From Pebbles to Knives: The Role of the Chert through a Technological Approach and Use-Wear Analysis in Chanhu-daro (Sindh, Pakistan)

The French Archaeological Mission in the Indus Basin in cooperation with the Department of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Pakistan, and Culture, Tourism and Antiquities Department, Government of Sindh has excavated and documented a large complex of contextualized bead manufacturing activities dated from the beginning or the first period of the Indus Civilization (2600/2500-2300 BCE) at Chanhu-daro. In this paper, we will especially focus on the fabrication process and implications of the chert material inside the bead production. Chert raw pebbles, débitage wastes and tools are well represented inside the Chanhu-daro assemblage. The débitage wastes (cortical flakes, cortical blades, maintenance/shaping flakes, crested blades, knapping accidents as plunging blades or tongue fractured blades) and the plein débitage (blades and bladelets) indicate that two knapping techniques were mixed: indirect percussion and pressure. The technological and traceological studies also allow us to reconstruct both tools shaping techniques and their purposes in the steatite beads manufacture and inside other productions. The role of the chert in the bead manufacture process through a technological approach and use-wear analysis is showing high skilled craftsmen dealing with an intensive production needing sophisticated technical systems documented for the first time in Chanhu-daro and more broadly for the first period of the Indus Civilization.