Archaeology Wordsmith

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Results for retouch:

alternate retouch: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Retouch that occurs on the dorsal side of one edge and the ventral side of the opposite edge of a flake.
alternating retouch: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Retouch that occurs on an edge of a lithic flake in such a way that it alternates between dorsal and ventral sides from one end to the other of the edge.
bifacial retouch: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Retouch flaking that occurs on both ventral and dorsal sides of an edge.
crossed retouch: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Retouch that is so steep on a lithic edge that it forms almost a 90-degree angle, so it is barely visible from dorsal or ventral sides.
direct retouch: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Retouch that occurs on an edge of a lithic flake, visible only in dorsal view.
inverse retouch: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Retouch that occurs on an edge of a lithic flake visible only in the ventral view.
pressure flake: SYNONYM: retouching flake
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Tiny, extremely thin flakes pinched or pushed off a tool to finish shaping it or to resharpen or reshape it.
retouch: SYNONYM: secondary working; secondary flaking
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: The working of a primary flake, usually by the removal of small fragments, to form a tool; to thin, sharpen, straighten, or otherwise refine an existing stone tool for further use. It is the work done to a flint implement after its preliminary roughing-out in order to make it into a functional tool. In the case of a core-tool, such as a hand-ax, retouch may consist of roughly trimming the edge by striking with a hammerstone, but on smaller, finer flake or blade tools it is usually carried out by pressure-flaking. It is done two ways, either by blows that knock small flakes off an edge (percussion retouch) or by pressure to force the flakes off (pressure retouch). The different types of retouch are also described as: backing or blunting retouch, and invasive or normal retouch. Invasive retouch can be steep or shallow, depending mainly on the kind of edge being retouched; this retouch can also be scaly in character. Backing is most often applied to blades and may have been done to blunt the back or to bring its end to a stout point. Evidence suggests that it may have been done to regularize the blade edge to facilitate fixing by resin 'mastic' to a bone or wood shaft. Such a strip of mastic was found in Lascaux, France. Notching or toothing is another form of retouch, and the removal of spalls or slivers as in the burin technique could be regarded as a further form of retouch or modification. Retouch is one of the most obvious features distinguishing a manmade from a naturally struck flint.
retouched flake: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A flake that has had small flakes removed to blunt, sharpen, refine the outline or prepare the edge of the tool.
secondary flake: SYNONYM: partially cortical flake, retouch, secondary flaking, secondary retouch, reduction flake
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A stone flake removed from a larger flake, as in the process of refining for a new use; a flake possessing some cortex on its dorsal aspect. The flakes are removed from an existing stone tool in order to thin, sharpen, blunt, or otherwise modify it for a specific use. Secondary flaking is the trimming which gives a chipped stone tool its final shape after the primary flaking has produced a blank (blade, flake, or core) of roughly the required form.
secondary retouch: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Finishing or resharpening flaking done after the basic shape of a lithic tool has been completed.
steepness of retouch: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: The angle between the flat plane of a flake and a retouched surface. Very steep retouch is close to 90 degrees.
use retouch: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An irregular scattering of small scars often found on the edges of artifacts and though to be the accidental result of tool use
Aggsbach: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic site on the Danube River in Austria with artifacts (endscrapers, backed blades, retouched blades) and faunal remains (woolly mammoth, reindeer, giant deer) dating to 25,700-22,450 bp, the Early Gravettian.
Altmühlian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A late Middle Palaeolithic industry of central Europe dating to the middle of the last glacial period. It is characterized by Blattspitzen, sidescrapers, and retouched blades.
Arka: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic cave site in northeast Hungary dating to 18,600-17,000 bp. The artifacts include endscrapers, burins, and retouched blades of the Gravettian and there are some faunal remains.
Asprochaliko: SYNONYM: Asprochalico
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large Palaeolithic rock shelter near Ioánnina, in Epirus, northwest Greece. There are Mousterian phases, an earlier one with carefully retouched tools and use of the Levallois technique, and a later phase with small tools. The Upper Palaeolithic levels of backed blades include one radiocarbon-dated to c 26,000 BC (24,000 ? 1000 BC). In the final stage (11,7000 ? 260 BC), geometric microliths and microburins appeared alongside the backed blades. Occupation ended around 9000 BC.
