WHAT IS THE MICOQUIAN?

Final Acheulian phase defined on the basis of assemblages from La Micoque, near Les Eyzies, France. Sites are found in central Europe, including some in the former Soviet Union. The characteristic artifact is a pointed pyriform (pear shaped) or lanceolate (tapering) biface with a well-made tip.

WHAT IS THE KNAPPING?

Working of stone by applying force to its surface – by percussion or pressure – to produce a tool. A knapper is one who manufactures stone artifacts, especially by chipping. This technique of striking flakes or blades from a hard, brittle rock, such as flint or obsidian, is done by means of short, sharp blows delivered with a hammer of stone, bone, or wood. Knapping was used to fashion stone tools and weapons, such as blades and arrowheads, in the Harappan culture of the Indus Valley and was also applied to making beads from agate and carnelian.

WHAT IS THE KIMBERLEY POINT?

A pressure-flaked bifacial point with serrated margins and long shallow surface scar beds, found in the Kimberleys region of Western Australia and neighboring areas of the Northern Territory and northwest Queensland. South of the Kimberleys, the point was a trade item and was used as a surgical knife. The points were made at the time of European contact, when bottle glass and porcelain were adapted for the industry

WHAT IS THE FLINT KNAPPING?

technique of striking flakes or blades from a large flint stone (core or nucleus) and the shaping of cores and flakes into tools. The most commonly used stone was flint (chert), a hard, brittle stone, commonly found as nodules in limestone areas, that breaks with a conchoidal fracture. Flint knapping began with the simple striking of one stone against another. Later methods include the use of antler and wooden strikers for both direct and indirect percussion, and bone and antler pressure-flaking tools.

WHAT IS THE FLINT CREEK FLAKING?

A characteristic flaking style of the Flint Creek

culture which was accomplished by removing regular, deep, elongate, opposing pressure flakes from the blade edges. The application of this flaking style usually resulted in the formation of very fine biface serrations.

WHAT IS THE FLINT ?

A type of hard stone, often gray in color, found in rounded nodules and usually covered with a white incrustation; a microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline form of silica containing some water and very fine pores, added to clay as an inert filler or aggregate. A member of the chalcedony group of water-bearing silica minerals, it was found from early use to fracture conchoidally and was ideal for making stone tools with sharp edges. It is chemically a quartz, but has a different microcrystalline structure. It can therefore be flaked readily in any direction and so shaped to many useful forms. It occurs widely, and where available was the basic material for man’s tools until the advent of metal; it is commonest “stone” of the Stone Age. The only types of stone preferred to it were obsidian and the tougher rocks used for ground tools in the Neolithic. The term is often used interchangeably with chert and also as a generic term denoting stone tools in the Old World. Nodules of flint occur commonly as seams in the upper and middle chalk of northwest Europe. During the Neolithic and Copper Age of Europe, flint workers recognized that flint from beds below ground were of superior quality to surface flint, especially for the manufacture of large tools such as axes. These beds were exploited by sinking shafts and then excavating galleries outwards. Flint mines are known from many areas of Europe and good examples occur in Poland (Krzemionki), Holland, Belgium (Spiennes), and England (Grimes Graves).

WHAT IS THE DISCOIDAL NUCLEUS TECHNIQUE ?

A method of core knapping used during the Middle Paleolithic by which flaking was done until the core was too small to use. The Beaker People, in particular, made circular, oval, or oblong thin flakes of stone with this technique, which is very similar to the Levallois technique.

WHAT IS THE CRESCENT ?

CRESCENT: A crescent-shaped, bifacially flaked stone tool generally restricted to the Paleoindian period and almost always found in association with extinct Pleistocene lakes. They were possibly used for hunting large shorebirds. [Great Basin transverse point]

WHAT IS THE CORTEX ?

CORTEX: A tough covering or crust on an unmodified stone cobble or newly exposed flint nodule and tabular flint. It is formed by weathering and is usually discarded during the knapping process.

WHAT IS THE CONCHOIDAL FLAKE ?

CONCHOIDAL FLAKE: A type of spall resulting from the fracture of fine-grained or glassy rocks. It is characterized by a bulb of percussion, striking platform remnant, and extremely sharp edges. There is a predictable fracture pattern that allows the manufacture of predetermined tools from these materials.

WHAT IS THE COLLATERAL FLAKING ?

COLLATERAL FLAKING: When flakes on a chipped stone artifact extend to the middle from both edges forming a medial ridge. The flakes are at right angles to the longitudinal axis, and are regular and uniform in size.

WHAT IS THE CLOVIS POINT ?

CLOVIS POINT: A distinctive, fluted, lanceolate (leaf-shaped) stone projectile point characteristic of the early Paleoindian period, c. 10,000– 9000 bc, and often found in association with mammoth bones. It is named for Clovis, New Mexico, where it was first found. The oncave-based projectile point has a longitudinal groove on each face running from the base to a point not more than halfway along the tool. The base of a Clovis point is concave and the edge of the base is usually blunted through grinding, probably to ensure that the thongs, attaching the point to the projectile, were not cut. It is assumed to have been a spear because of its size; the length of points varies from 7 to 12 cm (2–4 inches), and their widest width is 3–4 cm (1–1.5 inches). Clovis points and the artifacts associated with them (grouped together as the Llano complex) are among the earliest tools known from the New World and have been found over most of North America, with a few outliers as far south as Mexico and Panama. It is the earliest projectile point of the Big Game Hunting tradition of North America. From these points came the later, more sophisticated points, such as the Folsom. [Clovis projectile point, Clovis spear point]

WHAT IS THE CLACTONIAN ?

CLACTONIAN: An early flake-tool culture of Europe, dating from the early Mindel-Riss (Great interglacial) of the Pleistocene epoch, which occurred from 1,600,000 to 10,000 years ago. It was named after discoveries at Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, England. A kind of concave scraper, perhaps used to smooth and shape wooden spears, is typical of the Clactonian industry. Apart from the tip of a wooden spear, the artifacts consist of trimmed flint flakes and chipped pebbles, some of which can be classified as chopper tools. Hand axes were absent. The Clactonian seems, therefore, to have coexisted with the early Acheulian. Some believe that the two industries are quite distinct, while others maintain that both assemblages might have been made by the same people, and that the Clactonian could in theory be an Acheulian industry from which hand axes were absent because such tools were not needed for the jobs carried out at a particular site. Clactonian and related industries are distributed throughout the north European plain, and Clactonian tools are similar in appearance to those produced in the Soan industry of Pakistan and in several sites in eastern and southern Africa. The Tayacian industry of France and Israel is believed to be a smaller edition of the Clactonian.

WHAT IS THE CHISEL ENDED ARROWHEAD ?

CHISEL ENDED ARROWHEAD: a type of arrow tip of flint or stone, with a sharp, straight cutting edge at right angles to the axis of the arrow shaft, rather than a point.

WHAT IS THE CHERT ?

Chert Nodule

CHERT: A coarse type of siliceous (silica) rock, a form of quartz, used for the manufacture of stone tools where flint was not available. It is of poorer quality than flint, formed from ancient ocean sediments, and often has a semi-glassy finish. It is pinkish, white, brown, gray, or bluegray in color. Flint, chert, and other siliceous rocks like obsidian are very hard, and produce a razor-sharp edge when properly flaked into tools. This crystalline form of the mineral silica is found as nodules in limestones. Varieties of chert are jasper, chalcedony, agate, flint, and novaculite. Chert and flint provided the main source of tools and weapons for Stone Age man.