Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Burin from the Upper Paleolithic (Gravettian) (ca. 29,000–22,000 BP). In archaeology and the field of lithic reduction, a burin / ˈ b juː r ɪ n / (from the French burin, meaning "cold chisel" or modern engraving burin) is a type of stone tool, a handheld lithic flake with a chisel-like edge which prehistoric humans used for carving or finishing wood or bone tools or weapons, and sometimes ...
In archaeology, lithic analysis is the analysis of stone tools and other chipped stone artifacts using basic scientific techniques. At its most basic level, lithic analyses involve an analysis of the artifact's morphology, the measurement of various physical attributes, and examining other visible features (such as noting the presence or absence of cortex, for example).
The stone tools may have been made by Australopithecus afarensis, the species whose best fossil example is Lucy, which inhabited East Africa at the same time as the date of the oldest stone tools, a yet unidentified species, or by Kenyanthropus platyops (a 3.2 to 3.5-million-year-old Pliocene hominin fossil discovered in 1999).
During the Stone Age, access to flint was so important for survival that people would travel or trade long distances to obtain the stone. Grime's Graves was an important source of flint traded across Europe. Flint Ridge in Ohio was another important source of flint, and Native Americans extracted the flint from hundreds of quarries along the ridge.
Stone tools preserve more readily than tools of many other materials. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] So the oldest tools that we can find in many areas are going to be stone tools. It could be that these tools were once accompanied by, or even preceded by, non-stone tools that we cannot find because they did not preserve.
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
Use-wear analysis is a method in archaeology to identify the functions of artifact tools by closely examining their working surfaces and edges. It is mainly used on stone tools, and is sometimes referred to as "traceological analysis" (from the neologism traceology). In studying the wear on a lithics, different techniques are often used. A ...
While many worked stone tools can be technically designated as "modified flakes," for lithic analysis purposes a modified flake is usually defined as a lithic flake with one or more edges that were altered either through opportunistic use or through nonsystematic retouching; it is often difficult to identify the process that produced the observed edge.