The lives of stone tools : crafting the status, skill, and identity of flintknappers

__The Lives of Stone Tools__gives voice to the Indigenous Gamo lithic practitioners of southern Ethiopia. For the Gamo, their stone tools are alive, and their work in flintknapping is interwoven with status, skill, and the life histories of their stone tools.Anthropologist Kathryn Weedman Arthur offers insights from her more than twenty years working with the Gamo. She deftly addresses historical and present-day experiences and practices, privileging the Gamo’s perspectives. Providing a rich, detailed look into the world of lithic technology, Arthur urges us to follow her into a world that recognizes Indigenous theories of material culture as valid alternatives to academic theories. In so doing, she subverts long-held Western perspectives concerning gender, skill, and lifeless status of inorganic matter.The book offers the perspectives that, contrary to long-held Western views, stone tools are living beings with a life course, and lithic technology is a reproductive process that should ideally include both male and female participation. Only individuals of particular lineages knowledgeable in the lives of stones may work with stone technology. Knappers acquire skill and status through incremental guided instruction corresponding to their own phases of maturation. The tools’ lives parallel those of their knappers from birth (procurement), circumcision (knapping), maturation (use), seclusion (storage), and death (discardment).Given current expectations that the Gamo’s lithic technology may disappear with the next generation,__The Lives of Stone Tools__is a work of vital importance and possibly one of the last contemporaneous books about a population that engages with the craft daily. The Lives of Stone Tools gives voice to the Indigenous Gamo lithic practitioners of southern Ethiopia. For the Gamo, their stone tools are alive, and their work in flintknapping is interwoven with status, skill, and the life histories of their stone tools. Anthropologist Kathryn Weedman Arthur offers insights from her more than twenty years working with the Gamo. She deftly addresses historical and present-day experiences and practices, privileging the Gamo's perspectives. Providing a rich, detailed look into the world of lithic technology, Arthur urges us to follow her into a world that recognizes Indigenous theories of material culture as valid alternatives to academic theories. In so doing, she subverts long-held Western perspectives concerning gender, skill, and lifeless status of inorganic matter. The book offers the perspectives that, contrary to long-held Western views, stone tools are living beings with a life course, and lithic technology is a reproductive process that should ideally include both male and female participation. Only individuals of particular lineages knowledgeable in the lives of stones may work with stone technology. Knappers acquire skill and status through incremental guided instruction corresponding to their own phases of maturation. The tools' lives parallel those of their knappers from birth (procurement), circumcision (knapping), maturation (use), seclusion (storage), and death (discardment). Given current expectations that the Gamo's lithic technology may disappear with the next generation, The Lives of Stone Tools is a work of vital importance and possibly one of the last contemporaneous books about a population that engages with the craft daily. This Book Offers Critical Insights Into Lithic Technology And Cultural Practices Concerning Stone Tools--provided By Publisher. Chapter 1. The History Of Craft-specialization And Knapping Without Prestige In The Gamo Highlands -- Chapter 2. A Boreda Ontology Of Technology -- Chapter 3. Yella: The Birth Of Knappable Stone In A Caste Society -- Chapter 4. Katsara And Bulacha: Learning To Circumcise And Engage Stone Tools -- Chapter 5. Dume And Sofe: Rest And Death In Leatherworkers' Households -- Chapter 6. The Lives Of Stone Tools. Kathryn Weedman Arthur. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. "This book offers critical insights into lithic technology and cultural practices concerning stone tools"--Résumé de l'éditeur