Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Archaeological and experimental studies of splintered pieces in the Central Asian Upper Paleolithic

Archaeological and experimental studies of splintered pieces in the Central Asian Upper Paleolithic In Paleolithic archaeology, there are two dichotomous perspectives on so-called splintered pieces, or pieces esquillées, in which, depending upon archaeological context and the availability and quality of lithic of raw material, such pieces are considered bipolar cores or tools for processing organic materials. Here, we discuss for the first time functionality, reduction models, and modes of using Upper Paleolithic pièces esquillées from two Central Asian regions: the Tian Shan Mountains of eastern Uzbekistan and the Yenisey Valley of Siberian Russia. By applying attributive, experimental, scar-pattern, and use-wear analyses, we determined that these artifacts derived from two widely separated regions are tools for processing hard organic materials, which were rotated often during use. Reconstructed reduction sequences indicate that the morphological appearance of the implements was affected by the working processes associated with contact between the hammer and the organic material being processed. Our results demonstrate that the formation of the chisel or wedge is not significantly affected by the raw material of the blank, the type of hammer utilized, or the nature of the material being processed. To the contrary, chisel tools from the two regions demonstrated the same reduction processes affecting their lengths and widths due to having been employed in similar physical operations. On the other hand, pièces esquillées from the two study regions demonstrated the same reduction processes in length and width due to the application of similar work operations, which seems applicable to all splintered pieces used as tools. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences Springer Journals

Archaeological and experimental studies of splintered pieces in the Central Asian Upper Paleolithic

Download PDF
18 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/springer-journals/archaeological-and-experimental-studies-of-splintered-pieces-in-the-Zk4AZF6V4o

References (56)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE part of Springer Nature 2021
ISSN
1866-9557
eISSN
1866-9565
DOI
10.1007/s12520-020-01256-2
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

In Paleolithic archaeology, there are two dichotomous perspectives on so-called splintered pieces, or pieces esquillées, in which, depending upon archaeological context and the availability and quality of lithic of raw material, such pieces are considered bipolar cores or tools for processing organic materials. Here, we discuss for the first time functionality, reduction models, and modes of using Upper Paleolithic pièces esquillées from two Central Asian regions: the Tian Shan Mountains of eastern Uzbekistan and the Yenisey Valley of Siberian Russia. By applying attributive, experimental, scar-pattern, and use-wear analyses, we determined that these artifacts derived from two widely separated regions are tools for processing hard organic materials, which were rotated often during use. Reconstructed reduction sequences indicate that the morphological appearance of the implements was affected by the working processes associated with contact between the hammer and the organic material being processed. Our results demonstrate that the formation of the chisel or wedge is not significantly affected by the raw material of the blank, the type of hammer utilized, or the nature of the material being processed. To the contrary, chisel tools from the two regions demonstrated the same reduction processes affecting their lengths and widths due to having been employed in similar physical operations. On the other hand, pièces esquillées from the two study regions demonstrated the same reduction processes in length and width due to the application of similar work operations, which seems applicable to all splintered pieces used as tools.

Journal

Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences – Springer Journals

Published: Jan 18, 2021

There are no references for this article.