Search results for "Use-wear analysis"
showing 5 items of 5 documents
Experimental basis in lithic arrows usage and hafting at the end of the last glaciation in the French Alps
2017
Abstract To identify lithic arrowheads from Prehistoric sites is very difficult because there is a great variability in their morphology and in the ways of hafting and throwing them. Variables playing in their use are numerous. Some experimental approaches try to explain traces in prehistorical lithic points by mean of paying attention at some of these variables. Many researchers have used morphological parameters to distinguish spear from arrowheads, showing which characteristics define the potential of each type of weapon in ethnographical examples. However, only an accurate use-wear analysis that pays attention on macro and micro-wear traces and which is grounded on systematically experi…
Understanding woodworking in Paleolithic times by means of use-wear analysis
2020
Abstract Throughout prehistory, wood working was a frequent activity. The indices of this activity comes from rare found wooden remains, and the analysis of use-wear on them. In most recent periods, there are stone polished tools and metal tools, that increase the capability of wood transformation. This is not the case for older times, from which only knapped tools are available. The woodworking chaine operatoire includes activities of selection and acquisition of raw material, but also the transformation and the finish of objects and structures. Use-wear analysis in many sites illustrates this. However, a systematic compilation of published traceological analysis has not been made recently…
La Cuevona de Avín (Avín, Asturias, North Spain): A new Late Pleistocene site in the lower valley of the River Güeña
2022
The archaeological investigations carried out in the last twenty years in the Lower Valley of the River Güeña (Asturias, central part of northern Spain) have documented different prehistoric sites, particularly with Middle and Upper Palaeolithic occupations. This paper presents the results of the archaeological excavation carried out in the cave of La Cuevona de Avín. From the systematic study of the biotic and abiotic remains, a total of three occupation phases (Phases 1 to 3) have been determined, dated in the Late Pleistocene. The lithic studies indicate the use of local raw materials (mainly quartzite), but also regional ones (different types of flint) in the whole sequence. Retouched i…
Evaluating the microscopic effect of brushing stone tools as a cleaning procedure
2020
Cleaning stone tool surfaces is a common procedure in lithic studies. The first step widely applied at any archeological site (and/or at field laboratories) is the gross removal of sediment from the surfaces of artifacts. Lithic surface alterations due to mechanical action applied in wet or dry cleaning regimes have never been examined at a microscopic scale. This could have important implications in traceology, as any modern surface modifications inflicted on archeological artifacts might compromise their functional interpretations. The current trend toward quantification of use-wear traces makes the testing even more important, as even slight, apparently invisible surface alterations migh…
Use-wear analysis applied in a dissected palimpsest at the Middle Palaeolithic site of El Salt (eastern Iberia): working with lithic tools in a narro…
2023
Los análisis de uso-desgaste son muy útiles para aumentar el conocimiento sobre las dinámicas económicas y de subsistencia llevadas a cabo por los neandertales. En términos generales, los resultados funcionales provienen tradicionalmente del análisis de herramientas pertenecientes a unidades estratigráficas cuya escala temporal se refiere al tiempo geológico. Esto se debe a que muchos yacimientos neandertales son palimpsestos de ocupaciones reiteradas a lo largo del tiempo, que deben ser diseccionadas para acercarnos a la escala temporal humana. En la unidad estratigráfica Xa de El Salt (Alcoi, este de Iberia) se han llevado a cabo estudios arqueoestratigráficos de alta resolución temporal.…