Craft Production and the
Organization of Ground Stone
Technologies
Katherine (Karen) Wright
Ground stone artifacts are often discussed in terms of their uses in food processing and there is
little doubt that artifacts such as pounding and milling tools, stone bowls and other items figured
in food preparation in Neolithic societies (Wright 1994; 2000). Less often discussed are (1) ground
stone artifacts as craft items; (2) the roles played by ground stone artifacts in the development of
other Neolithic crafts; (3) chaînes opératoires in the production of ground stone artifacts; and (4)
variations in the ways in which ground stone technologies were organized in settlement systems.
In this paper I wish to discuss these issues and to illustrate them by reference to several Neolithic
sites in western Asia with distinctively different ground stone assemblages.
Archaeologists often think of ground stone artifacts in connection with certain types of
tools—notably grinding slabs, handstones, pestles, mortars and the like. However, ground stone
artifacts need to be studied in the context of whole assemblages of stone tools, particularly those
that involve abrasion in artifact production. A ground stone assemblage can include stone beads,
figurines, vessels, incised objects and a diverse array of miscellaneous artifacts that usually receive
little attention (e.g. cutmarked slabs) (Wright 1992b).
Ground stone assemblages also need to be studied in terms of whole systems of organization
of such artifacts, from raw material procurement to final abandonment. As students of chipped
stone technology have observed, lithic technologies and assemblage variations are sharply affected
by such factors as availability and transport ‘costs’ of raw materials; ‘prodigal’ or expedient use of
materials; curated organization, re-use and recycling of tools to new forms; caching of artifacts at
sites (as ‘site furniture’); and disposal and abandonment habits (as primary, secondary or tertiary
refuse) which affect interpretation of ground stone assemblages (Binford 1979; Binford 1977;
Nelson 1991).
Here I wish to discuss a number of sites in Neolithic western Asia to illustrate (1) variations
in how ground stone assemblages form; and (2) inferences about the role of ground stone tools
in the general proliferation of craft technologies that characterized the Neolithic. The sites are:
Beidha, southern Jordan (Pre-Pottery Neolithic B = PPNB, ca. 7,600–6,000 bc); Jilat 7 (early
PPNB) and Jilat 13 and 25, eastern Jordan (ca. 6,000–5,500 bc, cf. Pre-Pottery Neolithic C); and
Çatalhöyük, Turkey (ca. 6,500–5,700 bc) (all dates uncalibrated) (Fig. 8.1).
Craft Production and the Organization of Ground Stone Technologies
131
Catalhoyuk
Jilat
Beidha
km
0
Figure 8.1
100
Map showing location of Neolithic sites discussed in the text. Drawing by K. Wright.
Beidha
Beidha, a small village of the Middle to Late PPNB, is located in southern Jordan near Petra, in
a rocky environment of red Cambrian sandstones and granites. Excavations by Diana Kirkbride
in the 1960s resulted in a wide horizontal exposure of the settlement and revealed a sequence of
building levels characterized by round to rectangular structures (Byrd 1994; Kirkbride 1966a;
1966b; 1966c; 1967; 1968a; 1968b).
Analysis of several hundred ground stone artifacts from these excavations revealed the existence
of house ‘toolkits’ composed not only of milling and pounding/mixing tools (eg handstones,
grinding slabs, pestles, mortars), but also stone vessels, small limestone ‘lamps’ (with carbon
residues), chopping tools such as axes/celts, and heavy hammers made of iron-rich dense sandstone
(Wright 1991; 1992b; 1992a; 1993; 2000). At least some of these artifacts were undoubtedly used
in the construction of the domestic buildings, which were composed of masonry (sometimes neatly
drressed) and involved use of timbers as indicated by postholes and niches in stone walls.
