Between margin and centre:The archaeology of southern African bored stones

One of the most enduring and most debated items of southern African Later Stone Age forager material culture is the bored stone. Though most often thought to have been used as a weight to increase the impetus of a digging stick, the term ‘bored stone’ refers to several unrelated artefacts and masks a wide range of usage. By utilising a broadly cognitive approach in which bored stones are examined in two different but related contexts, nuances of meaning not always apparent may be teased from this recondite object.