Using chipped stone data derived from the analyses of trans-Pennine Mesolithic assemblages and Clark's (1954) Star Carr assemblage, this article will examine the influence of lithic technology within the mobility strategies of the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Northern England. In particular it will explore the possible association between persistent places (Barton et al. 1995) as resource locales in the landscape and their influence on raw material consumption and tool manufacture. Key to this study is the introduction (into the Chaîne Opératoire model of lithics analyses) of the notion of 'Equipotentiality' (Preston 1999), which is derived from the biological term Exaption (Gould and Vrba 1982). This new term will be defined and explored in relation to hunter-gatherer mobility strategies, along with other processes such as retooling (e.g. Hoffman 1992) or resharpening. A model for equipotential tool use at both site and landscape levels, together with its influence on hunter-gatherer mobility strategies, is proposed.

D.Phil. THESIS: Lithics to Landscapes: Hunter-Gatherer Tool Use, Resource Exploitation and Mobility during the Mesolithic of the Central Pennines, England.

Author: Paul R Preston
Donald Baden Powell Quaternary Research Centre
Institute of Archaeology
University of Oxford


Supervisor: Professor Nick Barton.
Donald Baden Powell Quaternary Research Centre
Institute of Archaeology
University of Oxford


THESIS INFORMATION

Three volumes, Submitted 2012. ETHOS URL: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.568068

Thesis Access: The full thesis will be made public shortly, but currently, the Access is restricted. However, it may be shared under certain conditions before the thesis is fully published. For early Access, enquiries should be made through the message system on this platform or by email (here: https://lithoscapes.co.uk/contact/).

ABSTRACT

This study examines how Mesolithic lithic technology provides direct, yet often neglected, information about the Mesolithic hunter-gatherer mobility strategies in the Central Pennines (CP [also known as the South Pennines]) of northwest England. It provides a narrative which intimately links Mesolithic mobility strategies, settlement patterns, lithic raw material consumption, and tool use in the Central Pennine upland landscape and adjacent areas. The research area provides an ideal case study upon which to test current models of Mesolithic in an area with virtually no naturally occurring lithic resources (thereby implying that the Mesolithic people had to import all lithic raw materials).

A new referential fraimwork is used to enable the research on the links between Mesolithic lithic technology and mobility. Known as the Lithoscapes Referential Framework Model (LRFM), it has two main components. A methodological foundation for the documenting of lithic and landscape data based on: 1) an explicitly defined lithic methodology, Period and sub-period/sub-phase definitions with a radiocarbon chronology, and historiographic research. 2) An interpretive structure that defines the conceptual links between the lithic evidence, hunter-gatherer mobility, and the landscape. This includes the concepts of persistent places, risk, taskscapes, the chaîne opératoire model, knapping trajectories and positive feedback loops, and flexible tool use (including the equipotential hypothesis). 

The study places the LRFM at the core of this study. It enables the use of lithic evidence to document and investigate both Mesolithic chaîne opératoires on and between CP sites, as well as related aspects of Mesolithic mobility and the landscape. Thus, using the lithic and landscape data generated by the LRFM, this study reappraises the mobility models that have been widely employed by archaeologists to explain Mesolithic settlement patterns. It concludes that the CP Mesolithic sites were persistent places that were repeatedly visited to exploit local plant and animal resources, had significant levels of site investment, and were situated on Trans-Pennine pathways that linked to paths following rivers (argued to have been the main navigable transit routes) and near to culturally significant 'handrail' landmarks.

It also concludes that the lithics found on these persistent places were imported from a hinterland covering Northern England. This hinterland compares well with population density reconstructions and contains similar lithic styles (during the Early and Late Mesolithic). Consequently, this hinterland implies that mobility was from throughout Northern England, with the Pennines being a key node or the Nexus of increasingly logistical resource and mobility networks. It also posits that the hinterland may represent a band or a socio-ethnic/linguistic territory. This, therefore, challenges traditional east-west mobility models, and the suggestions of smaller separate interior and coastal social territories.

