The Katsuhiko Ohnuma Lithic Technology Collection

Yoshihiro Nishiaki
The University Museum
The University of Tokyo

　　　Professor Katsuhiko Ohnuma is a prehistoric archaeologist who taught at Kokushikan University for many years. In the 1980s he studied under Dr. Mark Newcomer, a then leading specialist in lithic technology, and has since continued to devote his efforts to research in this field, becoming one of the renowned contemporary masters of stone tool reproduction. In 2017 to 2019, selected items of his replicated lithic materials that he made himself for research and education purposes were donated to the University Museum, the University of Tokyo (UMUT), along with the respective archival records. The present volume is a catalogue of those materials.

　　　The Material Reports of UMUT, published since 1976, documents the scientific specimens collected by the university’s researchers. The present volume may be the first of more than 130 volumes to document a researcher’s work “produced” by himself, being similar to an artist’s works. The strong point of the Ohnuma collection is its accompanying notebooks describing his intentions and processes for manufacturing the lithic artifacts during each replication session, as well as research articles based on those experiments. The term “scientific specimens” as defined by UMUT refers to materials produced in the process of research and education. That is exactly what this comprises.

　　　A comparable collection may be that of D. E. Crabtree (1912–1980), a prominent modern knapper, housed at the University of Idaho (Don Crabtree Lithic Technology Collection). The Ohnuma Collection strongly emphasizes research replications of the Levallois method of the Middle Palaeolithic and the pressure debitage of the Upper Palaeolithic periods and later, subjects of much of Professor Ohnuma’s research. In addition, the collection includes a series of teaching materials produced for the purposes of education on lithic technology, such as basic knapping tools, knapping techniques like hard/soft hammer percussion, indirect percussion, and pressure flaking, as well as reproductions to illustrate the technological evolution from the Lower Palaeolithic to the post-Neolithic periods in Eurasia.

　　　Archaeologists studying ancient lithic artifacts have no direct information on what the knapper of each artifact intended. The artifacts in the Ohnuma Collection are different. They are equipped with the histories of the objects and the author’s intention. We believe that this unique collection, which allows researchers to relive the experiences of a knapper, provides an invaluable opportunity for those who wish to pursue the archaeological understanding of lithic technology.