Use-wear analysis and the development of quantitative methods

The Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA) has unique and outstanding skills in integrating and applying various methods and techniques to the study of past human artifacts. Complementary to the LEIZA expertise on archaeometry, experimental archaeology and restoration, a new line of research has been established on the study of micro traces on archaeological objects. To achieve this goal, the LEIZA developed the Laboratory for Traceology and Controlled Experiments (TraCEr), a new facility and research unit that aimed at expanding the field of traceology toward a science-based discipline, with an emphasis on standardized protocols, controlled and reproducible robotic experiments, and multiscale database. This approach will help ensure to a more reliable and comprehensive comparison between different materials and chronologies, allowing the long journey of human behavioral dynamics to be reconstructed.

The main purpose of TraCEr is to develop and carry forward ground-breaking functional studies that combine 1) methodological development and 2) fundamental research on Pleistocene and Early Holocene archaeology. To determine prehistoric tool use, archaeologists studying tools examine the traces left on their surfaces and edges for characteristic patterns of activities and worked materials. The very presence of diverse materials in artefact assemblages from different archaeological contexts shows that humans managed different resources and, therefore, technology was characterized by the production of different tools made from materials with different properties. Since the character of use-related wear traces on tools is known to vary in response to raw materials used in the past, the current state-of-the-art in functional analysis is to create an experiment-based reference collection by replicating potential past uses, such as hunting, butchery or woodworking. Although functional studies have been seen as a key discipline in paleoanthropological research, the need for methodological improvements has been debated during the last decade, mainly with regard to two questions: 1) experimental design and 2) methods to quantify macro and micro-wear patterns. These are the main foci of the research developed at TraCEr.