This collection presents state-of-the-art approaches to the use of inorganic raw materials in the period known as prehistory. It focuses on stone-tools, adornments, colorants and pottery from Europe, America and Africa. The chapters intimately merge archaeology, anthropology, geology, geography, physics and chemistry to reconstruct past human behaviour, economy, technology, ecology, cognition, territory and social complexity. The book represents a framework of raw material investigation for those working in science, regardless of the time period, region of the world or materials they are studying.

Preface, Marcel Otte0Forward, Masayoshi Yamada0Introduction, Akira Ono0Part I – General perspectives01.1 – Rivers as orientation axes for migrations, exchange networks and transmission of cultural traditions in the Upper Palaeolithic of Central Europe, Harald Floss01.2 – The Contribution of obsidian characterization studies to early prehistoric archaeology, Tristan Carter01.3 – The mesolithic project Ullafelsen in Tyrol (Austria), Dieter Schäfer01.4 – Carpathian obsidians: state of art, Katalin T. Biró01.5 – Paleolithic of Ukraine: The main diachronic and spatial trends of lithic raw materials exploitation, Vadim Stepanchuk0Part II – Regional perspectives02.1 – The raw material variability in the mesolithic site of Ullafelsen (Sellrain, Tyrol, Austria), Stefano Bertola02.2 – Petroarchaeological research in the Carpathian Basin: methods, results, challenges, Katalin T. Biró02.3 – Obsidian outcrops in Ukrainian transcarpathians and their use during the Paleolithic time, Sergey Ryzov02.4 – Small opportunities and big needs: Mira Early Upper Paleolithic case of raw materials exploitation (Dnieper basin, Ukraine), Vadim Stepanchuk02.5 – Obsidian exploitation and circulation in Late Pleistocene Hokkaido in the northern part of the Japanese Archipelago, Hiroyuki Sato & Miyuki Yakushige02.6 – Upper Palaeolithic obsidian use in Central Japan: the origin of obsidian source exploitation, Kazutaka Shimada02.7 – Acquisition and consumption of obsidian in the Upper Palaeolithic on Kyushu, Japan, Kojiro Shiba.

Specialists from various disciplines (humanities and natural sciences) debate, from different perspectives, the networks in raw materials and technological innovation in Prehistory and Protohistory, involving investigation topics typical of archaeometry: archeometallurgy, petrography, and mineralogy

Woodlands are a key source of raw materials for many purposes since early Prehistory. Wood, bark, resin, leaves, fibers, fungi, moss, or tubers have been gathered to fulfill almost every human need. That led societies to develop specific technologies to acquire, manage, transform, elaborate, use, and consume these resources. The materials provided by woodlands covered a wide range of necessities such as food, shelter, clothing, or tool production, but they also provided resources employed for waterproofing, dying, medicine, and adhesives, among many others. All these technological processes and uses are commonly difficult to identify through the archaeological record. Some materials are exclusively preserved by charring or in anaerobic conditions at very exceptional sites or leave only a very slight trace behind them (e.g., containers). Consequently, they have received far less attention in archaeobotanical studies compared to other kind of plant materials consumed as food or firewood. This book provides an overview of technological uses of plants from the Palaeolithic to the Post-Medieval period. This collection of papers presents different archaeobotanical and archaeological studies dealing with the use of a wide range of woodland resources, most of them among the less visible for archaeology, such as bast, fibers, and fungi. These papers present different approaches for their study combining archaeology, archaeobotany, and ethnoarchaeology.

Perishable Material Culture in Prehistory provides new approaches and integrates a broad range of data to address a neglected topic, organic material in the prehistoric record. Providing news ideas and connections and suggesting revisionist ways of thinking about broad themes in the past, this book demonstrates the efficacy of an holistic approach by using examples and cases studies. No other book covers such a broad range of organic materials from a social and object biography perspective, or concentrates so fully on approaches to the missing components of prehistoric material culture. This book will be an essential addition for those people wishing to understand better the nature and importance of organic materials as the ’missing majority’ of prehistoric material culture.

This book was originally published in 1984. For over a million years rocks provided human beings with the essential raw materials for the production of tools. Nevertheless we still know very little about the behaviour and processes that resulted in the creation of archaeological sites at or near lithic quarries. In the past archaeologists have placed much emphasis on the process of 'exchange' in their analysis of prehistoric economies while largely ignoring the sources of the exchanged objects. However, with the development of interest in the means of production, these sites have begun to take on a new significance. Prehistoric Quarries and Lithic Production is the first systematic study of archaeological sites that served as quarries for stone tools. Its theoretical and methodological importance will extend its appeal beyond those archaeologists concerned with lithic technology and prehistoric exchange systems to archaeologists and anthropologists in general and to geographers and geologists.