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Flaked stone reduction involves the use of a hard hammer percussor, such as a hammerstone, a soft hammer fabricator (made of wood, bone or antler), or a wood or antler punch to detach lithic flakes from the lithic core. As flakes are detached in sequence, the original mass of stone is reduced; hence the term for this process.
In archaeology, a tranchet flake is a characteristic type of flake removed by a flintknapper during lithic reduction.Known as one of the major categories in core-trimming flakes, the making of a tranchet flake involves removing a flake parallel to the final intended cutting edge of the tool which creates a single straight edge as wide as the tool itself.
In archaeology, a lithic core is a distinctive artifact that results from the practice of lithic reduction. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] In this sense, a core is the scarred nucleus resulting from the detachment of one or more flakes from a lump of source material or tool stone , usually by using a hard hammer precursor such as a hammerstone .
The technique was more sophisticated than earlier methods of lithic reduction, involving the striking of lithic flakes from a prepared lithic core. A striking platform is formed at one end and then the core's edges are trimmed by flaking off pieces around the outline of the intended lithic flake.
Because obsidian is not natural to Belize, the site of excavation, the obsidian cores were the product of transactions between the Mayans and those in present-day Honduras, Mexico and Guatemala. Obsidian blades are the sharpest natural cutting edges known, and after the lithic reduction already fractured blades, the triangular heads were produced.
Hard hammer flakes are indicative of primary reduction strategies (e.g., core reduction, roughing of blanks and preforms, and the like). More moderate and diffuse bulbs may indicate the use of a soft hammer percussor—such as bone , wood , or antler —which produces the bending flakes often associated with bifacial thinning and trimming.
Retouch is often taken as one of the most obvious features distinguishing a tool from a waste by-product of lithic manufacture . The extent of reduction, also known as the retouch intensity, is denoted by a measure of the reduction index. [3] There are many quantitative and qualitative methods used to measure this.
The term denotes a description of the stages of production of material culture—especially pottery and stone tools made through lithic reduction—from raw material acquisition to tool production to use to abandonment. [1] [2] [3] The chaîne opératoire was born out of archaeologists' interest in elevating lithic analysis beyond simple ...