Orientations of Linear Stone Arrangements in New South Wales (original) (raw)
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Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2012
Archaeologists today, as in the past, continue to divide their stone artifact assemblages into categories and to give privilege to certain of these categories over others. Retouched tools and particular core forms, for instance, are thought to contain more information than the unretouched flakes and flake fragments. This reflects the assumption that information to be gained from stone artifacts is present within the artifact itself. This study evaluates a continued interest in the final form of stone artifacts by first considering ethnographic accounts of stone artifact manufacture and use in Australia and then by utilizing the patterns observed in these accounts to investigate assemblage patterning within an Australian archaeological case study. Reading the ethnographic accounts provides no indication that Aboriginal people valued more or less complex artifacts, in uniform ways, in every situation. In fact, the opposite is true. Stone artifacts were always valued in some sense but which ones, and in which ways, depended on the situations the people who needed the artifacts found themselves in. Aboriginal people were quite capable of making and using expedient and informal artifacts in complex ways. The significance of these observations is considered for stone artifact studies in general and in relation to a case study from western New South Wales, Australia.
Archaeology in Wales, 2017
In 2010 and 2014, the authors previously found that many of the standing stones near the River Alaw, Anglesey, Wales are orientated to face towards hilltops, nearby springs and wells, and solstice sunrise and sunset points – all potentially important ritual landscape features. Most of the stones have a distinct flat “face” and round or irregular “back” which allows the determination of an orientation of each stone. The probability of the stones' orientation occurring by chance appeared small enough that it was unlikely (sometimes extremely unlikely) to have occurred by chance, suggesting that the orientation may have been intentional on the part of the stones’ erectors. Indeed, some were placed and orientated towards more than one of these landscape features. These orientations, and possible intent, give speculative insights into the stones’ purpose, including several possible midwinter sunrise markers (Dickson & Tram, 2015). The authors used an objective and systematic a priori survey methodology and workflow, which we believe to be the first survey of its type, to avoid bias in the sample and analysis. The aim of the current project was to provide a comparison study to our previous paper, by performing as similar an analysis as possible in a different geographical area, the coastal counties of South East Wales (South Glamorgan and Gwent/Monmouthshire). Overall, the sample of stones available was too small to allow any firm conclusions regarding whether there is systematic orientation towards hilltop points, solstice calendar points and springs/wells. However, there is some tentative support to the hypothesis, which would justify further similar investigations elsewhere, to assess whether this orientation is more widespread or is geographically restricted. Based on the orientations noted to date, further discussion is given on the possible purposes of the stones.