Tools of the Trade

Tools of the Trade presents a collection of academic papers from the 2005 Chacmool archaeological conference, which includes a wide range of contributions from international archaeologists, senior professors, and students alike.

Each chapter focuses on the discussion and application of unique and innovative ‘tools’ for archaeological analysis and interpretation, including micro- and macro-botanical analysis, experimental study, off-site survey, lithic use-wear, ceramic petrography, DNA analysis, chaîne opératoire, space syntax, and Geographic Information Systems.

As a collective volume, the book also covers an impressive diversity of geographic regions and time periods, such as Precolumbian Mesoamerica, Plio-Pleistocene Africa, prehistoric and historic North America, and ancient Polynesia.

Finally, this volume provides a somewhat introspective look at the origins of tool use, technological development, and the means by which we have become the only species to ask the questions: What does it mean to be us and how can we find out?

Author Biography

Jayne Wilkins received her master’s degree in Archaeology at the University of Calgary in 2008 and is currently completing her PhD at the University of Toronto. Her research interests include lithic analysis, hunter-gatherer archaeology, the African Stone Age, and modern human origins. She has participated in the excavation and analysis of archaeological sites in South Africa, Mozambique, and Alberta, Canada. Leslie Main Johnson is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Athabasca University. She is an ethnographer and ethnobiologist who has worked with Indigenous peoples in northwestern Canada since the 1980s. Kirsten Anderson is a PhD candidate in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Calgary. Her research focuses on prehistoric hunter-gatherers of the Canadian Plains and the use of three-dimensional spatial analysis for the identification of hearth-related activities.