Editor’s Lair: Introduction to Experiments in Stone Tool Analysis

Sometimes academic publishing can be a tough business. Under the best of circumstances, authors, editors, and publishers face great challenges in terms of the many tasks that need to be done, and shortages of time and energy with which to do them. To make matters worse, for many of us, our professional lives depend on timely publications; which is especially true for our junior colleagues. When the COVID pandemic is added to the mix – and its many knock-on effects in terms of new professional roles, childcare issues, and all the rest – the result is often a big mess! This special issue of Lithic Technology arises from this general context. Most of the following papers were presented to the 11th International Symposium on Knappable Materials in Buenos Aires in November 2017. Subsequently, these papers were slated to be included in various publications resulting from the conference, which failed for reasons stemming from the COVID pandemic and other related issues. It was my pleasure to give them a home here. These papers share a concern for experimental methods in lithic analysis, which is a subject personally dear to my heart. Especially as it pertains to lithics, the field of experimental archaeology is a fundamental and irreplaceable approach to moving beyond the realm of bald speculation and onto the firmer ground of empirical evidence. There are many analytical themes that I thought about highlighting here: knapping and tool reduction; the correspondence between tool form and function; experimental replicability; etc. In the end, however, the theme that stands out to me the most is hard work! When all is said and done, what stands out in my mind is the thousands of hours spent doing these experiments and conducting analysis – not to mention preparing, editing, reviewing, and revising manuscripts. After all of that, and in spite of many obstacles, the papers appearing in this publication are extremely compelling and I hope readers will enjoy them as I have.