Aurignacian: SYNONYM: Aurignac (adj)
CATEGORY: culture; chronology
DEFINITION: A series of Upper Palaeolithic cultures in Europe that existed from about 35,000 to 20,000 years (dates also given as 38,000-22,000 years) ago. They were characterized by their use of stone (flint) and bone tools, refinement of those tools, and the development of sculpture and cave painting. The culture is named for the type site Aurignac, in southern France, where such artifacts were discovered. In France it is stratified between the Châtelperronian and the Gravettian (and before the Solutrean and the Magdalenian), but industries of Aurignacian type are also found eastwards to the Balkans, Palestine, Iran, and Afghanistan. At Abri Pataud there is a radiocarbon date of pre-31,000 BC for the Aurignacian, but there are possibly earlier occurrences in central and southeast Europe (Istállóskö in Hungary, Bacho Kiro in Bulgaria). There is still considerable dispute about the extent to which the Aurignacian is contemporary with the cultures of the Perigordian group in southwest France. The sites are often in deep, sheltered valleys. Split-based bone points, carinates (steep-end scrapers), and Aurignac blades (with heavy marginal retouch) are typical of Aurignacian. Aurignacian is also important as the most distinctive and abundantly represented of the early Upper Palaeolithic groups.
backed blade: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: In stone toolmaking, a small blade with one edge blunted by further chipping along one edge. This retouching technique was used so that it could be fitted snugly into a haft, to provide a finger-rest, or so that it could be held in the hand without cutting the fingers.
backing: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A type of steep retouch probably used to dull the edge of a flake, making it suitable for hafting or handling with fingers; common on the edge opposite the cutting edge of a knife.
Bambata Cave: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A large cave of southwestern Zimbabwe, where excavations have revealed a long sequence of occupation over the past 50,000 years. The site gives its name to a stone industry and pottery type, but they are widely separated periods. There are rock paintings on the cave walls and sheep bones, found in the same archaeological levels as pottery, have been dated to 150 BC. The Bambata industry, dated between the 50th-20th millennia BC, used prepared cores to produce (unretouched) flakes for scrapers and slender unifacial or bifacial lances or spear points. Its distribution extended north to Zambia and south to the Orange Free State and perhaps the Cape. Bambata pottery ware is known only from contexts of the 1st millennium ad in Zimbabwe. It is elaborately decorated with stamped designs.
Bann flake: SYNONYM: Bann point
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A term variously used by different authorities, but at its minimum it is simply a kind of leaf-shaped flake found widely amongst the later Mesolithic assemblages of Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, one component of the BANN CULTURE. More strictly, Peter Woodman defines them as large flakes having no significant tang, with light retouch, either as elongated or laminar forms less than 3.2cm across, or as leaf-shaped forms which are broader and have only very peripheral retouch at the butt.
bec: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A Palaeolithic flake boring tool that was retouched on one edge to form a point.
burin: SYNONYM: graver
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A specialized engraving tool with a chipped flint or stone shaft that is cut or ground diagonally downward to form a diamond-shaped point at the tip. The angle of the point affected the width and depth of the engraved lines. The shaft of the tool was fixed in a flat handle that could be held close to the working surface. A burin had a wide rounded end for bracing against the palm of the hand and the point was guided by thumb and forefinger. A blade or flake could be formed into any one of about 20 varieties of the tool. In its most characteristic form, the working tip is a narrow transverse edge formed by the intersection of two flake scars produced by striking at an angle to the main axis of the blade. Sometimes one facet is made by simply snapping the blade, or by truncating it with a steep retouch. Burins were used to carve or engrave softer materials such as antler, bone, ivory, metal, or wood. This tool was characteristic of the Upper Paleolithic (especially Magdalenian) in the Old World and of some Early Lithic and Mesolithic cultures of the New World.
