Lithics

Archaeologists use the (slightly ungrammatical) term 'lithics' to refer to artifacts made of stone.

A new paper from Tony Baker, summarizing his years of work on experimental archaeological tests on stone tool production.

John Whittaker's (Grinnell College) annotated bibliography is extremely useful for folks wanting to investigate more about this prehistoric hunting method.

Crescents are chipped stone objects found on Paleoindian and preclovis sites throughout the western US.

Debitage is the collective term used by archaeologists to refer to the sharp-edged waste material left over when someone creates a stone tool

Computer simulation of Folsom fluting; a paper for the 2000 SAA by Tony Baker.

Tony Baker provides us with a description of the joys of flakiness, including a definition, photographs, measurements frequently taken, and why this most ubiquitous of archaeological artifact is of some importance.

An article by flint-knapper Jim Winn on his experimental techniques examining flaking patterns from working with different tools on flat slabs. A recent addition to Tony Baker's terrific lithics page.

Lithic artifacts--stone tools such as arrow heads--are very important to archaeological science. But my goodness! what a lot of myths there are concerning them.

Levallois is the name archaeologists have given to a distinctive flint knapping technique, which makes up part of the ancient Acheulean and Mousterian artifact assemblages.

The latest interesting article from lithic-specialist Tony Baker, Lithic Containers discusses the recognition of when a stone artifact is an exhausted core--the last leftovers from a tool manufacture.

The journal of choice for lithic types, edited by George Odell.

Ian Cross, lecturer in Music at Wolfson College at Cambridge, has this interesting idea about making stone tools and music--simultaneously.

The volcanic glass called obsidian was highly prized in prehistory where ever it was found.

Prehistoric Flint Chips is an illustrated guide to what archaeologists look at when they see a 'welter of flint chips' or, as your run of the mill archaeologist would have it, <a href="http://archaeology.about.com/od/dterms/g/debitage.htm">lithic debitage</a> the pieces of stone or flint left over from stone tool production. Nicely illustrated, clearly worded field guide, from Paul Brooker.

Roger Grace's terrific pages on lithic technology, raw material sourcing, and a wealth of other related information, is unparalleled on the Internet.

A short list of stone tool types and definitions used by archaeologists

Another wonderful resource tool from ADS, the Stone in Archaeology database is a searchable reference for lithic source. The database includes data on over 200 stones, 300 quarry locations and 500 usage examples of lithics throughout England, and can be searched by texture, color, or any other attribute.

A new paper by Tony Baker on what he believes is the transitional technology between the paleoindian projectile points of Clovis and Folsom.

What do you know about obsidian? Try this quick quiz and find out.

From Tony Baker, a page describring how he has used some hard-core "Finite Element Analysis" to model flake creation for Folsom points.