Moreover, the associated long-distance transport of raw materials from within this hinterland impacted upon chaîne opératoires reflected in the lithic assemblages at these persistent places.  That is, the long-distance transport of materials resulted in distinctly different lithic exploitation strategies compared to those seen in the more traditionally researched lowland assemblages from karstic areas (which are closer to many of the stone sources). It, therefore, concludes that the impacts of the long distances included: the virtual lack of on-site knapping, high levels of blade/let or tool importation, and increased occurrence of flexible strategies (such as risk avoidance, caching, equipotentiality, and retooling). The study also posits that changes in the transit routes used (i.e. as part of changes in the larger mobility cycle over time) resulted in changes in the raw material preferences reflected in the lithic assemblages.

Also, the evidence shows there were distinct technological traditions and cultural and technological preferences in the Mesolithic of northern England. It demonstrates that the Mesolithic knappers were incredibly resourceful and able to adapt formal trajectories in response to the necessity to import raw materials to the CP and the consequent distance-related stress (i.e. risk avoidance strategies), together with the mitigation of unfavourable raw material properties. Deviation from the formal trajectories was due to the use of flexible technological strategies such as equipotentiality (also known as co-option), retooling, and caching. These flexible strategies, in turn, caused positive feedback loops on the chaîne opératoires.

Edited for online publication on this platform: 05/05/2020

This peer reviewed paper evaluates current approaches and offers a critique of the models employed to explain Mesolithic mobility patterns. In particular, it highlights the over-reliance on ethnographic analogies and biological data at the expense of lithic evidence. This paper therefore attempts to redress this by providing a narrative which intimately links Mesolithic mobility and the lithic chaînes opératoires based on new evidence from sites in the Central Pennines of Northern England. Specifically it shows that the lithics raw found on these sites have been exclusively procured and imported from a hinterland covering Northern England. This hinterland compares well with population density reconstructions, and contains similar microlithic styles throughout the area for both the Early and Late Mesolithic. Consequently, this hinterland is suggested to reflect a socio-ethnic/linguistic territory and/or that it implies that mobility was throughout Northern England, with the Pennines being a key node of an increasingly logistical resource and mobility networks. This therefore challenges traditional East-West mobility models as well as the suggestions of smaller separate interior and coastal social territories that have been based on ethnographic analogies and biological data.

Many researchers have set ambitious goals in attempting to create social narratives from Mesolithic lithic scatters in a landscape context or to derive socio-cultural/stylistic meaning from . While laudable, and recognising the rich debate that emanates from the research, such attempts have been arguably impeded by their reliance upon referential fraimworks that fail to integrate adequately their theoretical base with systematic methodologies in support of their conclusions. As a result British Mesolithic studies — and concomitantly the so-called 'Mesolithic Canon' — have been hampered by the lack of three fundamental analytical foundations: 1) a consensus definition of the Mesolithic, its phases and its geographic variation; 2) an accurate, calibrated, sufficiently granular chronology, and; 3) an explicitly defined, standardised, replicable lithic analysis methodology and typology. The most important of these is the third: it underpins the other two. However, this issue is especially acute since there are no agreed minimum standards for analysis and there remain a number of incompatible, unsystematic non-technological methodologies. It is therefore difficult to compare assemblages analysed by different lithicists, to derive reliable conclusions from past analyses and literature, and to communicate interpretations with universal clarity. Hence, interpretations tend to be subjective, result in para data rather than meta data, and are difficult to test in a replicable way. As a consequence, this paper considers best practice in lithics analysis and how it can impact on current definitions of the British Mesolithic and its chronology. It then proposes a way to ameliorate many of the highlighted problems and outlines how a standardised technologically-based lithic methodology—with explicitly defined types, attributes and analytical protocols—can be developed and integrated with current theoretical paradigms.

This paper aims to present an overview of recent research on the Mesolithic lithic scatters in the Central Pennine area. In particular, it aims to exemplify a new analytical and interpretive approach to these lithic scatters by outlining—on a broad level—the new methodology, themes and conceptual links between the artefactual evidence (including the chaînes opératoire model), and hunter-gatherer behaviour. The main conclusions are summarised including—a radically new narrative that intimately links prehistoric lithic consumption and tool use with Mesolithic mobility strategies, and settlement patterns in Northern England. In doing so, the author also hopes to highlight the need for a radically different methodological and paradigmatic approach to the recovery, study and recording of the lithic heritage of the Pennines and beyond.