Charentian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Mousterian (Middle Palaeolithic) culture of at least two types, Quina and Ferrassie, of the Charente region of France. Dominance racloirs (side scrapers), Quina retouch, and handaxes have been found. The Charentian seems to originate in the penultimate glacial period, and has a distribution across Europe and Russia.
cleaver: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A heavy, large core or flake tool of the Palaeolithic period, typically having a wide, straight cutting edge at one end, like a modern ax head. Technologically it is related to the handax, and is often found as a component of Acheulian (esp. Upper Acheulian) handax industries. The sharp transverse cutting edge was almost always notched by use but never sharpened. Along with bifacial tools, it was one of the main instruments of Homo erectus. It is found mainly in Africa, where much of the flake surface is left unretouched. The axlike knife was used since the Middle Pleistocene era to cut through animal bone and meat.
cortical spall: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A flake struck from the surface of a pebble or nodule which retains the natural cortex on one face. A cortical spall tool is generally a relatively large ovate cortical spall exhibiting retouch or use-wear on one or more edges.
Devil's Lair: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A limestone cave near the southwest coast of Western Australia, containing deep, well-preserved organic and stone deposits dating from 27,000-10,000 BC. It is one of the longest occupation sequences in Australia, with well-defined hearths and occupation floors and a rich faunal assemblage. The stone assemblage included cores, scrapers, denticulate flakes, retouched flakes, and adze flakes of chert or quartz. Undersea-drill cores from the nearby continental shelf have produced the same Eocene chert from a zone which would have been exposed during Pleistocene low sea-levels. Three unifacially incised limestone plaques (10,000-18,400 BC) and a piece of artificially perforated marl have been interpreted as ritual items or adornments. Bone tool artifacts included points dating to c 27,000 BC and beads of macropod (kangaroo/wallaby) fibulae between 13,000-10,000 BC, claimed to be the oldest known ornaments in Australia.
el Khiam: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Palestine with a distinctive point of the PPNA lithic industry. The point is a truncated and symmetrically notched bladelet with a tip formed by marginal retouching.
Emirean: SYNONYM: Emiran
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An early Upper Palaeolithic industry of the Levant region, named for the Emireh cave at the north end of the Sea of Galilee (Israel) which yielded tools and triangular arrowheads with a base tapered by means of bifacial retouches (Emireh points). It is the earliest stage of the Upper Palaeolithic recognized in the eastern Mediterranean region. The Emiran is believed to date from about 30,000 bc and may be transitional from the Mousterian.
end scraper: SYNONYM: endscraper, grattoir
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A stone tool formed by chipping the end of a flake of stone which can then be used to scrape animal hides and wood. Its steeply angled (acute) working edge was used for flensing or softening hides and to dress skins. It appeared in Europe during the Upper Palaeolithic period. It differed from side scrapers in that it had a rounded retouched end and was often made on a blade. A side scraper had a retouched working edge along the long edge of the flake.
flake: SYNONYM: flake tool
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A thin broad piece of stone detached from a larger mass for use as a tool; a piece of stone removed from a larger piece (core or nucleus) during knapping (percussion or pressure) and used in prehistoric times as a cutting instrument. Flakes often served as blanks" from which more complex artifacts -- burins scrapers gravers arrowheads etc. -- could be made. Waste flakes (débitage) are those discarded during the manufacture of a tool. Flakes may be retouched to make a flake tool or used unmodified. The process leaves characteristic marks on both the core and flake. This makes it comparatively easy to distinguish human workmanship from natural accident."
flake blade: SYNONYM: flake-blade
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An imprecisely defined elongated flaked stone artifact with dorsal ridges associated with sub-Saharan African Middle Stone Age collections. Unlike true blades, flake-blades do not necessarily have parallel sides, nor are they necessarily at least twice as long as they are wide. They were usually end-struck off cores, frequently taper to a point to form artifacts termed convergent or pointed flake-blades, and often have faceted platforms. Some examples were retouched to form knives or denticulate or notched tools.
Folsom: SYNONYM: Folsom culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A village in northeastern New Mexico which lends its name to the remains of a prehistoric culture first found there and especially to its characteristic projectile point (Folsom point). It was a Stone Age culture, characterized by refinement of fluted projectile points, marking a significant advance over the projectile points of the earlier Clovis culture. The culture is believed to be 10-13,000 years old (11,000-10,200 BP). It was the scene of one of the first New World discoveries of artifacts associated with extinct fauna (the remains of 23 extinct giant bison). Folsom points are usually dated between c 9000-8000 BC. Folsom points are slightly different from Clovis: smaller, with their widest dimension near the middle rather than towards the base; more concave base than Clovis, and edges of Folsom points were retouched. Another site, Blackwater Draw has its Folsom layer dated to 8340 BC.