The Beidha ground stone assemblage neatly illustrates expedient vs. curated use of different
raw materials, depending on availability. Generally, 88.8% of all of the ground stone artifacts from
Beidha were made of materials local to the village—available within easy reach in the immediate
vicinity of the site (sandstones, quartzites, granites, flint, limestone). Only 11.2% of the artifacts
were composed of materials coming from distant sources; of these most by far were of basalt, the
nearest source of which is Shobak, some 35 km from Beidha (Wright 1992b; 1993).
Milling tools at Beidha are extremely numerous and are overwhelmingly dominated by mediumto coarse-grained sandstones and quartizitic sandstones, of which large boulders and outcrops
surround the site on all sides. These materials have varying degrees of conchoidal fracture, in
particular the materials with a heavy component of quartzite.
132 NEW APPROACHES TO OLD STONES
Profligate, expedient use of these local materials can be seen in the large size of the many grinding
slabs used in this village. For the most part, the grinding slabs were made on rough boulders that
received lithic reduction other than the concave use surfaces. However, at least some of the slabs
were thinned via flaking (e.g. Figure 8.2, no. 3), indicating some treatment of blanks probably
for reducing weight, easing transport (albeit only across small distances) and shaping the base to
a convenient form. It is also likely that the concave surfaces on some of the slabs were initially
hollowed out with the use of flaking, whilst other grinding slabs were exceedingly shallow, indicating
that shaping of the use surface was mainly from use.
Handstones were very diverse in material and form at Beidha and indicate the simultaneous
presence of several different technologies. Quartzite handstones—of of a medium brown quartzite—
were seemingly made on large flakes struck off of very large cores, and then abraded through use
into the characteristic ‘loaf ’ shape, oval in plan and plano-convex in section. One complete flaked
core of this kind was found, as was a primary flake showing the bulb of percussion, a bit of retouch
around the edges, and a red pigment residue across the ventral surface (Figure 8.3, no. 1), testifying
to the use of this artifact as a grinding stone. Handstones of identical brown quartzitic sandstone
material and closely similar shapes and sizes were abundant at Beidha (e.g. Figure 8.3, no. 2). The
quartzitic sandstone artifacts suggest on-site manufacture of the kind seen at ground stone quarrying
sites in the Negev (see Rosen, this volume).
Quite a different technology was probably involved in the making of granite grinding tools,
of which two can be seen in Figure 8.3 (nos. 3–4). This material is a bright red and pink granite
with characteristic black inclusions and was by far the hardest and most durable material used for
stone items at Beidha. This material does not have a conchoidal fracture but a very rough one and
thus it is unlikely that they were formed on flake blanks in the manner of the quartzite handstones.
Instead, they must have been made by a combination of short percussions (pecking) and quite
arduous shaping with hard, rough sandstones. These granite handstones typically have triangular
cross-sections.
In all, the vast numbers and relatively unbroken state of the artifacts made of local materials
testifies to a quite expedient use of the sandstones, quartzites, grantites and limestones. There is
1
cm
0
2
50
3
4
Figure 8.2
Grinding slabs made from local materials, Beidha, southern Jordan, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. All are of
medium-grained red sandstone from the source adjacent to the site. Note the negative flake scars on the dorsal side of no.
3. The weights of these slabs are between 30 and 50 kg. Drawing by K. Wright.
Craft Production and the Organization of Ground Stone Technologies
133
1
cm
0
10
3
2
4
Figure 8.3
Handstones made of local materials, Beidha, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. (1) Quartzite primary flake showing
bulb of percussion, edge retouch and traces of red pigment residue on the ventral surface. (2) Quartzite loaf-shaped
handstone with plano-convex section; probably made on a flake like that of no. 2. (3-4) Red granite handstones with
triangular sections. Drawing by K. Wright.
little evidence of recycling of such artifacts, with one exception: the re-use of grinding slabs in
house walls as part of the architecture. This, however, was not an example of recycling of material
in order to conserve it. Instead, grinding slabs were sometimes deemed of convenient size for use in
new buildings (or repairing old ones) and it is not always the case that slabs used in this way were
worn out.
