Abstract:
Mobility is a useful but highly variable process with which to understand how people interacted with their environments in the past. Commonly cited archaeological proxies for mobility often reflect only the potential to move or may represent different behaviours in different contexts. This can mask the range of variability in past human behaviour. An alternative approach is to investigate independent, empirical evidence of human movement which may then be related to broader contextual variables such as environment and economy. Stone artefacts are useful as they can be shown to have moved from one point to another. This thesis focuses on the patterning in flake to core ratios as a direct proxy for human movement. Late-Holocene Rutherford’s Creek, Australia, and mid- Holocene Fayum, Egypt, are two locations with extensive surface stone artefact assemblages, where the level of mobility and the contexts in which this occurred are known. Analysing flake to core ratios from known contexts allows a detailed understanding of how the variance in values might be interpreted. A method is presented for understanding the effects of initial cobble size, reduction intensity and artefact movement on the flake to core ratio in each region. The results suggest that a large amount of the variance in values is explained by differential initial cobble size and show that similar values in different contexts can reflect different behaviours. At Rutherford’s Creek, people were highly mobile and transported flakes. In the Fayum, they were less mobile and transported cores. Overall, approaching mobility as outlined in this thesis allows a more nuanced understanding of how patterning in stone artefact assemblages relates to human mobility and provides a glimpse into the intricacies of human behaviour and the range of unique ways in which people interacted with their environments in the past.