Folsom point: SYNONYM: Folsom projectile point
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A distinctive Palaeoindian fluted projectile point with a single flute on each face and fine pressure flaking. Found in association in sites around Folsom, New Mexico, from c 9000-8000 BC (alternately 11,000-10,200 BP), they differ from Clovis points in the length of the flute, which extends over most of the point's side. Folsom points are smaller, with their widest dimension near the middle rather than towards the base; more concave base than Clovis, and edges of Folsom points were retouched.
Gamberian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A distinctive Early Holocene industry of coastal southeast South Australia and southwest Victoria with retouched flint flake tools.
Harifian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A hunter-gatherer culture of Negev and Sinai who lived in the desert and in seasonal camps and had a Late Natufian lithic industry. The Harif point was an obliquely truncated bladelet with pointed base formed by microburin technique and a steep retouch.
Isimila: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southern Tanzania that may have been occupied about 250,000 years ago. The most distinctive tools are hand axes and cleavers of African Acheulian type, but two other assemblage types are found, one with picks and the other with small retouched tools.
Jerzmanowician: SYNONYM: Jermanovician
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An early Upper Palaeolithic industry of Poland characterized by foliated bifacial points, retouched blades, and denticulates. The type site is Nietoperzowa Cave at Jermanovice near Cracow in Poland.
Juan knife: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A long flake with abrupt blunting retouch along one margin. Ethnographic specimens have handgrips of skin or resin and are documented from western, central, and eastern Queensland, Australia. They are very rare in archaeological contexts and are only known from the last few hundred years.
Kachemak stage: SYNONYM: Kachemak culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A marine mammal-hunting culture found around the Kachemak Bay of the southern Kenai Peninsula in central southern Alaska. It is divided into three phases, the oldest of which may date back as far as the 8th century BC and the most recent lasting until historic times. The first phase was the most distinctly Eskimo in character. Stone (including slate) implements in the early period were usually retouched; later they were ground. Round or oval stone lamps and realistic human figures of carved stone have been found. Copper tools and pottery appeared in the third stage. Rock paintings were mainly representations of men and animals. Burials have the body in a crouched position, with associated grave goods. During the final stage, artificial bone or ivory eyes were placed over those of the deceased. There may have been cultural connections with eastern Asia, with adjacent land areas, and with Kodiak Island.
Kara-Bom: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Palaeolithic site in the Altai region of Siberia with artifacts including Levallois cores, retouched blades, denticulates, and endscrapers probably dating to the early Upper Palaeolithic.
Kokorevo: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Six Upper Palaeolithic sites on the Yenisei River in southern Siberia. Radiocarbon dates put Kokorevo I-IV between 15,900-12940 bp. There are wedge-shaped microcores, microblades, sidescrapers, and retouched blades. Level I is Kokorevo culture, II and III are Afontova culture. The Kokorevo culture is dated to c 20,000-10,000 BP and included endscrapers.
Krems: SYNONYM: Krems-Hundssteig
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic site on the Danube in northeast Austria, dating to around 35,200 bp. The Krems-Hundssteig locality has revealed a very rich Aurignacian-like assemblage in which numerous bladelets, endscrapers, retouched blades, and 'Krems' points were found. A female figurine of green serpentine was dated to 31,790 bp.
