Flintknapping for Two: An Exploratory Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Stone-Tool Production

This data set is associated with the project, "Flintknapping for Two: An Exploratory Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Stone-Tool Production". The data includes flake metrics, projectile metrics, and aggragate lithic data. Abstract: Archaeological assessments of lithic skill commonly infer proficiency from product regularity, reduction efficiency, and error rates, yet rarely consider how pregnancy and other bodily changes throughout the life-course may alter the material expression of acquired skill and expertise. This exploratory longitudinal case study uses Material Engagement Theory to examine flintknapping during pregnancy. One knapper (FDP) produced five concave-base projectile points before pregnancy and 19 during gestation; a second, nonpregnant comparison knapper (TB) produced 17 comparable points over the same period. We combined contemporaneous reduction records (and in the case of the pregnant knapper, symptom tracking) with analyses of projectile morphology, including pressure-flake coverage, cross-section, edge sinuousness, width-to-thickness ratio, and Mean Absolute Width Deviation (MAWD), and counts and masses of available biface-thinning and pressure-flaking debitage. Pregnancy-period reductions were influenced by fatigue, joint laxity, pain, edema, and postural constraints, with the clearest performance changes observed during pressure flaking. The pregnant knapper’s points exhibited lower pressure-flake coverage, greater variation in cross-section and edge sinuousness, and generally higher MAWD values. At the same time, width-to-thickness ratios broadly overlapped those of TB. Despite the constraints of pregnancy, FDP’s debitage continued to include prepared, multifaceted platforms on clearly identifiable biface-thinning flakes consistent with established reduction sequences. These findings suggest that changing bodily conditions can alter the execution and morphological consistency of lithic production without eliminating the material evidence of accumulated procedural knowledge. Because one individual represented pregnancy status, the results are exploratory rather than population-level or causal. The study demonstrates that variability in lithic assemblages is complex and should not be interpreted solely along a novice-to-expert continuum.