The organization of basalt technology was very different and indicates a high degree of con­
servation, recycling and re-use of this harder-to-get material. Basalt was used for making tools that
required durability in the face of pounding (pestles, hammers) or forceful cutting blows (axes, celts,
choppers). Contrary to expectation, not all of the basalt ‘pestles’ at Beidha were actually used as
pestles in the sense of tools used for light pounding and mixing. Large flake scars at the ends of
some of these elongated objects indicate that at least some were used as hammers—for seriously
hard pounding. (A very few heavy artifacts—long loaf-shaped items made of iron-rich, dense
sandstone—also suggest heavy hammering.) Of course, smaller artifacts with less heavy pounding
wear were also found (Figure 8.4, nos. 1–2) and these were undoubtedly used with mortars, which
were made of limestone or basalt.
It is clear from the sizes and forms of the artifacts that broken hammers or pestles made of basalt
were recycled and re-used as small hand-grinding tools (‘bell-shaped mullers’) (Figure 8.4, nos.
4–8) which may have also continued to be used for light pounding as suggested by flake scars at
the ends. The villagers waited a long time before abandoning basalt items and they neatly illustrate
a curated technology co-existing alongside the expedient use of artifacts needed for abrasion tasks
(sandstones etc.).
134 NEW APPROACHES TO OLD STONES
2
1
cm
0
5
3
10
6
7
4
8
Figure 8.4
Pestles and ‘mullers’ made of non-local basalt, Beidha, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. The nearest basalt source to
Beidha is 50 km away at Shobak. Forms of basalt tools at Beidha suggest that basalt items were recycled. The small mullers
suggest broken pestles re-used as small hand-grinding tools. Drawing by K. Wright.
Jilat 7
Jilat 7 dates to the Early and Middle PPNB, broadly contemporary with Beidha. It is one of a
number of early Neolithic sites in the arid eastern Jordanian desert, excavated by Andrew Garrard
in the 1980s (Baird et al. 1992; Garrard et al. 1986; 1987; 1994; 1996; Garrard 1998). It was
probably seasonally occupied by hunting groups familiar with domesticated plants (of which some
were found despite the inhospitable environment there). The setting is one of limestone desert with
plentiful flint and a large source of coloured stones rich in apatite and other minerals yielding green,
red, and black stones which were used in the Neolithic for beadmaking. Like other Neolithic sites
in Wadi Jilat—and very unlike Beidha—Jilat 7 had simple structures built of upright limestone slabs
that probably supported roofs made of hide or cloth (the environment is treeless).
None of the locally available rocks in the Jilat area would have been well suited for making
grinding/pounding tools—no sandstone, basalt or granites were present anywhere nearby, and whilst
limestones and flints can be made into grinding/pounding tools, they are notoriously ineffective.
The ground stone artifacts from Jilat 7 were nearly all made of basalt, the nearest sources of which
were at least 50 km from Wadi Jilat (the possibilities are the Basalt Desert near Azraq Oasis, or
the north Jordan Valley to the west). Typologically, the basalt assemblage was dominated by shaft
straighteners (Figure 8.5) (with strong parallels to those found at PPNB Jericho), not too surprising
for a site in which hunting was a key activity (Garrard et al. 1994; Wright 1992b; 1993). However,
caches of complete and large domestic grinding tools were found inside the structures, in positions
Craft Production and the Organization of Ground Stone Technologies
1
3
135
2
4
5
Figure 8.5
Ground stone artifacts (all basalt) from Jilat 7, eastern Jordan. The nearest basalt sources are 50–80 km
from this site, in western Jordan near the Jordan Valley, or at Azraq Oasis (the Basalt Desert). (Photo: Torla Evans).
clearly suggesting storage of the items as ‘site furniture’ in Binford’s sense (Binford 1977). They
included large (but thin and lightweight) grinding slabs, discoidal handstones and elongated ‘rollingpin’ handstones probably also used as pestles and/or hammers (bedrock mortars were found not far
away from this site) (Figure 8.5). In form, although not in material, the artifacts are consistent with
the kind of domestic and food processing tools seen in Neolithic village sites, and at least one other
PPNB site in Jilat (Jilat 32) contained comparable items. At least some resharpening or modification
of these basalt items was taking place at Jilat 7, since basalt flakes were found in flotation residues.