La Quina: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Middle and Upper Palaeolithic rock shelter complex in Charente, southwest France, and the name of a subdivision of the Charentian Mousterian tradition. The stone tool industry produced thick scrapers with a very curved cutting edge and stepped, splintered retouches. Another industry had many thin scrapers produced by Levallois technique. Human remains include 27 of Neanderthal type.
leaf arrowhead: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A leaf or diamond-shaped arrowhead with shallow retouching at the edges.
leaf-shaped: SYNONYM: foliated; foliate
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Of a tool, pointed at the ends and with convex sides, as on a willow leaf. The term is applied to an arrowhead, the blade of a slashing sword, or the flattened bow of a fibula and other tools which have been retouched on both faces to produce a flattish effect. Many Upper Paleolithic tools are named after leaves (Solutrean laurel leaf). Some Middle Paleolithic industries are characterized by the presence of bifaces, others by the presence of leaf-shaped objects. Mousterian industries producing leaf-shaped items in central and eastern Europe.
leilira: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Large pointed or rectangular blade which may be retouched to form a point or scraper-like tool. It could be hafted as a spearhead or fighting pick or used as a knife. It is associated with the Australian Small Tool Tradition in northern Australia.
limace: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of blade tool retouched along both sides to form a slug-shaped object.
Mal'ta: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic site in south-central Siberia. There are traces of a dwelling and a burial of a young person of possibly mongoloid affinities, as well as several art objects. The Upper Palaeolithic level is dated to the beginning of the last glacial maximum, c 24,000-23,000 bp. The artifacts include prismatic cores, retouched blades, and end scrapers.
Malaya Sya: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Upper Palaeolithic site in western Siberia on the Belyj Iyus River with artifacts and faunal remains dating from 34,500-20,370 bp, predating the Last Glacial Maximum. Artifacts include large retouched blades and endscrapers.
Maros point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Small hollow-based stone projectile points, often with serrated edge-retouch, characteristic of a mature phase of the Toalian industry of southwestern Sulawesi, India, c 6000 BC into the 1st millennium BC. They were part of a mid-Holocene stone flake and blade industry.
Matenkupkum: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Cave site in New Ireland, Bismarck Archipelago, Melanesia. Marine resources were used c 32,000 bp. A stone assemblage includes unretouched flakes. Obsidian from Talasea appears c 12,000 bp.
microblade: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A small, narrow stone blade, ranging from less than 5-11 millimeters wide and about 15-45 mm long. They were often made from a conical or wedge-shaped microcore, often punch-struck or pressure-flaked. Microblades were often retouched into various forms of microliths. Microblades are found in the Upper Palaeolithic industries of Eurasia and in the Upper Palaeolithic of Siberia, but are also characteristic of the Mesolithic and later industries of the circumpolar regions. Examples are the Eastern Gravettian, Dyuktai culture, and the Arctic Small Tool Tradition.
microlith: SYNONYM: pigmy stone
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Any of various very small stone tools varying in size from 1-5 cm -- mainly thin blade or blade fragments with sharp cutting edges, usually geometric in shape and set into a wooden handle or shaft or the tip of a bone or antler as an arrow point. They were shaped by abrupt retouch into various shapes like triangles and crescents. Microliths were produced during the Later Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic and were either struck as blades from very small cores or were made from fractured blades using the microburin technique. They are characteristic, for example, of Azilian culture of the Mesolithic. Microliths represent both a versatile and an economic use of raw material: just as blades yield more cutting edge than flakes per unit weight of raw material, so bladelets improve yet further this advantage, by a factor of something over 100 compared to core tools.
Molodova culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Upper Palaeolithic culture of the western Ukraine, found in the 5th level of Moldova. The early phase, c 30-25,000 bp, has burins, large retouched blades, and endscrapers; later phases, c 23-12,000 bp, also had backed blades and points.
Ngandong: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Terrace site in the Solo River valley in Java, Indonesia, which had remains of Pleistocene fauna and advanced Homo erectus (Solo Man) of c 200,000 years ago. Solo Man has features of earlier Java Man, and has also been regarded as a tropical Neanderthal. Faunal associations are Upper Pleistocene, and age estimates range from 60,000-300,000 years. There was a stone industry of choppers and retouched flakes, but it may not be associated with Solo Man.
Noailles: SYNONYM: Noailles burin
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The Grotte de Noailles, close to Brive, Corrèze, southwest France, which has given its name to a small multiple burin -- an Upper Palaeolithic flake tool retouched to give several chisellike edges. The Noailles burin distinguishes a facies of the Upper Perigordian or Noaillian, dating to c 27,000 bp.
Noailles graver: SYNONYM: Noailles burin
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The Grotte de Noailles, close to Brive, Corrèze, southwest France, which has given its name to a small multiple burin -- an Upper Palaeolithic flake tool retouched to give several chisellike edges. The Noailles burin distinguishes a facies of the Upper Perigordian or Noaillian, dating to c 27,000 bp; an Upper Palaeolithic flake tool retouched to give several chisel-like edges.
Noailles graver or Noailles burin: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The Grotte de Noailles, close to Brive, Corrèze, southwest France, which has given its name to a small multiple burin -- an Upper Palaeolithic flake tool retouched to give several chisellike edges. The Noailles burin distinguishes a facies of the Upper Perigordian or Noaillian, dating to c 27,000 bp; an Upper Palaeolithic flake tool retouchedto give several chisel-like edges.
Pavlovian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic culture found in central and eastern Europe, with the type site at Pavlov in southern Moravia, Czechoslovakia. There, a large settlement of Upper Palaeolithic mammoth-hunters left skeletal remains, hut plans, and numerous art objects. The artifacts include small retouched blades, Gravette points, and animal figurines assigned to the Eastern Gravettian. The radiocarbon dates are 26,730-26,000 bp.
penknife point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of late Upper Palaeolithic flint tool found in northwest Europe. Made on fairly broad blades, these tools are characterized by a straight unworked edge along one side, a curved distal end, and a lightly retouched edge parallel to the unworked side.
Pietersburg: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A term for South African early Middle Stone Age artifact assemblages of the late Middle or early Late Pleistocene, occurring mainly in the Transvaal although related material is also found further south. It belongs to the general group of industries based upon the removal of flakes from prepared cores but is differentiated from other contemporary industries of this type by the presence of large numbers of long parallel-sided flake-blades (many of which have minimal retouch or use damage on the sides). The best sequence showing the development of the Pietersburg industry is at the Cave of Hearths in the northern Transvaal. The chronology is still poorly defined, but is roughly 60,000-20,000 BC or after.
Pirri graver: SYNONYM: pirri graver
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: An Australian tool type with extensive flaking on one face and an underside curvature as well as retouched cutting edge on the narrow end. They are up to 80 mm long. They seem to correspond to that of the Tula.
Pod Hradem: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Upper Palaeolithic cave site in Moravia, Czechoslovakia. There are laurel-leaf points of the Szeletian and an early Upper Palaeolithic industry of retouched blades, dated to the middle of the Last Glacial.
Potocka Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Upper Palaeolithic site in Slovenia's mountains with artifacts and faunal remains of the Last Glacial. The assemblage includes sidescrapers, endscrapers, and retouched blades of the Aurignacian.
primary flake: SYNONYM: cortical flake, decortication flake
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: An unretouched flake of stone from which smaller flakes are removed during knapping. A flake with its dorsal aspect completely covered by cortex.
racloir: SYNONYM: sidescraper
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A large scraper that has the retouched working edge along the long edge of the flake. The racloir is one of the most characteristic Mousterian implements and may have served as both knife and (side)scraper.
Robberg: SYNONYM: Nelson Bay Cave
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Later Stone Age microlithic industry of southern and eastern Cape Province, South Africa, dated to c 18,000-12,000 BP. There are many diminutive artifacts with few retouched implements, including bladelet cores, bladelets, scrapers, and backed bladelets. Worked bone and ostrich eggshell beads have also been found.
rod: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Term applied to a type of Mesolithic microlith found especially in northwestern Europe. Rods are rounded forms of microliths retouched along the edges.
scraper: SYNONYM: side scraper, end scraper, sidescraper, endscraper
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A retouched flake tool with a thick working edge; a flake tool that has been sharpened on one edge and left blunt on other edges to allow grasping, probably used to scrape (dress) animal hides. It is called a side scraper (racloir) or end scraper (grattoir) depending on the sharpened edge; side scrapers utilize the long side and end scrapers have the scraping facet on one end. Thumbnail" scrapers are very small; some cultures used scrapers as big as a fist. Scrapers were also used in woodworking and in shaping bone or ivory. Other types were snub-nosed round / horseshoe. Side scrapers are typical of the Middle Palaeolithic while end scrapers are typical of the later Palaeolithic."
