"Tools"

[uniface]

There is a pretty common misconception among people interested in artifacts that only bifaces (flaked on both sides) with more or less recognizable forms are really "artifacts" and everything else "just rocks."

I'm here to point out that this idea completely collapses when an attempt is made to apply it to tools made previously to the very end of the Pleistocene (the "ice age"), anywhere. In fact, and completely unsuspected by most people in the Western Hemisphere in general, elaborate categories exist of flaked stone tools have been compiled by archaeologists, made and used over the course of a much longer time than people are supposed to have been here -- and they look nothing like the hafted points, knives and scrapers we assume were the only ones that were "real" artifacts.

A useful little teaser bearing on this appeared this morning:
https://www.sott.net/article/408923...Neanderthal-workshop-with-17000-flint-objects

Notice also (in the picture) the number of round, water-worn pebbles found in association with these.

The point isn't that there were the Neanderthals here who made these; it's that the things they left for us to find were, and no doubt about it, tools. That being the case, the argument that similarly unsophisticated items found here could not have been tools collapses.

Anyone interested could easily start by looking up (search term) Mousterian and clicking on Images. From there, one thing leads to another.

FWIW

 

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[Fred250]

Thanks, been feeling bad about it, stayed away as long as I could stand to settle down. I am hooked on this stuff bad though.

 

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[uniface]

No patient would ever accept any such thing, but nowadays many will settle for the opinion of anyone except people actually trained for decades in just the subject they are interested in. Perish the thought, lol. Add to that a transition to a so-called Post Truth landscape, and they'll be no point in learning anything at all. Whatever you want to believe will be true to you, and if people with greater knowledge disagree, well they can always pound salt, lol.

Without wishing to imply even remote disrespect for you or for your considerable body of knowledge, when I read this, the first thing that comes to mind is, "He doesn't seem to realize that this particular shoe is firmly on the other foot."

In Science, new evidence compels revising previous beliefs. In the fraud that passes for it, people start with beliefs and cherry pick data to support them (or appear to), leaving out anything contradictory or "debunking" it on some pretext.

This is the reason why informed, intelligent people have come to distrust the pronouncements of the "experts" who, in case after case, are found to be funded by, and answerable to, vested interests. The list is a long one, beginning with economics and extending to the efficacy and safety of vaccines, "global warming," food additive safety (etc.) and finishing up with archaeology north of the Rio Grande since its beginning.

Like any other cult of belief, it imposes orthodoxy on everyone whose income and futures it controls. One case in point was the rabid certainty of all right-thinking American archaeologists that no acceptable evidence existed that disproved the contention that Clovis was "first." This continued, getting more and more shrill, until the Paleoamerican Odyssey conference in 2013 -- after which the official version suddenly became that evidence that Clovis was NOT first had been obvious for twenty years.

A few links for anyone interested in currently "debunked" (heretical) archaeological discoveries,

Lake Manix Acheulean tools | Patagonian monsters

Calico Early Man Site

And for the grand prize, look up Hueyatlaco, which even wikipedia is compelled to admit is a slam dunk.

Bear in mind that all of these have been dismissed as "just rocks," "geofacts," products of natural, non-human processes &c. Not very convincingly IMO, but to each his own, I guess.

 

[Beanerisfree]

What do you make of this?

 

[Beanerisfree]

 

[Beanerisfree]

 

[Charl]

Without wishing to imply even remote disrespect for you or for your considerable body of knowledge, when I read this, the first thing that comes to mind is, "He doesn't seem to realize that this particular shoe is firmly on the other foot."

In Science, new evidence compels revising previous beliefs. In the fraud that passes for it, people start with beliefs and cherry pick data to support them (or appear to), leaving out anything contradictory or "debunking" it on some pretext.

This is the reason why informed, intelligent people have come to distrust the pronouncements of the "experts" who, in case after case, are found to be funded by, and answerable to, vested interests. The list is a long one, beginning with economics and extending to the efficacy and safety of vaccines, "global warming," food additive safety (etc.) and finishing up with archaeology north of the Rio Grande since its beginning.

Like any other cult of belief, it imposes orthodoxy on everyone whose income and futures it controls. One case in point was the rabid certainty of all right-thinking American archaeologists that no acceptable evidence existed that disproved the contention that Clovis was "first." This continued, getting more and more shrill, until the Paleoamerican Odyssey conference in 2013 -- after which the official version suddenly became that evidence that Clovis was NOT first had been obvious for twenty years.

