TU Journal on Stone Tools Carves Out a Web Site

Monday, July 31, 2000

A journal about man’s oldest technology -- stone tools -- is embracing the modern world by going on-line. Lithic Technology, published at The University of Tulsa, now has a Web site at www.cas.utulsa.edu/anthropology/lithictechnology.

The site includes abstracts, guidelines for contributing articles, and links to related sites.

The print version of the journal, issued twice a year, is mailed to more than 300 subscribers in more than 20 countries. Besides featured research articles, it includes comments, book reviews, and notices of events, including flint-knapping workshops.

“Lithic Technology is a peer-reviewed journal concerned with disseminating knowledge about archaeological stone tools,” says George Odell, who is the journal’s editor and chairman of TU’s anthropology department. The journal was published from 1973 to 1988, then remained unpublished for about five years until it was revived by Odell.

“Analysis of stone tools yields key knowledge of prehistoric life,” says Odell. “While the journal keeps archaeologists up to date on advances in the field that help us better understand early human history, staking out a spot on the Internet will encourage international participation and dissemination of research findings.”

The current 68-page, spring 2000 issue includes an article about burins, or engraving tools, from the Upper Paleolothic level at the famous Iraqi site of Shanidar. Another article inspects spatial distributions of stone tools at a Late Pleistocene settlement in the Negev of Israel.

This year’s fall issue will include an article by TU graduate Chen Shen about stone tools in China. Shen, who received his master’s degree in anthropology from TU in 1992, is a curator with the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada.