Some Thoughts on Crystal Quartz and Animism

2016

Vein quartz as a raw material for prehistoric stone tools is a much maligned material, very often treated to a cursory analysis only, if it is analysed at all. This paper examines the role of quartz in Neolithic stone tool traditions through the typo-technological analysis based on experimental archaeology of a Neolithic quartz assemblage from Thornhill, Co. Londonderry, Northern Ireland, and a comparison with a Mesolithic quartz assemblage from Belderrig, Co. Mayo, Ireland. The analysis shows that the Neolithic quartz tradition is distinctly different from the preceding Mesolithic and appears geared towards the production and use of smaller, thinner flakes knapped using a wider range of techniques, combinations of techniques and technical procedures than in the Later Mesolithic. The use of the bipolar technique is interpreted as a social choice based on the lithic traditions of the Neolithic community and not directly related to the use of quartz cobbles or the knapping of small cores. Differences and similarities were noted between the manufacture techniques and treatment of quartz and flint by the community at Thornhill. Moreover, a complex pattern of deposition of both artefactual and natural quartz was identified in the pits and structures, suggesting that quartz played a complex dual role for the inhabitants of the site.

Quartz crystals are relatively common in archaeological sites of the lower Fraser River and Salish Sea regions. As of 2016 there are 93 recorded sites reported to contain quartz crystal objects in British Columbia ( ). The majority of these sites are situated on the eastern side of Vancouver Island, the Fraser River drainage, the Peace River region, and southeastern BC. A lower frequency of these objects in northwestern BC may be due to less archaeological work in that region compared to southern BC. Different types of quartz crystal artifacts found at the Ruskin Dam Site in the lower Fraser River region (Gray et al. 2010) are related to a range of tasks and activities. Here we explore six 'facets' of quartz crystal use:

Excavations, Surveys and Heritage Management in Victoria, 2019

Quartz is ubiquitous in the natural landscape and in human-made assemblages worldwide. It has played an important role in some of the earliest stone tool assemblages, the nineteenth century gold rush, and continues to have a myriad of uses today. However, the mechanical properties that are particular to this material complicate the distinction between naturally and culturally fractured quartz, and, in the case of the latter, the method of fracture. Here we review the quartz ‘problem’ that plagues the identification of these artefacts in archaeology and cultural heritage management, and existing approaches that seek to address it. We introduce the Quartz Archaeology Project, which is creating open-access datasets for quartz occurrences in a variety of cultural and natural contexts to improve our understanding of the significance of quartz in the deep and recent past.

"The use of quartz as a raw material for chipped stone tools was widespread in Irish prehistory but a traditional focus by archaeologists on flint, and the use of a flint framework for analysing quartz, has led to the neglect of prehistoric quartz use. This paper introduces a PhD programme of analysis by Killian Driscoll of quartz chipped stone technology in Irish prehistory currently being undertaken at the UCD School of Archaeology. This project, which is primarily based upon a recently excavated Mesolithic and Neolithic quartz assemblage, aims to provide a general overview of the extent of quartz use in Ireland, develop analytical frameworks for this material through experimental knapping and to test these frameworks through selected case studies. The aim is to enable the archaeological community to have a readily accessible, common set of general principles and analytical tools to facilitate and enhance research agendas involving quartz lithics."

2010

Worldwide, vein quartz was a commonly used raw material for stone tools but this material has proved difficult for archaeologists to analyse because many quartz assemblages appear to be comprised of amorphous pieces, not easily recognised as humanly modified or forming ‘tools’. This paper discusses the analysis of the debitage – focusing on the debitage fragmentation rate, the debitage, break, and fragment types, and the quantitative analysis of the complete flakes – resulting from experimental knapping of quartz, which formed part of a project which investigated the use of quartz in Irish prehistoric lithic traditions. The results have highlighted the complexity involved in analysing quartz assemblages, and the significant differences between the debitage products of quartz and chert knapping assemblages. While bipolar knapping is generally easy to differentiate from direct percussion, it is harder to differentiate between soft and hard hammer percussion.

Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies, 2022

This article investigates how much the nature and form of crystal shape its usage in premodern situations and therefore the stone's transmissible virtue. Through its properties, crystal created distinctive local ecologies linking the terrestrial and the supernatural as well as various beings and elements. Crystal's transmissible virtue is also related to the present-day interest in, and commodification of crystals. 'Crystal dwelling' refers to the formation of a home in a world of various human and nonhuman things, one that relates the terrestial and spiritual through crystal. In medical recipes, crystal dwelling as mixture results in other kinds of practical intermingling and relationality. In medieval burial sites, the dwelling takes place through the shards in hand that relate to transmissible virtue: bodies in contact at once with the earth and crystal, buried in a place that acknowledges a community rooted in a localised sense of home.

2019

The motivations of prehistoric hunter-gatherers for selecting particular lithic raw materials are often explained in rigidly functional or symbolic terms. By examining the exploitation of crystal quartz at two Terminal Pleistocene rockshelter sites (Ntloana Tšoana and Sehonghong) in Lesotho, southern Africa, the authors reveal that lithic reduction required a form of engagement unique to that material's specific properties. The preferential use of quartz crystals-irrespective of the availability of a wider range of raw materialsdemonstrates agency and variability in the technological decisions.

Archaeologists have only recently recognised vein quartz as a significant part of prehistoric stone technologies in Ireland and Britain. As a raw material, quartz is abundant in many areas of Ireland and Britain and was utilised extensively in prehistory. However, research biases have obscured a fuller understanding of it, with the evidence either having been overlooked or ignored. In order to understand these different characteristics of quartz, a series of knapping experiments using different stone working methods were conducted in order to develop an analytical framework for quartz lithic analysis. This framework was then used to analyse quartz assemblages from two case study assemblages – a Later Mesolithic/Neolithic quartz scatter from Belderrig, Co. Mayo, and a Neolithic quartz assemblage from Thornhill, Co. Londonderry. Two other experiments were conducted. An experimental knapping assemblage was burnt in order to understand the effects of burning on quartz and to help identify burnt quartz in the archaeological record. The second experiment was a quartz recognition experiment which tested the identification and classification of the experimentally knapped quartz artefacts by volunteer participants who had varied levels of experience in analysing stone tools in general and quartz stone tools in particular. The results of the experimental knapping, the experimental burning, and the quartz recognition experiment have shown that the analysis of vein quartz artefacts is certainly difficult, but not impossible – a clear understanding of the fracture mechanics of the material as set out in the experimental knapping helps in the analysis of vein quartz in the archaeological assemblages, and therefore helps in understanding the prehistoric communities who chose to use this material.

Pleistocene Archaeology - Migration, Technology, and Adaptation [Working Title]

The use of mineral elements with special characteristics, such as quartz crystals, in ornamental or ceremonial contexts, is not uncommon in archaeology. Their appearance in different archaeological sites is the basis to discuss their significance for past societies. However, while these objects are loaded with symbolic value, it is difficult to identify them in hunter-gatherer sites. In this chapter, we discuss this subject from the case of a series of crystals discovered in the central area of the Big Island of Tierra del Fuego, and we outline their interpretation based on technofunctional analysis confronted with the ethnographic information for the region. Tierra del Fuego is located at the southern tip of South America. It was inhabited by hunter-gatherer societies since the end of last glaciation until the beginning of the twentieth century. In historical times, the central-northern sector of the Big Island was occupied by the Selknam society, in which there is an extensive ethnographic and ethnohistorical bibliography. Archaeological research in the central area of Tierra del Fuego has revealed a continuous occupation of hunter-gatherer societies. The analysis of provenience of raw materials lets us to propose hypothesis about mobility and interaction networks that can be confronted with the ethnographic information.