Some beadmaking activities were going on at Jilat 7, but in small quantities and low densities
of debitage, unfinished bead blanks and finished beads (Wright and Garrard 2003). However,
the ground stone artifacts suggested for the most part food processing activities rather than craft
production tasks. This pattern changed in sites of the immediately following period in the wadi.
Jilat 13 and Jilat 25
Similar upright-slab structures, but with very different contents, were found at two sites of the
post-PPNB or early Late Neolithic period in Wadi Jilat. Dating to what is elsewhere called the
‘Pre-Pottery Neolithic C’ (ca. 6000–5500 bc), Jilat 13 and Jilat 25 revealed massive evidence for
production of beads made of the aforementioned green, red and black ‘Dabba marble’, a source of
which occurs nearby (Figure 8.6). Several kilograms and thousands of pieces of debris related to
stone beadmaking were recovered from these sites. Recovery of microdebitage and extremely small
136 NEW APPROACHES TO OLD STONES
Figure 8.6
Pendants made of ‘Dabba marble’—green apatitic limestone, Jilat 13, eastern Jordan, beginning of Late
Neolithic (cf. Pre-Pottery Neolithic C). Note the abrasion striae on the largest pendant, which was unfinished. (Photo:
Torla Evans).
beads from the Jilat and Azraq Basin sites was made possible by (1) dry sieving of all sediments
through 5mm mesh screens, and (2) wet-sieving after flotation of most sediments through 1.5 mm
mesh screens. In all, 10,528 artifacts—debitage, bead blanks and finished beads—were recovered
from 10 Neolithic sites in the Azraq-Jilat project. The largest collections of beadmaking debris
came from Jilat 13 and Jilat 25 (Wright and Garrard 2003).
The ground stone assemblages from these two sites were strikingly different from those of
the PPNB sites such as Jilat 7 and Jilat 32. The Jilat 13 and Jilat 25 assemblages contained very
few basalt items; very few grinding/pounding tools such as handstones, grinding slabs, pestles or
mortars; and of the few ground stone artifacts found in them, most suggested activities related to
beadmaking.
Examples include limestone worktables with pecking marks (drilling damage?) and cutmarks,
which were found at Jilat 13, in contexts that also contained large quantities of beadmaking debris
(Figures 8.7–8.8). Some of the cutmarks on these tables were probably made with bifacially flaked
knives made on tabular flint, which were common in these sites, and which were probably used
Figure 8.7
Limestone worktable associated with large quantities of beadmaking debris, Jilat 13, beginning of Late
Neolithic (cf. Pre-Pottery Neolithic C). The surface of the slab is smooth with a rough pecked area in the middle. (Photo:
Torla Evans).
Craft Production and the Organization of Ground Stone Technologies
137
Figure 8.8
Limestone worktable associated with large quantities of beadmaking debris, Jilat 13, beginning of Late
Neolithic (cf. Pre-Pottery Neolithic C). The surface of the slab is rough with many cutmarks, probably made by tabular
flint knives which were numerous at this site (along with drill bits made on burin spalls). (Photo: Torla Evans).
in part for sawing or cutting beads. Flint drill bits made on burin spalls were also common at Jilat
13 and Jilat 25. Drilling of beads as documented in the ethnographic record may involve the use
of a capstone to protect the hand from damage from the proximal end of the drill; such an item
(made of limestone) was found at Jilat 25 (Figure 8.9, no. 4) (Wright et al. 2005). Also at Jilat 25
were found 3 small items—all discovered in one of the contexts richest in bead debris—likewise
suggesting a possible role in beadmaking, notably a small conical sandstone abrader, a grooved
travertine pebble (weight?) and a grooved basalt fragment—possibly a broken shaft straightener,
but perhaps re-used as an abrader in the beadmaking process.
