Analysing Australian Stone Artefacts: an Agenda for the Twenty-First Century

Over the last twenty five years we have had repeated evaluations of the history of stone artefact analysis in Australia (e.g. Mulvaney 1977; Hiscock 1983, 1998; Fullagar 1994; Holdaway 1995). Each of these reviews brought a different emphasis to the quest for an understanding of the trends, motive factors and constraints in archaeological investigations of bygone years. Although it is pleasing to observe the progress of analytical practice it is equally clear that the major benefit of these historical reviews is their ability to identify those subject areas requiring remedial attention and warranting emphasis in future investigations. With this point in mind it is not our intention to revisit the intellectual history of artefact analysis, but to concentrate on developing a summary of issues that might be the focus of our research efforts over coming decades. Our purpose is to define elements of a research agenda for the study of archaeological stone artefacts, and to this end we do not offer solutions to those problems that remain but seek to identify components of research design deserving attention