segment: SYNONYM: crescent
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Small stone tool made on a blade or bladelet and shaped like part of a circle; the backing is along a curved arc opposite a straight unretouched edge. It was hafted, possibly as a projectile tip or as part of a cutting tool. Segments occur in some sub-Saharan African Howiesons Poor and Later Stone Age assemblages and are widespread in North Africa.
side scraper: SYNONYM: sidescraper, scraper, racloir
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A retouched flake tool with a thick working edge; a flake tool that has been sharpened on one edge and left blunt on other edges to allow grasping, probably used to scrape (dress) animal hides and for working hard materials. It is called a side scraper (racloir) because its sharpened edge is the long side.
slug knife: SYNONYM: plano-convex knife
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of later Neolithic and early Bronze Age flint tool found in the British Isles, particularly associated with burials in northeastern England. Plano-convex knives have a leaf-shaped outline and slightly elongated form, worked on large thick flakes with retouch around and sometimes all over the convex dorsal surface but a plain untouched ventral surface.
Spitsyn culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Early Upper Palaeolithic culture on the Don River in European Russia, dating to c 40,000-30,000 bp. Its artifacts include burins, retouched blades and scrapers, bone tools and ornaments.
Strandloper: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A term, literally 'beachcomber', for people thought to have created shell middens along the southern Africa coast. It is also the name of a South African coastal Later Stone Age industry characterized by pottery, large flakes, flaked cobbles, and retouched stone artifacts. It has existed for the last 2000 years.
strangulated blade scraper: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Long blade tool with a retouched notch on one or both sides. Possibly used as a wood-working tool like a modern spokeshave. Characteristic of the AURIGNACIAN.
Szeletian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Early Upper Palaeolithic industry of central Europe with bifacial foliated points and sidescrapers, but it has also been applied to the industries with foliated points which mark the transition from the Middle Paleolithic to Upper Paleolithic periods throughout the eastern part of central Europe. It appears to have developed from the Middle Palaeolithic (Micoquian). The type site is Szeleta Cave in the Bükk Mountains in Hungary. The culture seems to date between 45,000-25,000 BC, the middle of the Last Glacial. Later assemblages contain endscrapers and retouched blades.
Tayacian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A term sometimes used to describe Lower and Middle Palaeolithic flake industries which lack handaxes, bifaces, and carefully retouched implements. Originally the term was coined for the industries from the lower levels at La Micoque (Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, the Dordogne, France), but it has subsequently been applied to industries over a wide geographical and chronological range. The layers which probably belong to the penultimate glacial period were assigned to a Tayacian culture. The culture is also described as a primitive flake-tool tradition of Israel, also, believed to be essentially a smaller edition of the Clactonian industry.
Tianko Panjang: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Cave site in central Sumatra with an obsidian microlith industry of c 9000 BC (e.g. unretouched flakes).
Tolbaga: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Upper Palaeolithic site on the Khilok River in south-central Siberia with faunal remains dated c 34,860 and c 27,210 bp. Artifacts include retouched blades, sidescrapers, endscrapers, points, and burins.
Tomskaya: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Upper Palaeolithic site in Tomsk, western Siberia, with a small assemblage of burins and retouched blades, c 18,300 bp. It is a rare kill site in Palaeolithic Russia.
truncation: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The process that produced and the tool type that exhibits drastic redirection of outline in the artifact's distal or proximal area, effected by steep retouch
uniface bevel: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A bevel which was formed by removing seep flakes from just one face of an edge. The opposing face may have a few flat flake scars of the primary flaking of scattered retouch flake scars.
willow-leaf point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Late Solutrean flake tool -- slim, with rounded ends and retouching on one side only -- of extremely fine workmanship.
Wilson Butte Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site of long occupation on the Snake River Plain in Idaho, starting c 14,500 bp -- possibly one of the oldest occupations in North America. It is located on what is thought to be one of the major migration routes to the interior. Another date of 12,500 BC from an overlying stratum indicates the presence of man south of the ice at the height of the Wisconsin glaciation. Six layers covering a period of 10,000 years have been defined, five of which are middle-late Holocene. There are few artifacts, but tool assemblages indicate a hunting and gathering way of life prior to the Clovis specialization. the artifacts are biface, retouched blade, and flake.

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