Understanding quartz technology in early prehistoric Ireland (2010)
Killian Driscoll
Supervisor: Dr Graeme Warren
Funded by: The Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Abstract
Killian's PhD is now available in an HTML version the Lithics Ireland Web Site >>. A PDF version will shortly be made available through the UCD School of Archaeology web site.
Archaeologists have only recently recognised quartz as a significant part of prehistoric stone technologies in Ireland and Britain. As a raw material, quartz is superabundant in areas of Ireland and Britain and was utilised extensively in prehistory. However, research biases have obscured a fuller understanding of it, with the evidence either having been overlooked or ignored. Often dismissed as a poor alternative to flint, and impossible to analyse due to perceived irregular fracture properties, quartz is best understood as a different material with different physical characteristics. Critically, this implies that coherent analytical frameworks for quartz assemblages can be developed, thus providing a new basis for the interpretation of prehistoric activity in large areas of Ireland.
Researchers in Scandinavia have highlighted the burden of a flint framework (Åkerlund et al. 2003). Archaeologists there had failed to appreciate the qualities and dynamics of quartz, with quartz assemblages being regarded as undiagnostic, crudely produced, or made without a concept of shape (Lindgren 1998; Knutsson 1998). However, quartz-centred research there has categorically shown that these misconceptions can, and should, be put to rest (ibid., Sandén 1998). What is needed is an evaluation of the Scandinavian research in terms of Irish prehistoric raw materials and lithic traditions.
Consequently, the development of the work initiated in Scandinavia, within the parameters of the techniques and raw materials used in an Irish prehistoric context, will provide a forum for the clearer understanding of quartz use in Irish prehistory. Such a forum will enable the archaeological community to have a readily accessible, common set of general principles and analytical tools to formulate further discussions, and facilitate and enhance research agendas involving quartz and other flint alternatives. As has begun recently in Scandinavia, we need to move away from a flint-blinkered approach to all materials, and understand the invariant differences and special qualities of them. Approaching quartz from this proposed perspective will facilitate discussion and comparison with other raw materials used in prehistory.
The basis of the PhD will be the development, through experimental knapping, of an analytical framework for quartz working in Ireland and testing of this framework by a detailed analysis of a Later Mesolithic quartz scatter from Belderrig, County Mayo. The research excavation of this site by Graeme Warren, UCD School of Archaeology, has provided excellent spatial and contextual control over the lithic scatter, which includes in situ material. Therefore the lithic assemblage is advantageously placed to be used as a platform to critically examine a misunderstood and under-researched lithic material. Preliminary analyses and geological sourcing of the large assemblage indicates that quartz was abundant in the immediate locality of the site, and that all stages of the reduction sequence are present. This means that a chaîne opératoire framework can be formulated and initiated to analyse the life processes of the raw material and its prehistoric users. A refitting programme of samples of the Belderrig assemblage will be carried out.
A clear, concerted, and concise analysis of quartz is just the beginning steps in a greater understanding of prehistoric lives. Importantly, we must remember that we are not just dealing with issues of a disembodied technology: tool making and use are immediately situated within peoples’ sociality. Therefore, the use of the chaîne opératoire as both a conceptual and methodological framework can provide a suitable avenue for further work of this kind. In setting up a suitable and credible classificatory framework for Irish prehistoric quartz use, we will have a significant base from which to build our understandings of prehistoric communities, and move forward our research agendas.
References
Åkerlund, A. et al. 2003. Peopling a forgotten landscape. In L. Larsson et al. (eds.), Mesolithic on the move. Oxford: Oxbow Books, pp. xxxiii-xliv.
Knutsson, K. 1998. Convention and lithic analysis. In L. Holm and K. Knutsson (eds.), Proceedings from the Third Flint Alternatives Conference at Uppsala, Sweden, October 18-20, 1996. Occasional Papers in Archaeology and Environment 16, pp. 71-93.
Lindgren, C. 1998. Shapes of quartz and shapes of minds. In L. Holm and K. Knutsson (eds.), Proceedings from the Third Flint Alternatives Conference at Uppsala, Sweden, October 18-20, 1996. Occasional Papers in Archaeology and Environment 16, pp. 95-103.
Sanden, E. 1998. Using quartz fractures in interpreting a Stone Age site. In L. Holm and K. Knutsson (eds.), Proceedings from the Third Flint Alternatives Conference at Uppsala, Sweden, October 18-20, 1996. Occasional Papers in Archaeology and Environment 16. pp. 141-154.