Poster (Scientific congresses and symposiums)
Around the fireplace: heat exposure and adhesive alteration
Cnuts, Dries; Tomasso, Sonja; Rots, Veerle
20177th Annual European Society for the study of Human Evolution meeting
Peer reviewed
 

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Keywords :
hafting adhesives; fireplace; residues; prehistory; palaeolithic
Abstract :
[en] Currently, there is no agreement about the timing of the habitual use of fire in the Palaeolithic. Some researchers (Roebroeks and Villa, 2011) situate the control of fire in North-western Europe around 400ka and question the early claims of fire structures (before 400 ka) since these traces could also be produced by natural events. The only other available line of direct evidence, strike-a-lights, appear only to occur later in the Palaeolithic record (Stapert and Johansen, 1999; Sorensen et al., 2014; Rots, 2015). The lack of convincing evidence has forced researchers to use indirect evidence as adhesives to estimate the timing of control of fire. It is assumed that a synthetic adhesive like birch tar, which was already in use from at least 120ka (Mazza et al., 2006), cannot be produced without an extensive pyro-technological knowledge. The link between fire control and adhesive technology is evident since fire is required for a range of activities related to hafting technology: the production of birch bark, mixing of resin with other materials, dehafting of stone tools. Moreover, archaeological evidence indicates that dehafted stone tools may have been thrown into the fire when discarded. Once the tools are buried, they may be subjected to heat from an overlying fireplace. The effect of heat exposure on these fragile organic substances has never been investigated, and it is hypothesised that this might be a possible explanation for the rare survival of these adhesives in the archaeological record. Our study aims at monitoring the effect of heat exposure by combustion on a range of experimental compound adhesives on flint tools. The results of the combustion experiments are presented and it is demonstrated that the vertically transferred combustion heat is responsible for the loss of adhering adhesives. A correlation between the degree of loss and the specific adhesive mixture could be observed. The combustion experiment also leads to a wide range of accidental residues deposited on the stone tools. Our results stress the importance of identifying the processes that might be responsible for the formation or degradation of residues adhering to a stone tool surface.
Research center :
AAP - Art, Archéologie et Patrimoine - ULiège
Disciplines :
Archaeology
Author, co-author :
Cnuts, Dries  ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences historiques > Archéologie préhistorique
Tomasso, Sonja ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences historiques > Archéologie préhistorique
Rots, Veerle  ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences historiques > Archéologie préhistorique
Language :
English
Title :
Around the fireplace: heat exposure and adhesive alteration
Publication date :
2017
Event name :
7th Annual European Society for the study of Human Evolution meeting
Event organizer :
European Society for Humn Evolution
Event place :
Leiden, Netherlands
Event date :
from 21-09-2017 to 23-09-2017
Audience :
International
Peer reviewed :
Peer reviewed
European Projects :
FP7 - 312283 - EVO-HAFT - Evolution of stone tool hafting in the Palaeolithic
Name of the research project :
Evohaft
Funders :
CER - Conseil Européen de la Recherche [BE]
CE - Commission Européenne [BE]
Available on ORBi :
since 25 September 2017

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