Dichotomous Early Bronze Age Chipped Stone Industry: Statistical Assessment of Congruence among Chert and Obsidian Chipped Stone Assemblages from Kohne Tepesi, East Azerbaijan, Iran

Kohne Tepesi, an Early Bronze Age and Parthian site in East Azerbaijan Province, Northwestern Iran, was excavated under the rescue project of Khoda Afarin Dam Basin in 2007 and 2008. The chipped stone industry from the Early Bronze Age is mostly made from two different raw materials: chert and obsidian. Typo-technological analyses indicates that the chert assemblage is different from the obsidian assemblage in being more specialized and producing formal tools. Bifacial sickle elements are exclusively made from chert, whereas the assemblage from obsidian consists mostly of tiny chips from modification of irregular bifacial core-tools. In this research Mann-Whitney and chi-square tests are applied for assessing of congruence among chert and obsidian assemblages. The results clearly indicate that there is an economic pattern in raw material selection in Early Bronze Age chipped stone industry of Kohne Tepesi. Keywords