Is It Only the Blank Size That Matters? The Effect of Edge Segmentation on Lithic Blank Cutting-Edge Efficiency

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Lithic blank/tool efficiency has been the subject of some experimental research in the last two decades. However, most of the research has largely been focused on the general morphology of the edge (straight, convex, or concave), or on some specific characteristic such as angle or the length of the cutting portion. What has not received attention is the small-scale variation in the edge morphology that is created by sharp projections and concavities in the edge and that define what portion of the blank can be used for cutting at any given time. This "segmentation of edge" can turn an otherwise long straight edge into multiple shorter segments. This means blank size, which is usually measured as "the maximum span of the flake parallel to the cutting edge" (Key & Lycett 2014:141) is not sufficient to assess the efficiency of a blank’s cutting edge. Here, we report on an experiment to evaluate the overall effect of segmentation on cutting edge performance with the hypothesis that longer segments are more efficient, in terms of time, than shorter segments. We also attempt to show how the cuts created by flakes with unsegmented edges are different from those whose edges are segmented.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23542