A few links for anyone interested in currently "debunked" (heretical) archaeological discoveries,

Lake Manix Acheulean tools | Patagonian monsters

Calico Early Man Site

And for the grand prize, look up Hueyatlaco, which even wikipedia is compelled to admit is a slam dunk.

Bear in mind that all of these have been dismissed as "just rocks," "geofacts," products of natural, non-human processes &c. Not very convincingly IMO, but to each his own, I guess.

I should let it go, the thread’s getting old, but, I’ll point out that absolutely nothing you are saying here bears any relation to the point I was making, and which you quoted, regarding taking our apparent transition to a Post Truth landscape, and applying it to the identification of artifacts. Which won’t really happen, and, for that matter, I hope Post Truth goes the way of the dinosaur, as Timothy Snyder hopes in the quote that ends this comment, but I was simply making a point about
where we seem to be heading. Maybe I’ll ask the guy next door, he’s a janitor, to implant a stent in my right coronary artery.


Someday, maybe, you will understand that your basic operating assumption, namely, that if a new discovery or new idea runs counter to received wisdom, if a new idea or theory upsets the existing consensus belief, then, therefore, the new idea MUST be true, is simply not a position that everyone will be comfortable with. And, yes, I honestly believe that is your operating assumption.


You like new ideas, and so do I, I keep up with the frontiers in several disciplines. But, I do not take the position that if a new idea “threatens”, via its contrariness, what the existing paradigm supports, that therefore the new idea MUST be true.


And, when someone disagrees with you, it is not a requirement that they somehow satisfy you that their reasoning works for you. Simply saying “I disagree” is perfectly acceptable. Nobody is required to satisfy you, simply because they disagree with what you are proposing.


Your position of insisting that people must “prove me wrong” is ridiculous. You are free to believe anything you wish to believe. And we are free to be skeptical, or even, disagreeable.

“Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.”
― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

 

[Fred250]

I can’t believe it’s been over a year, seems like last week.

 

[uniface]

Someday, maybe, you will understand that your basic operating assumption, namely, that if a new discovery or new idea runs counter to received wisdom, if a new idea or theory upsets the existing consensus belief, then, therefore, the new idea MUST be true, is simply not a position that everyone will be comfortable with. And, yes, I honestly believe that is your operating assumption.

When what presents itself as received wisdom has an unbroken history of evasion, mischaracterization, suppression of evidence and outright lying, the assumption that it speaks with forked tongue is fully warranted.

Science rejects information incompatible with fact and/or reason.
Cults reject information that conflicts with what they believe as "invalid."

Science requires freedom of inquiry.
Cults demand purity of belief.

Science examines the unexplained.
Faith explains the unexamined.

Science extends the reach of its inquiry as widely as it can.
A cult limits acceptable discourse to publications having its nihil obstat (peer review) and imprimatur ("scholarly" journal) — otherwise purity of belief might be contaminated by contact with evil.

In science, all witnesses are heard and considered without prejudice, even if they have been wrong before about other matters.
In a cult, only ordained members of the hierarchy (piled higher and deepers) are acceptable sources of ideas/information.

Science does not try to expel dissenters.
Cults, in contrast, do, expelling dissidents as heretics.

In science, WHO says something has no bearing on whether or not it might be true.
In a cult, the fact that a pontiff says something establishes it as “true,” once and for all — a Dogma.

A lot of organizations present themselves as exercises in “science” — even entire disciplines in academia. But their behavior exposes them for what they are to anyone able to use a simple litmus test:

When in doubt, ignore what people say and pay careful attention to what they do — and to how they do it. These are the most dependable forms of self-disclosure there are.

 

[dirstscratcher]

I worked on the original Cedar Creek mastodon dig in Morrow county about 5 years ago. I worked on an area where ribs were being processed and there were a number of small flint spalls, 3-5 CM that appeared to be used as knives, with little to no edge work. There were also 3 cached quarter sized tooth ivory pieces that I believe were Presumably made to be used as knives, They didn't discard any larger tools at the site.

 

[Indiana_acklac]

re. "expedient tools" -- a term that never should have been chosen to subsume ad hoc tools, because it was expedient for them to do everything they ever did. Up to and including making hafted points, knives, axes &c.

