Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T17:05:37.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Tool Design and Selection in an Andean Agro-Pastoral Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Steve A. Tomka
Steve A. Tomka*
Affiliation:
Center for Archaeological Research, University of Texas, San Antonio, TX 8249
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Since its introduction, the study of artifact design has shed new light on the nature of variability in prehistoric technological organization. Few ethnoarchaeological studies exist exploring the interrelationships between subsistence risk, the costs of technological failures, and the design of artifacts. This ethnoarchaeological study investigates these relationships in a transhumant agro-pastoral case study from the southwestern Bolivian altiplano. Three aspects of tool design are explored to document variability in design characteristics between and within assemblages from agricultural and pastoral residences. These design features consist of the reliability of raw materials used in tool manufacture, the reliability of joints used in compound tools, and the maintainability of tools in case of partial or total failure. While time-budgeting constraints differ at pastoral and agricultural residences, the costs of production shortfalls are equally severe. In response, artifacts from both residences are designed to be highly reliable. However, depending on the likelihood of tool failure, artifacts are designed with different raw material and joint reliability to either minimize tool failure or maximize maintainability. Multiple backups and replacement components are accumulated and maintained to reduce subsistence risk caused by the failure of artifacts with high potential failure rates or low maintainability.

Resumen

Resumen

La introducción de estudios sobre el diseño de herramientas, y específicamente sus grados de dependencia y mantenimiento, han contribuído a nuevos entendimientos de la variación de organización de conjuntos de artefactos prehistóricos. Aunque muchos estudios arqueólogicos han incorporado este enfoque teórico, existen pocos estudios etnoarqueólogicos dirigidos al entendimiento de los procesos de interacción entre riesgos de subsistencia, probabilidad, y costo de falla; y el diseño de herramientas. Algunos arqueólogos presuponen que solamente el diseño de artefactos provenientes de cazadores recolectores tienen relaciones con riesgos de subsistencia. Este estudio etnoarqueólogico investiga estas relaciones en el contexto de una economía agro-pastoril del altiplano suroeste de Bolivia. Los conceptos de dependencia en términos de la materia prima y técnica de construcción estan implementadas y usadas en la exploración de variación en diseños entre y dentro de conjuntos de artefactos derivados desde residencias agrícolas y pastoreos. Aunque las demandas sobre el tiempo disponible en estas residencias son diferentes, los costos de escasez de produción son igualmente serios, no adjuntando la explotación de cultígenos y animales domésticados. Los resultados indican que en ambas residencias los conjuntos estan dominados por especímenes de alta dependencia. No obstante, al nivel de conjunto y dentro de tipos de artefactos con la misma función, el nivel de dependencia en materia prima y método de contrucción varía al fin de incrementar el grado de mantenimiento del especímen y así llegar a una reducción de los riesgos de subsistencia. En el caso de artefactos caracterizados por niveles elevadas de falla o potencialidades bajas de mantenimiento, estrategias de reemplazo estan implementadas para reducir los riesgos de subsistencia. El estudio demuestra que el diseño de artefactos empleados en un contexto agro-pastoril tiene una relación con riesgos de subsistencia, no obstante que los recursos son cultígenos y animales domesticados.

Type
Reports
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , December 2001 , pp. 395 - 411
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 2001