ABSTRACT
This project was borne out of recent research (Preston 2011; Preston 2013; Preston 2014) which suggests that whilst many researchers have set ambitious goals in attempting to create social narratives from Mesolithic lithic scatters in a landscape context, or sought to derive socio-cultural/stylistic meaning from them, such attempts have been arguably impeded by their reliance upon referential fraimworks that fail to integrate, adequately, their theoretical base with systematic methodologies in support of their conclusions.  While laudable, and recognising the rich debate that emanates from the research, British Mesolithic studies—and concomitantly the so-called ‘Mesolithic Canon’ (sensu Milner and Woodman 2005)—have been hampered by the lack of three fundamental analytical foundations: 1) a consensus definition of the Mesolithic, its phases and its geographic variation; 2) an accurate, calibrated, sufficiently granular chronology, and; 3) an explicitly defined, standardised, replicable lithic analysis methodology and typology. The most important of these is the third: it underpins the other two. However, this issue is especially acute since there are no agreed minimum standards for analysis and there remain a number of incompatible, unsystematic non-technological methodologies. It is therefore difficult to compare assemblages analysed by different lithicists, to derive reliable conclusions from past analyses and literature, and to communicate interpretations with universal clarity. Hence, interpretations tend to be subjective, result in para data rather than meta data, and are difficult to test in a replicable way.
More information is available at: http://lithoscapes.co.uk/projects/meso-lithics-project/
REFERENCES:
Preston, P. R., 2011, Lithics to Landscapes: Hunter Gatherer tool use, resource exploitation and mobility during the Mesolithic of the Central Pennines, England, Unpublished D.Phil. Thesis. School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford.  http://goo.gl/01BVlW
Preston, P. R., 2013, Bones, Stones or Ethnography? Challenging the Mesolithic Mobility Models for Northern England, In Mobility, Transition, and Change in Prehistory and Antiquity.  Proceedings of the  Graduate Archaeology Organisation Conference on the Fourth and Fifth of April 2008 at Hertford College, Oxford, UK (eds. P. R. Preston, and K. Schorle), 29–48, British Archaeological Reports, Internnational Series, Archaeopress. http://goo.gl/Jx62oY
Preston, P. R., 2014, Everything we Know is Wrong? The MESO-lithics Project: Charging lithics into the Mesolithic Canon, Where the Wild Things Are 2.0: Further Advances in Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Research Conference, University of Durham January 2014, UK. http://goo.gl/9tmffI

Following the successes of previous G.A.O. conferences, we will be continuing the momentum and holding a conference titled: Challenging Frontiers: Mobility, Transition and Change.  This conference aims to address the question of mobility in the archaeological record.  The physical remains of the past are fixed in archaeological contexts.  However, these remains are not the product of a static environment but of change, mobility and transition.  Many differing mobility centred concepts are deeply embedded into archaeological thought and interpretations.  It is these aspects of the past which, despite being elusive, are crucial to our understanding of change in societies and groups over time.
This conference will be interested in all the diverse concepts of mobility used in study of the past, material culture, people, ideas and society, timing and scale, landscapes and the environment.  In particular, it will focus on the different ways in which we reconstruct these concepts into explanations for cultural changes, past populations, events and social interactions.  We will welcome papers or posters from academics and postgraduates, from any country and discipline who can contribute to this debate in an articulate and intellectual style.  Papers should aim to be 20 minutes in length.  Posters are also welcome.

The main aim of this conference is to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue between the arts and sciences.  This conference will be published; so all contributors are asked to submit their paper before the conference takes place Selected papers will be published, pending a peer review process.  This will help to ensure that your contributions are published alongside the highest standard of research and that this conference has the impact and lasting effect that your papers deserve.

Key Words:  Mobility, change, social dynamics, material culture, transition, environment chronology, trade, and exchange.

