Ala-Jalve

Description

This book presents a variety of analyses of the artifact assemblage of the Ala-Jalve site in Utsjoki, northernmost Finnish Lapland. Rather than concentrating on the diagnostic tool types and what they can tell us about the function of the site and its position in its geographical, culture-historical, and chronological context, or on analysing the social or cultural phenomena reflected in the tool assemblage, the research focuses on morphological and spatial analyses of an oft-forgotten artifact category that nevertheless constitutes some 94% of the total assemblage: the lithic debitage. While the tool types and pottery are used to interpret the assemblage and place it in its archaeological context, they do not tell the whole story. This work shows the amount of additional information that can be gained through debitage analyses, particularly on a site like Ala-Jalve, where the total number of recovered artifacts exceeds a quarter of a million.