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

References Cited

Alandia, Segundo. B., Otazu, Victor M., and Salas, Basilio T. 1979 Enfermedades. In Quinua y kañiwa cultivos andinos, with contributions by Mario Tapia, Humberto Gandarillas, Segundo Alandia, Basilio Salas, and Eulogio Zanabria, pp. 137–148. Centro Internacional de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo, Instituto Interamericano de Ciencias Agrícolas, Bogotá.Google Scholar
Aldenderfer, Mark S. 1990 Defining Lithic-Using Craft Specialization in Lowland Maya Society through Microwear Analysis: Conceptual Problems and Issues. Aun 14:53–70.Google Scholar
Alexander, Christopher 1964 Notes on the Synthesis of Form. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Antezana, Octavio P. 1952 Las heladas y la agricultura. Nimbus 8–9: 17–30.Google Scholar
Arnold, Dean 1993 Ecology and Ceramic Production in an Andean Community. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Bamforth, Douglas B. 1991 Technological Organization and Hunter-Gatherer Land Use. American Antiquity 56:216–235.Google Scholar
Bamforth, Douglas B., and Bleed, Peter 1997 Technology, Flaked Stone Technology, and Risk. In Rediscovering Darwin: Evolutionary Theory in Archeological Explanation, edited by C. Michael Barton and Geoffrey A. Clark, pp. 109–139. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association No. 7. American Anthropological Association, Arlington.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1977 Forty-Seven Trips. In Stone Tools as Cultural Markers, edited by R.V. S. Wright, pp. 24–36. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1979 Organization and Formation Processes: Looking at Curated Technologies. Journal of Anthropological Research 35:255–306.Google Scholar
Bleed, Peter 1986 The Optimal Design of Hunting Weapons Maintainability or Reliability. American Antiquity 51:737–747.Google Scholar
Boman, Éric 1908 Antiquités de la région andine de la République Argentine et du désert d'Atacama. Tome Premier. Imprimerie Nationale, Paris.Google Scholar
Boydston, Roger A. 1989 A Cost-Benefit Study of Functionally Similar Tools. In Time, Energy, and Stone Tools, edited by Robin Torrence, pp. 67–77. Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Braun, David P. 1983 Pots as Tools. In Archaeological Hammers and Theories, edited by James A. Moore and Arthur S. Keene, pp. 107–134. Academic Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Browman, David L. 1989 Origins and Development of Andean Pastoralism: An Overview of the Past 6000 Years. In The Walking Larder: Patterns of Domestication, Pastoralism and Predation, edited by Juliette Clutton-Brock, pp. 256–268. Unwin Hyman, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Carr, Phillip J., editor 1994 The Organization of North American Prehistoric Chipped Stone Tool Technologies. Archaeological Series 7. International Monographs in Prehistory, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Collins, Jane L. 1981 Kinship and Seasonal Migration in Southern Peru: Human Adaptation to Energy Scarcity. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainsville.Google Scholar
Custred, Glynn 1974 Llameros y comercio interregional. In Reciprocidad e intercambio en los Andes peruanos, compiled by Giorgio Alberti and Enrique Mayer, pp. 252–289. Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Lima, Peru.Google Scholar
Escobar, Ismael V. 1949a Estudios sobre el granizo. Nimbus 3:1–43.Google Scholar
Escobar, Ismael V. 1949b Estudios sobre el granizo. Nimbus 4:14–29.Google Scholar
Everitt, Brian S. 1977 The Analysis of Contingency Tables. John Wiley and Sons, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goland, Carol 1993 Field Scattering as Agricultural Risk Management: A Case Study from Cuyo Cuyo, Department of Puno, Peru. Mountain Research and Development 13:317–338.Google Scholar
Guillet, David 1986 Toward a Cultural Ecology of Mountains: The Central Andes and the Himalaya Compared. Mountain Research and Development 6:206–222.Google Scholar
Haberman, Shelby J. 1973 The Analysis of Residuals in Cross-Classified Tables. Biometrics 29:205–220.Google Scholar
Hayden, Brian, Franco, Nora, and Spafford, Jim 1996 Evaluating Lithic Strategies and Design Criteria. In Stone Tools Theoretical Insights into Human Prehistory, edited by George H. Odell, pp. 9–45. Plenum Press, New York.Google Scholar
Hildebrand, John A., and Hagstrum, Melissa B. 1999 New Approaches to Ceramic Use and Discard: Cooking Pottery from the Peruvian Andes in Ethnoarchaeological Perspective. Latin American Antiquity 10:25–46.Google Scholar
Horsfall, Gayel A. 1987 A Design Theory Perspective on Variability in Grinding Stones. In Lithic Studies among the Contemporary Highland Maya, edited by Brian Hayden, pp. 332–377. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Isbell, Billie Jean 1978 To Defend Ourselves: A View Through the Andean Kaleidoscope. The University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Kent, Jonathan 1982 The Domestication and Exploitation of the South American Camelids. Ph.D. dissertation, Washington University, Saint Louis. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Steven L. 1989 Hunter-Gatherer Foraging Organization and Strategies of Artifact Replacement and Discard. In Experiments in Lithic Technology, edited by Daniel S. Amick and Raymond P. Mauldin, pp. 33–48. BAR International Series 528. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.Google Scholar
Kuznar, Lawrence A. 1991 Transhumant Pastoralism in the High Sierra of the South Central Andes: Human Responses to Environmental and Social Uncertainty. Nomadic Peoples 28:93–104.Google Scholar
Kuznar, Lawrence A. 1995 Awatimarka: The Ethnoarchaeology of an Andean Herding Community. Harcourt Brace, Fort Worth.Google Scholar
Mayer, Enrique 1974 Las reglas del juego en la reciprocidad andina. In Reciprocidad e intercambio en los Andes peruanos, compiled by Giorgio Alberti and Enrique Mayer, pp. 37–65. Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Lima, Peru.Google Scholar