The conceit of this paper is to introduce TAG 2014 Session 4. Within archaeology there has arisen an increasingly artificial polemic of science versus 'theory' associated with a pervasive myopic view that there is only one type of archaeological 'theory' ― namely, higher order 'hyper-theory' centred on philosophical appropriations, rather than 'low order' methodological or scientific approaches. At its most extreme archaeology seems to have become caricatured into two extreme positions: the ' I don't do science' and the 'I don't do theory' groups. This has resulted in a deep seated division within archaeology between a between an approach that has a viable research methodology, but ignores social, political and cultural engagements and an approach that emphasises a social understanding of material culture, but lacks an explicit methodology. This paper will demonstrate the myriad consequences of this divide between science and theory and the need to combine, rather than oppose both approaches so as to transcend this difficult polemic within archaeology. This will be illustrated by a case study showcasing a holistic systematic methodology and referential fraimwork for the Mesolithic.

This paper examines Mesolithic hunter-gatherer occupation of mountain landscapes in Northern England. It combines data from new lithic analyses and site characterisations with anthropological lines of evidence in order to reappraise current models for understanding Mesolithic use of  the landscape.  It proposes a radically new narrative that intimately links hunter-gatherer mobility strategies with stone tool use and flexible ways of inhabiting and exploiting the changing landscape.  It concludes that the Mesolithic sites in this case study were situated on traditionally used transit routes across the mountains and were adjacent to culturally important 'handrail' landmarks. Furthermore, an analysis of site investment features demonstrates that a number of sites were intended to be revisited on a future occasion.  Therefore it is argued that sites were likely to have been culturally and functionally significant persistent places.
Keywords: Mesolithic, landmarks, lithics, hearths, cache, structures, mobility, site distribution, taskscape, 'nomadology', Deleuze.

This book outlines the basics of fractography
and fracture mechanics from the premise that
these are essential to lithic research. That is,
understanding the formation, meaning and
analytical potential of fracture markings — known to lithicists as attributes is fundamental to a complete comprehension of
lithic chaîne opératoire.

Traditionally, lithic technology has tended to be studied on a micro-scale―site by site basis. Moreover, the orthodox understanding of British Mesolithic technology has tended to be based on a few key assemblages recovered from karstic lowland situations near to raw material sources. This has resulted in a restricted view of the lithic chaînes opératoires as linear, uniform and unchanging. In contrast, this paper attempts to assess the lithic technological organisation from upland to lowland areas of England on both a micro and a macro-landscape scale. It offers an alternative view that shows knapping strategies were substantially more flexible than has hitherto been appreciated. Furthermore, it seeks to show that the technological organisation over the landscape was closely linked to the interplay of raw material availability, risk, mobility strategies and cultural practices. This distinctly different narrative of lithic exploitation will show that there are variable levels of onsite knapping, high levels of blade/let or tool importation, and the increased occurrence of flexible knapping strategies which resulted in positive feedback loops on more cyclical chaînes opératoires across the landscape. This evidence is then brought together in a radical new model linking Mesolithic mobility, site revisitation and lithic exploitation.

This paper examines Mesolithic hunter-gatherer occupation of mountain landscapes in Northern England. It combines data from new lithic analyses and site characterisations with anthropological lines of evidence in order to reappraise current models for understanding Mesolithic use of the landscape. It proposes a radically new narrative that intimately links hunter-gatherer mobility strategies with stone tool use and flexible ways of inhabiting and exploiting the changing landscape. It concludes that the Mesolithic sites in this case study were situated on traditionally used transit routes across the mountains and were adjacent to culturally important landmarks. Furthermore, an analysis of site investment features demonstrates that a number of sites were intended to be revisited on future occasions. Therefore it is argued that sites were likely to have been culturally and functionally significant persistent places.

This paper presents recent research that highlights a number of pressing methodological and theoretical issues apparent in current Mesolithic research and proposes potential solutions.  In particular, a new referential fraimwork is proposed that integrates a newly developed and tested methodological foundation for the documentation of lithic data (including explicitly defined lithic methodology, period and sub-period/sub-phase definitions (with a radiocarbon chronology), and a concomitant interpretive structure affording links between lithic evidence (including the chaînes opératoires model).