Çatalhöyük
Çatalhöyük—one of the two or three largest Neolithic sites in the Near East—was occupied in the
same span of time as Beidha and Jilat 7, 32, 13 and 25, the Middle to Late PPNB and the PPNC or
the beginning of the Late Neolithic (about 6400–5700 bc). Mellaart’s reports on his excavations
in the 1960s described the ground stone artifacts only briefly (Mellaart 1963; 1964; 1966; 1967),
although many were recovered and are now in the process of being studied in depth (Baysal and
Wright 2002; 2005).
The new excavations of the 1990s, directed by Ian Hodder and others, have emphasized finegrained detail in collection and recording of micro-artifacts and micro-stratigraphy (Hodder et
al. 2005; 1996; 2000). This has made it possible to gain a close look at details of ground stone
technology and its organization. Some of the preliminary studies of a selection of the ground
stone from the new excavations can be summarized.
In contrast to the situation at Beidha and the Jilat sites, virtually all stone artifacts from
Çatalhöyük—except for obsidian and small pebbles from the nearby riverbed—had to be imported
from at least 40 km from the village. The ground stone artifacts from the new excavations are
138 NEW APPROACHES TO OLD STONES
1
3
2
4
9
Figure 8.9
Ground stone artifacts associated with large quantities of beadmaking debris, Jilat 25, beginning of Late
Neolithic (cf. Pre-Pottery Neolithic C). Nos. 1–3 (respectively sandstone, travertine and basalt) came from the same
context, which also had one of the richest deposits of beads and beadmaking debris. Sandstone and basalt are not local to
Wadi Jilat. No. 4: limestone ‘cup,’ possibly a capstone used in drilling beads (Photo: Torla Evans).
dominated by andesite, andesitic basalt, and sandstones and these artifacts display an extreme
degree of curation and recycling—as if the materials were acquired and then re-used unto
exhaustion (Baysal and Wright 2002; 2005). The results for most of the recently excavated houses
are assemblages containing many small and/or broken artifacts. Complete and large-sized ground
stone tools—of any kind—are not characteristic of these recently-excavated houses (which, it
must be remembered, are few in number as yet and may not be representative of all houses at
Çatalhöyük, pending study of the material recovered by Mellaart).
By far the majority of the ground stone artifacts came from middens—secondary refuse thrown
out between houses, or into the fills of houses, during occupation, at abandonment, or after
abandonment. Most of these artifacts were broken items. Fragments of andesite handstones or
grinding slabs are especially numerous (e.g. Figure 8.10, nos. 1, 4, 5; Figure 8.11, no. 9; Figure
8.12, nos. 12, 13, 15). Artifacts made of sandstone—in varying degrees of coarseness—are also very
common (e.g. Figure 8.10, nos. 3, 6, 7; Figure 8.11, no. 8). Hard polishing pebbles and polishing
slabs of extremely fine-grained marble also occur (e.g. Figure 8.12, nos. 14, 16).
Without exception the slabs from the recent excavations are small, easily held in one hand and
easily transported from place to place. Several indications make it clear that these items figured
mainly in craft activities rather than food processing. In House 1, the first building to be completely
excavated in the 1990s, floors of several phases were discovered. For the most part, in situ primary
refuse was missing from these floors (except for micro-artifacts). An exception was a floor with a
Craft Production and the Organization of Ground Stone Technologies
139
Figure 8.10 Ground stone artifacts from Çatalhöyük, excavations of 1995–99. All of the materials come from at least
40 km away from Çatalhöyük. Nos. 1, 4, 5: broken andesite grinding slabs or handstones, re-used as small hand-grinders.