Mayer, Enrique 1985 Production Zones. In Andean Ecology and Civilization. An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Andean Ecological Complementarity, edited by Shozo Masuda, Izumi Shimada, and Craig Morris, pp. 45–84. University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo.Google Scholar
McCorkle, Constance M. 1983 The Technoenvironmental Dialectics of Herding in Andean Agropastoralism. Technical Report Series No. 30. Small Ruminant Collaborative Research Support Program. Department of Rural Sociology, University of Missouri, Columbia.Google Scholar
Meredith, Jack R. 1980 The Management of Operations. John Wiley and Sons, New York.Google Scholar
Middendorf, William H. 1990 Design of Devices and Systems. Marcel Dekker, New York.Google Scholar
Miller, George 1979 An Introduction to the Ethnoarchaeology of the Andean Camelids. Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Molina, Edwardo G., and Little, Andrienne V. 1981 Geocology of the Andes: The Natural Science Basis for Research Planning. Mountain Research and Development 1:115–144.Google Scholar
Mujica, Angel 1977 Tecnología del cultivo de la quinua. Boletín Técnico No. 2. Serie Quinua. Fondo Simon Bolivar, IICA, Puno.Google Scholar
Myers, Andrew 1989 Reliable and Maintainable Technological Strategies in the Mesolithic of Mainland Britain. In Time, Energy, and Stone Tools, edited by Robin Torrence, pp. 78–91. Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Nelson, Margaret C. 1991 The Study of Technological Organization. In Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 3, edited by Michael B. Schiffer, pp. 57–100. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Nelson, Margaret C. 1996 Technological Strategies Responsive to Subsistence Stress. In Evolving Complexity and Environmental Risk in the Prehistoric Southwest, edited by Joseph A. Tainter and Bonnie B. Tainter, pp. 107–144. Addison-Wesley, New York.Google Scholar
Nielsen, Axel E. 2000 Andean Caravans: An Ethnoarchaeology. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson.Google Scholar
O’Connor, Patrick D. T. 1987 Practical Reliability Engineering, Second Edition. John Wiley and Sons, New York.Google Scholar
Orlove, Benjamin S. 1986 Barter and Cash Sale on Lake Titicaca: A Test of Competing Approaches. Current Anthropologist 27:85–106.Google Scholar
Ortiz, René R., and Zanabria, Eulogio 1979 Plagas. In Quinua y kañiwa cultivos andinas, with contributions by Mario Tapia, Humberto Gandarillas, Segundo Alandia, Basilio Salas, and Eulogio Zanabria, pp. 121–136. Centro Internacional de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo, Instituto Interamericano de Ciencias Agrícolas, Bogotá.Google Scholar
O’Shea, John M. 1989 The Role of Wild Resources in Small Scale Agricultural Systems: Tales from the Lakes and the Plains. In Bad Year Economics, edited by Paul Halstead and John O’ Shea, pp. 57–67. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrofsky, Benjamin 1977 Design, Planning, and Development Methodology. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, California.Google Scholar
Oswalt, Wendell H. 1976 An Anthropological Analysis of Food-Getting Technology. John Wiley and Sons, New York.Google Scholar
Rhoades, Robert E., and Thompson, Stephen I. 1975 Adaptive Strategies in Alpine Environments: Beyond Ecological Particularism. American Ethnologist 2:535–551.Google Scholar
Shott, Michael 1986 Technological Organization and Settlement Mobility: An Ethnographic Examination. Journal of Anthropological Research 42:1–15.Google Scholar
Smith, Charles O. 1974 Introduction to Reliability in Design. McGraw-Hill, New York.Google Scholar
Tapia, Mario, Villarroel, M., von Baer, E., and Cagigao, R. 1979 Manual de agricultura andina. Informes de Conferencias y Reuniones No. 189. La Paz, Bolivia.Google Scholar
Tomka, Steve A. 1993 Site Abandonment Behavior among Transhumant Agro-Pastoralists: The Effects of Delayed Curation on Assemblage Composition. In Abandonment of Settlements and Regions Ethnoarchaeological and Archaeological Approaches, edited by Catherine M. Cameron and Steve A. Tomka, pp. 11–24. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomka, Steve A. 1994 Quinua and Camelids on the Bolivian Altiplano: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach to Agro-Pastoral Subsistence Production with an Emphasis on Agro-Pastoral Transhumance. Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Texas, Austin. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Tomka, Steve A. 2001 “Up and Down We Move…”: Factors Conditioning Agro-Pastoral Settlement Organization in Mountainous Settings. In Ethnoarchaeology of Andean South America Contributions to Archaeological Method and Theory, edited by Lawrence A. Kuznar, pp. 138–162. Ethnoarchaeological Series 4. International Monographs in Prehistory, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Torrence, Robin 1983 Time Budgeting and Hunter-Gatherer Technology. In Prehistoric Hunters and Gatherers in Europe, edited by Geoff N. Bailey, pp. 11–22. Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Torrence, Robin 1989 Re-tooling Towards a Behavioral Theory of Stone Tools. In Time, Energy, and Stone Tools, edited by Robin Torrence, pp. 57–66. Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Winterhalder, Bruce 1987 The Analysis of Hunter-Gatherer Diets: Stalking an Optimal Foraging Model. In Food and Evolution, edited by Marvin Harris and Eric B. Ross, pp. 311–339. Temple University Press, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Winterhalder, Bruce 1990 Open Field, Common Pot: Harvest Variability and Risk Avoidance in Agricultural and Foraging Societies. In Risk and Uncertainty in Tribal and Peasant Economies, edited by Elizabeth A. Cashdan, pp. 67–87. Westview Press, Boulder.Google Scholar
Winterhalder, Bruce P., and Brooke Thomas, R. 1978 Geoecology of Southern Peru: A Human Adaptation Perspective. Occasional Paper 27, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. University of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Zvelebil, Marek 1986 Postglacial Foraging in the Forests of Europe. Scientific American 254:86–93.Google Scholar