Ground Stone Technologies

Ground Stone Technologies Workshop

Two-Day Workshop Dates: TBD

Course Description

Ground stone tools represent diverse activities, including technological, subsistence, social, and symbolic aspects of communities. Conducting detailed analyses of ground stone assemblages informs on regional Indigenous raw material knowledge, resource use, and tool manufacturing and maintenance practices. Applying experimental archaeology to ground stone technology analysis offers a means to explore variables in tool manufacture and use through raw material selection, reduction strategies, and use wear. In this two-day workshop, participants will learn to identify archaeological ground stone tools and production byproducts. Through experimental tool replication and use, attendees will recognize manufacture, maintenance, and use wear attributes. Additionally, participants will produce their own comparative ground stone tool collection.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the two-day Ground Stone Technologies Workshop, attendees will be able to:

  • Identify archaeological ground stone tools and production byproducts;
  • Recognize appropriate toolstone for the manufacture of different types of ground stone tools;
  • Identify ground stone tools and manufacture, maintenance, and use wear attributes;
  • Recognize tools used in the production and maintenance of ground stone artifacts;
  • Develop research questions and outline an experimental research design for their own ground stone tool analyses.