No. 2: andesite axe/celt, bifacially flaked. Nos. 3, 6 and 7: very fine-grained sandstone. No. 3 is a small ‘sander’ heavily
worn to flat surfaces on 2 sides. No. 7 is a small sandstone grinding slab, found turned over on its face on a floor of House
No. 1 (context 1344). It is smeared across the entire use surface with a heavy paint pigment residue. No. 4 was found in
association with it and is also stained with pigment.
small depression containing an extremely fine-grained sandstone grinding slab, which was carefully
turned over so that it rested on its use surface before it was abandoned. The use surface itself was
smeared with red pigment (Figure 8.10, no. 7). Also in the depression, near the sandstone slab,
were several broken andesite fragments—remnants of former slabs or handstones—which could
not be fitted together and thus came from different artifacts (e.g., Figure 8.10, no. 4). Some of
these were also smeared with red pigment.
Other artifacts—from this house or from midden adjacent to it—suggest hand tools for
abrasion (the sander of Figure 8.10, no. 3) and polishing (the polishing pebble and slab found in
midden, Figure 8.12, nos. 14, 16).
At least some of these ground stone artifacts, therefore, seem to be part of a painting toolkit.
The sanding and polishing tools strongly suggest activities associated with creating flat and buffed
surfaces. In all, some of the ground stone artifacts from the new excavations were of the kind
that one might expect in the ‘toolbox’ of a wall painter (although no wall paintings were found in
140 NEW APPROACHES TO OLD STONES
Figure 8.11 Ground stone artifacts from Çatalhöyük, excavations of 1995–99. All of the materials come from at least
40 km away from Çatalhöyük. No. 8: small sandstone grinding slab, found in association with nos. 5–6 in Figure 8.5 no.
9: andesite grinding slab fragment. No. 10: rhyolite grinding palette. No. 11: andesite pestle showing heavy use wear.
Drawing by Graham Reed.
House 1). Further research on the role of ground stone artifacts in wall painting at Çatalhöyük is
continuing, with studies of the pigments and use-wear analyses now underway.
Conclusions
Much remains to be learned about ground stone technology—indeed it is surprising that
archaeological research has so strongly emphasized chipped stone artifacts, given the wealth of
information that can be acquired from a wider view of early stone technologies. These days more
researchers are attending to the very pressing needs for studies of many aspects of ground stone:
use-wear, residues, experimental studies, analyses of diverse raw materials, sources, quarrying
(e.g. DuBreuil 2002; Piperno et al. 2004; and the contributors to this volume, to name but a few).
As such studies progress, it is worth emphasizing that ground stone artifacts encompass far more
than the artifacts usually pictured when the term ground stone is mentioned. It is to be hoped that
excavators will pay closer attention to all sorts of stones coming out of their sites—even those
that look unimpressive at first sight—and that fine-grained sieving and flotation will be used more
often so as to permit recovery of very small artifacts and micro-debitage associated with ground
stone technologies. Studies of microstratigraphy have even revealed use-debris from grinding
Craft Production and the Organization of Ground Stone Technologies
141
Figure 8.12 Ground stone artifacts from Çatalhöyük, excavations of 1995–99. No. 12: andesite handstone, reconstructed
from fragments from the same context. Nos. 13, 15: andesite handstone fragment and complete handstone. No. 14: marble
grinding slab, found broken in two pieces in midden and reconstructed. No. 16: marble polishing pebble. Drawing by
Graham Reed.
(Matthews et al. 1997) and it is hoped that excavations will increasingly pay close attention to
such detailed data.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank the editors of this volume for their suggestions and patience. The work described
here was funded by grants from the Council for British Research in the Levant, the Fulbright
Foundation, Yale University, the Çatalhöyük project (Ian Hodder, director), the Wainwright Fund
for Near Eastern Archaeology. For useful discussions of a number of issues raised here, I am
indebted to Adnan Baysal, Douglas Baird, Brian Byrd, Patricia Critchley, and Andrew Garrard.
However, responsibility for any errors of fact or interpretation rests with me alone.
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