A number of simple geoarchaeological techniques were used to study the distribution of prehistoric populations and to reconstruct behavior patterns at sites in the Colorado Desert region of southern California. Samples from two quarry-workshop sites, RIV-1814 and RIV-1819, at opposite ends of Chuckwalla Valley, were systematically collected and micromapped, and knapping technology was reconstructed. Distribution patterns for the artifact forms and materials from these quarry workshops were determined by examining samples from other sites within and adjacent to Chuckwalla Valley. Hypotheses regarding the long duration of site utilization and late prehistoric/protohistoric occupation by Numic peoples were verified. Artifact production analysis, including refitting of flakes and cores, proved highly successful. One set of flakes from RIV-1819 near the Colorado River was refitted with a core from an occupation site 63 kilometers away, at the opposite end of the valley. Prehistoric quarry workshop sites are viewed as an underexplored resource with great potential for yielding important data on technology and population demography.

Quarry sites contain thousands of years of debitage in quantities that can be studied statistically. Paradoxically, quarry sites, unlike other types of sites, have not been subjected to routine archaeological inquiry. In this paper I describe procedures we are using in Florida to resolve questions about lithic technology and the antiquity of chert quarries. The enduring consequence of the research is the realization that extraction methods utilized by prehistoric stoneworkers were applied eventually to other technologies and that the data resulting from the studies have implications extending beyond archaeological interests.

Quantitative analysis of lithic technological attributes enables the reconstruction of stone-tool-making behavior at the Upper Paleolithic quarry of Corbiac. These attributes display a consistent and uniform appearance characterized by low variability. This observation is used as the basis for suggesting that the Evolved Perigordian component of Corbaic may have been produced by a group of socially related, part-time, flintknapping specialists. The ramifications of such a possibility for lithic studies in general and models of Upper Paleolithic social systems in particular are considered.

Color, texture, mineralogy, thin-section petrography, and atomic-absorption spectrophotometry are used to characterize soapstone samples from several prehistoric quarry sites in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Using the petrographic profiles generated by these analyses, the authors attempt to attribute a number of soapstone artifacts from archaeological contexts to their respective quarry source. The encouraging results suggest that a combination of major-element analyses and observable characteristics may serve, in at least some cases, to differentiate adequately soapstone sources and their derivative artifacts.

Archaeological excavations at Mount Jasper, a rhyolite source in northern New England, reveal that it was exploited at a slow rate over 7,000 years. Although stone from the mountain was transported over a broad region, its movement was in the hands of miners rather than traders or other intermediaries. An unexpected benefit of the work at Mount Jasper was the discovery that workshops may yield three classes of artifacts. One of these classes, exhausted tools of exotic stones, holds valuable information about subsistence activities, the range of seasonal movements, and general culture history. Archaeologists can no longer afford to overlook this rich source of data in their studies of stone-tool-using groups.

The reassembling of original parent blocks from the scattered waste flakes, blades, and cores recovered from working floors may be likened to attempting a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle which is known to be incomplete. Nevertheless, reconstruction of only a small number of blocks may reveal valuable details of the actual manufacturing processes. The method was applied to the problem of the technological affinities of anomalous blade knives used by early East Polynesian settlers in southern New Zealand. It enabled a comparison to be made of the reduction sequences at a blade-making site and an adze manufactory, and demonstrated that the technical knowledge required for adze-making at this period encompassed the techniques necessary for successful production of blade knives.

The obsidian mines at Pico de Orizaba, Veracruz, are important to the study of Mexico's prehistory for at least four reasons: (1) They are some of the best preserved pre-Hispanic mines in the New World, never having been damaged by looters. (2) Due to the unlooted nature of these mines, they provide a highly detailed record of ancient technology in Mexico. (3) They are among the few pre-Hispanic obsidian quarries which can be at least partially dated with considerable confidence. (4) On the basis of results from trace-element analyses, it is very likely that obsidian from the general area of the Pico de Orizaba mines was exploited and traded by Mexico's ancient peoples for thousands of years.

Obsidian was the lithic material preferred by the aboriginal inhabitants of southwestern Idaho but archaeologists and ethnographers have reported that this material was obtained in Yellowstone National Park and central Oregon. Evidence for tool production in the vicinities of the two local sources is minimal, superficially indicating little procurement of these materials. However, X-ray fluorescence analysis of regional sources and archaeological collections demonstrates that, in fact, both sources were exploited over a period of 10,000 years. This study indicates that lithic-tool production occurred primarily at the consumer sites rather than at the source areas.

Quarry-production analysis can profitably be applied to the study of prehistoric exchange. By adopting a systems perspective, hypotheses about the nature of past human behavior at a quarry site can be derived from theories of raw material exchange and then tested against the data collected from the site. Using this innovative approach to study the obsidian quarries at Sta Nychia and Demenegaki on the island of Melos, Greece, the monopolization of source areas and/or the use of a highly organized, efficient, and specialized production technology were predicted in conjunction with commercial, market exchange of obsidian in the Aegean area. Detailed site survey and sampling strategies combined with analyses of the tools and techniques involved in quarrying obsidian and the manufacture of preform blade cores did not confirm the hypotheses. In contrast, the actual reconstruction of obsidian procurement on Melos as inefficient, unsystematic, and undertaken for short periods by nonspecialist laborers supports the opposing theory for direct access to the sources.

Quarry use at the Hermanas Ruin, a San Luis Phase community in southwestern New Mexico, is analyzed in light of modern optimization theory. Initial results of this analysis suggest that many of the changes in lithic use at this site resulted from a process of optimizing the procurement of five different lithic materials, so that all related costs were minimized. This research has broad implications for archaeological quarry analysis as it suggests that economic analyses of multiple material lithic procurement systems will provide insights into prehistoric quarry use not apparent in traditional quarry analyses.

This chapter serves as an introduction to the volume. Its objective is to open discussion on the importance of prehistoric quarries and lithic production in the contexts of procurement, exchange, technology, and social organization.

The concept of lithic production systems is defined and discussed. These systems can be reconstructed by adapting the strategies and techniques developed for exchange systems. The analysis of the quarry, debitage analysis at sites within the study region, the use of production indices and spatial analysis, chemical characterization and chronometric dating of artifacts and debitage will play roles in reconstructing lithic production systems.

The quarry is the most important site and component of these systems. A complete analysis of the quarry will allow the researcher to reconstruct the processes of extraction, selection, knapping, and on-site activity of the average knapper, as well as documenting the reduction sequences, changes in technology and rates of production over time. The quarry remains the logical site to begin the study of a stone-tool-using culture.

It is important to understand the nature of different lithic production systems and the variables which affect their structure and morphology. The paper opens discussion on a number of variables for consideration. It is expected that the regional lithic resource base, the modes of procurement, social distance between knappers and consumers, labor investment, modes of transportation and social organization will be important although not an exclusive list of variables.

The scale of demand for lithic materials in a stone-tool-using culture has implications for that culture's quarrying, transportation, and exchange activities. This chapter presents a formula for quantifying lithic demand and illustrates its use with ethnographic and archaeological data. The formula is then used to predict lithic demand in an archaeological case study of the Late Woodland cultures of the Upper Great Lakes region.