Thinking Like They Thought

[uniface]

When you get down to the root of it, the people who made the old tools approached what they did differently than we do. I just read a Tony Baker monograph that sums up this different mentality in a nutshell ( http://www.ele.net/containers/lithic_containers.htm ).

Modern knappers do not create and thin bifaces for the end products as the prehistoric people did. They do it to make arrowheads from the center of the biface . . . the prehistoric knapper was reducing the lithic container for the end products and not some single tool that resided deep inside.

In the old way of looking at it, there was a point "in there" if that's what they decided to make of the blank they were working. But, in the mean time, the blank itself was a knife, and every flake that came off had a potential use -- could be an end product in its own right, rather than superfluous material to be gotten rid of because it was in the way. Which is not to say that every flake was used, especially in an area where good material was abundant and easily gotten. But at the other end of the scale, their foresight and frugality were impressive. Far from a source of good chert and with a dwindling supply of it, nothing went to waste. You can see this in some Folsom assemblages. But the same was the case back east here, at times.

A favorite little tool I'll try to remember to illustrate tomorrow is of the finest quality, glossy dark blue Upper Mercer (Coshocton) I've ever seen. Unless I miss my guess, it's one of the final shaping flakes from out toward the tip of a Clovis point. It came from a Paleo site several hundred miles from the quarries, in northwestern Ohio along the Auglaize River, not far from (possibly, in) Michigan. This thin little arched flake, just a bit over an inch in length and three-quarters of an inch in width, is retouched along its entire periphery -- including the removal platform, which is worked into a graver tip. You need a magnifying glass to appreciate the delicacy of the workmanship. I doubt if very many people would even bother to pick it up, seeing as it's "just a little flake."

But it's a window into a bygone world.

And that's my little "tool" commercial for this evening -- now back to our regularly scheduled programming

 

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[oldgoat]

Uniface, that's what you have been saying all along...that alot of the debitage that we find are tools. You and I both have flakes that look like flakes until they are put under a glass and see the secondary chipping. I have chunks of flint that look like they drove flakes off for other tools, which I don't doubt that they did, but I think that they then used those chunks for choppers and bone crushers...

 

[uniface]

Sorry these are on the dark side -- it's an overcast day (taken outside for lighting). You can at least see some of the micro-flaking on the edges though.

 

[sidmind]

Uniface, you mentioned using a magnifying glass to see the edges, I pick up lots of flakes and many have what I call "River tumble" on the edges, is there a signature that is different from river tuble and micro-flaking?

 

[Th3rty7]

Good read, these simple flake tools are often overlooked and under appreciated. You can learn alot from them imo. Quick cutting and scraping tools with hundreds of uses.

Sid, you're looking for a uniform pattern of flaking along an edge with microflaking, a really small but steep bevel in most cases. River tumble shows up as random detached flakes or edgewear with usually an inconsistent patina from the rest of the piece. Just my opinion, I'm sure uniface can add a great deal to that.

I just pictured this flake tool through a mag. glass to show some of the microflaking. This little uniface flake is worked about 2/3 of the way around on the edges.

 

[uniface]

Pretty edgework !!

 

[Keokukjeff]

Uniface, you mentioned using a magnifying glass to see the edges, I pick up lots of flakes and many have what I call "River tumble" on the edges, is there a signature that is different from river tuble and micro-flaking?

Yeah there is..................The Arkansas probably dont give up many flake tools ,due to polish once a scraper is water-worn from being in the water they are no good for use-wear.
I hunt the White River and find points with flaking scars worn/polished completely off>>>>

 

[uniface]

Thirty7's broken it down for you. Piled-Higher-and-Deepers with too much time on their hands and the necessity of appearing in print somewhere have come up with some pretty elaborate hoops an artifact is supposed to jump through whenever the argument is over older-than-Clovis tools vs. "geofacts."

But like Thirty7 said, flaking that results from accidental damage (plough tumbling or river-tumbling) will be random ; edge-shaping flaking will be purposeful (removals often pretty much the same size and side-by-side, like the one he's illustrated).

This leaves what's called Use Wear in the middle (damage from heavy cutting/twisting/scraping on an edge that's thin enough to show these as breakage). Here, the more purposeful the shape and manufacturing of the flake itself is, the more likely it is to have been made (presumably, used) for a given purpose related to its design (and therefore that the edge damage is from use rather than accidental -- especially when it's concentrated in a few areas and/or shows flaking of different characters in different areas.

Somebody can always argue possibility . . . that it's possible for edge chips to have been accidental and natural.

Then again, by the same token, it's possible that my Grandmother assasinated President Kennedy.

 

[Road Dog]

I wonder if the fine edgework seen on some tools if a result of purpose or age of the artifact? Lots of tools don't have this fine work just multiple percussion strikes and no pressure flaking

 

[oldgoat]

I wonder if the fine edgework seen on some tools if a result of purpose or age of the artifact? Lots of tools don't have this fine work just multiple percussion strikes and no pressure flaking

That is the joy of these types of tools, the more I study them the more I can learn from them. We have tools that have the percussion flaking, that I call killsite knives and blades and I have some that have the pressure flaking that I believe were used in a more specialized manner...like skinning a small animal for the pelt. These are the thoughts that go thru my mind when I see these blades, but then again, someone said my mind was a snakepit, so lets just say, in my humble opinion...

 

[uniface]

There's no possible blanket rule that covers everything ever done in 15,000 + years.

When somebody wanted a fine edge, he put one on. When quick & dirty was close enough for government work, that's what got done.

Every tool is, in a way, a little snapshot of a job (sometimes, of a series of them).