Intentional re-flaking edges of flakes only shows the freshly-struck edges were dulled by use : no bifacially worked edge is ever as sharp as the edge of a thin flake. Which is why they were made and used. Assuming these can be written off as knapping debitage requires a leap of faith that the folks doing things the old way don't support. Several people I recall have described skinning out an entire bison using one flake, with there being no evidence that it was used visible to the naked eye.

If people want to create their own tool/non-tool categories based on edge re-working, it's a free country I guess (although that's getting debatable). But pushing that on new people isn't warranted, IMHO.

A lot of things I've seen posted here that self-assured tool-definers have shot down could well have been tools. And that's as close as you can come -- in the grey areas, short of microscopy, declaring that they were and weren't are matters of belief. Not fact.

Thank you.

 

[Indiana_acklac]

Expiedient tools are real. Being able to asertain what is/isn't is the issue. If a ancient being picked up a rock to break a nut or drive a stake that rock is a tool. The instant he throws it back on the ground it is just another rock. Grimms assembladge are clearly tools as are a lot of single faced flakes.
When one begins picking up rocks near known sites or because they look like they could have been used as a tool it becomes a free for all. Personally if it immediately doesn't look man made I don't give it much attention. If I have to have a 4 screen debate as to wether a rock is just that or something that was possibly usedas a "tool" I'll just toss it back. JMHO

I've said this once, I'll say it again: Wouldn't be ironic, if due to my inexperience (and imagination), I found something special. Something you would have immediately discarded?

 

[MAMucker]

"Tools"

I will say this again. I have made and used expedient tools. I don’t think every tool deserves an official name, nor a nod of significance.
I’ve made and quickly used broken glass and stone chips to cut string and rope and tools for scraping out a clam for fishing bait. Those discarded bits and pieces are useless to derive any information from them -a day, a week or a thousand years from now.

I don’t think it’s important to identify every Sliver of stone used as a NA toe nail cleaner or a booboo picker. There’s just so very many artifacts that CAN be identified, that it isn’t important to make a fuss over every tit and tittle that is found (grand assumption) 5000+ years out of context. We know they were here, right? There’s no need to keep on proving it.

And (just my opinion) it’s striking to see so many items presented as art or sculptures from items found in nature that IF MAN MADE, seem to have been made by limbless morons.

I believe if we all spent one day deliberately picking up these things and posting them here tonight, we could jamb the forum for a year.

I expect that the ancients were capable of genius and imagination that exceeds the cartoon level, just as we are.

I know I’m ranting, but this post is all (mostly) rant and I wish I hadn’t opened it again.

 

[uniface]

As far as "proving it to me" goes, I don't insist on the "me" part of your quote -- I'm happy to settle for plain, old, "prove it," period.

Example: Windover Bog remains. Either publish the skull morphology in detail and the DNA (complete -- not selected aspects to suggest the Beringian origin hypothesis isn't a woeful failure) or stop peddling the politically-imposed fairy story that is the current "official" reconstruction of American prehistory.

PS: When virtually everything someone/some outfit says about something important turns out to be a lie (take Clovis first for an example) and that lie is never retracted until outside pressure becomes unbearable, the presumption that its pronouncements are lies and that the truth must contradict them is fully warranted.

 

[uniface]

Those discarded bits and pieces are useless to derive any information from them -a day, a week or a thousand years from now.

I don’t think it’s important to identify every Sliver of stone used as a NA toe nail cleaner or a booboo picker. There’s just so very many artifacts that CAN be identified, that it isn’t important to make a fuss over every tit and tittle that is found (grand assumption) 5000+ years out of context. We know they were here, right? There’s no need to keep on proving it.

IMHO the real issue, at root, isn't that narrowly focused.

People who are more comfortable doing logic-chopping than lithic analysis (this includes most archaeologists, who do not have, and will never have, the years of in-hand absorbtion-by-osmosis required to recognise what they're looking at) (sounds objectionably arrogant and elitist, but that can't be helped. The number of people able to definitively recognise an A&H Amati violin from a contemporary copy of one or a later imitation of one by a master forger is very small. And those three or four people have been very narrowly focused on in-hand familiarization for upwards of the first 25 years of their professional lives) (NB: None of them have university degrees. That's just the way it is. It's not that complicated but it only works the way it works).

The issue is recognising (and admitting) that much of what people want to dismiss as mere debitage was an essential part of the survival toolkit. Without this, focused only on pretty bifacial trophies, the picture is sadly skewed.

And you can take that a step further: flakes struck for use as tools from flake cores can be recognised.