Rots, V., Lentfer, C., Schmid, V.C., Porraz, G. & Conard, N.J.. 2017. Pressure flaking to serrate bifacial points for the hunt during the MIS5 at Sibudu Cave (South Africa). PLoS ONE 12: e0175151. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175151Google Scholar
Sanchez, G., Holliday, V.T., Gaines, E.P., Arroyo-Cabrales, J., Martínez-Tagüeña, N., Kowler, A., Lange, T., Hodgins, G.W.L., Mentzer, S.M. & Sanchez-Morales, I.. 2014. Human (Clovis)–gomphothere (Cuvieronius sp.) association ~13,390 calibrated yBP in Sonora, Mexico. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 111: 10972–77. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1404546111Google Scholar
Stow, G.W. 1905. The native races of South Africa: a history of the intrusion of the Hottentots and Bantu into the hunting grounds of the Bushmen, the Aborigines of the country. London: Sonnenschein & Co.Google Scholar
Stow, G.W. & Bleek, D.F.. 1930. Rock paintings in South Africa. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Taçon, P.S.C. 1991. The power of stone: symbolic aspects of stone use and tool development in western Arnhem Land, Australia. Antiquity 65: 192–207. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00079655Google Scholar
Tardy, N., Vosges, J. & Varoutsikos, B.. 2016. Micro-blade production on hyaline quartz during the Late Neolithic of northern Greece (5400–4600 cal. BC): examples from Dikili Tash and Promachonas-Topolniča. Quaternary International 424: 212–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.11.139Google Scholar
Tilley, C. 2004. The materiality of stone: explorations in landscape phenomenology. Oxford: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Tonkinson, R. 1997. Anthropology and aboriginal tradition: the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Affair and the politics of interpretation. Oceania 68: 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1834-4461.1997.tb02639.xGoogle Scholar
Veth, P., Stern, N., McDonald, J., Balme, J. & Davidson, I.. 2011. The role of information exchange in the colonisation of Sahul, in Whallon, R., Lovis, W.A. & Hitchcock, R.K. (ed.) The role of information in hunter-gatherer band adaptations: 203–20. Los Angeles (CA): Cotsen Institute.Google Scholar
Vitebsky, P. 1995. The shaman. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
von Brandenstein, C.G. 1970. Narratives from the north-west of Western Australia in the Ngarluma and Jindjiparndi languages 1–3. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Wadley, L. 1987. Later Stone Age hunters and gatherers of the southern Transvaal: social and ecological interpretation. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Wadley, L. 1992. Reply to Barham: aggregation and dispersal phase sites in the Later Stone Age. The South African Archaeological Bulletin 47: 52–55. https://doi.org/10.2307/3888992Google Scholar
Wadley, L. & Mohapi, M.. 2008. A segment is not a monolith: evidence from the Howiesons Poort of Sibudu, South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 35: 2594–605. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2008.04.017Google Scholar
Whitley, D.S., Dorn, R.I., Simon, J.M., Rechtman, R.B. & Whitley, T.K.. 1999. Sally's Rockshelter and the archaeology of the vision quest. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9: 221–47. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015390Google Scholar
Wiessner, P. 1983. Style and social information in Kalahari San projectile points. American Antiquity 48: 253–76. https://doi.org/10.2307/280450Google Scholar