Ethnoarchaeology of compound adhesive production and scraper hafting: Implications from Hadiya (Ethiopia).

Highlights • Traditional compound adhesive production and hafting require complex steps and processes. • Euphorbia latex may have been used as effective base for prehistoric hafting adhesives. • Certain aspects of composite tool making are more sophisticated than previously realized. Abstract Combining individual components into a single implement—i.e., hafting—conferred prehistoric populations more efficient toolkits, including projectile weapons. Hafting with the aid of adhesives is considered to have particularly given composite tools better reliability. The innovation of compound adhesives is specifically considered cognitively more demanding than simpler forms of fixative paste. As a result, the antiquity and nature of such adhesives has attracted much archaeological research attention. However, with few ethnographic instances studied worldwide, the complexity of prehistoric compound adhesive technologies remains largely inferential. This paper describes the multicomponent adhesive production and hafting of obsidian scrapers by traditional hideworkers in southern Ethiopia. Documentation of the compound adhesive preparation and hafting processes has implications for the interpretation of various aspects of archaeological hafting adhesives, including those related to the cognitive requirements involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]