Diamonds in the rough - reconsidering the scientific and heritage value of heat-altered stones in prehistoric archaeology through a systematic literature review
Margherita Cantelli, Xavier Terradas, Didier Binder, Martine Regert, André Carlo Colonese, Eduardo Paixão, Marcelo Cardillo · 2024
Read Diamonds in the rough - reconsidering the scientific and heritage value of heat-altered stones in prehistoric archaeology through a systematic literature review by Margherita Cantelli, Xavier Terradas, Didier Binder, Martine Regert, André Carlo Colonese, Eduardo Paixão, Marcelo Cardillo (2024) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-11803202.txt.
Description
Margherita Cantelli and her co-authors present a 2024 systematic review on heat-altered stones in prehistoric archaeology. Such stones are common at ancient sites worldwide, yet researchers often overlook them. The team gathered seventy-three published records and charted where the stones appear, how old they are, what they are made of, and the food settings around them.
Heated stones show up from the Pleistocene onward, tied to cooking and other tasks among hunting, fishing, and gathering groups. They stay frequent through later periods, even as farming and pottery arrive. Studies from Africa, Oceania, Asia, and South America are notably scarce. Basic definitions for spotting such stones remain unsettled. The authors urge archaeologists and heritage managers to treat these stones as real evidence of ancient foodways before more is lost.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Margherita Cantelli, Xavier Terradas, Didier Binder, Martine Regert, André Carlo Colonese, Eduardo Paixão, Marcelo Cardillo |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2024 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 48 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |