Tools ? Or Debitage ?

[uniface]

Or even "freeze-fractured" stone ?

The Levallois era includes both Neanderthals and the early Humans. It lasted for thousands of years and is identifiable by its tools, which are the result of a consistent, thought-out lithic technology. It was a simpler one than we are used to seeing here, but it gave them everything they needed and, unlike later approaches, it wasted nearly nothing.

There are three sites I know of in this country that yield closed-component Levallois assemblages. (Closed component : one single cultural horizon, with nothing earlier or later present in them). One is in Alabama, one in Tennessee, and a third, as I recall, in Illinois. These artifacts cannot be honestly "explained-away" as random accidents or debitage (the kind of "chips and chunks" knappers' waste that litters later sites) -- there are too many of them, they're too consistent, and they can't be the by-products of making something else that wasn't being made there.

The problem the professional archaeology establishment is up against with these is that, if they are acknowledged as being what they are, the whole conceptual framework of early habitation in North America goes to the scrap heap and everybody starts over again from scratch. Not only do they have to explain how this tool-making system-procedure got here, and lasted long enough to have spread over such a wide area to be present in such great numbers but, since it disappeared in Europe long before even the "pre-Clovis" era that's beginning to be acknowledged out of sheer necessity, it pushes the demonstrable habitation of North America back to the point where people get dizzy just thinking about it. (The last remnant of the Neanderthals who used it disappeared around 35,000 years ago).

(Should this be of interest, there's a long discussion of it that manages to occasionally get back on topic at
Archaeologica.org • View topic - levallois in the United States
that includes an e-mail contact for anyone wishing to see what's being discussed).

With this as background, it's occurred to me that some (at least) of the differences I've had with others here (and elsewhere) over what a "tool" is (and isn't) is a matter of minimal familiarity with what the tools that preceded Clovis look like. Without this, no amount of familiarity with later cultures suffices for recognition of what sometimes are, and other times may well be, survivals of earlier practices that came down through time because they were simple and effective -- because they got the job done with a minimum of fuss.

So, if you care to, check out the little sampling of some at
http://www.unscrewingtheinscrutable.com/node/71
Trou Al'Wesse Archeology
http://www.anthrotools.org/tools/
It might change the way you look at some (not all) "not tools."

[Shannon Graham]

Originally Posted by uniface

Or even "freeze-fractured" stone ?
...recognition of what sometimes are, and other times may well be, survivals of earlier practices that came down through time because they were simple and effective -- because they got the job done with a minimum of fuss.

Agreed and thanks for the links.

Shannon

[uniface]

Aurignacian tools (+/- 30KYA) look an awful lot like Clovis tools, no ?

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...04006-f2.2.jpg

[uniface]

And really, when you stop and ponder it, that they did make recognisably different tool forms when they could have gotten by without going to the trouble, says something in itself.

Some of these are real puzzlers. Like some little rectangular side-/endscrapers I was just puzzling over from Tennessee. Less than an inch long, about 2/3rds of an inch wide, and always from the same material. Their points (whichever ones they made) might well not identify them, but their scrapers certainly do.

[comanche]

Uniface,,,Thanxs for the links and the enlightenment.I hope you can see the heavy knapping on the pictures.
I see paleo written all over this scraper.
This artifact was found in a midden known to be (Tonkawas).Who have two schools of thought on them.One that they were direct descendants of paleo tribes known to be further to the south.And the other believe that they are not that old.
So I constantly find my self trying to tie them to an older culture.
Any ways just thought you might be interested.
Comanche

[uniface]

That's something that's always puzzled (and bugged) me. That there seem to have been people around Mo-Ark-Texas and further west who seem to have just settled into one tool groove early on and stayed with it. And the one you show's a poster child of that. But who's ever put the puzzle together and determined who they were (and when and where) ?

[comanche]

After considering this thread for a few days.I thought this little scraper seems to pop up in other sites that I've had the good fortune to witness.Even other tribes.So then I 'm wondering just how many more regions it might have been used in?
But to hold this piece you can really feel how effective this would have been.I think any one that has ever had the chore of skinning an animal esp. a deer can see what I mean.
I call this a "Piece" because of tight,fine edge work on both sides.The use ware to the handle,and the fact that I have seen this type in other ares.

[uniface]

Nice tool !

Suggestion -- try flipping it over and putting your index finger in the semicircular removal, with your thumb opposite it. The edge wear would seem to indicate use that way, and it would be easier to manage.

[comanche]

Thanks for the term "tool".
Because that is so right,,,,, it fits good that way too! ,,but wait I have a hand axe that i cant wait to show ,,,,it looks like a Kerville hand chopper ,,,just a BIT older.Which tells me of the older cuture that must HAVE known/AND maybe past it along

[comanche]

Originally Posted by comanche

Thanks for the term "tool".
,but wait I have a hand axe that i cant wait to show ,,,,it looks like a Kerville hand chopper ,,,just a BIT older.Which tells me of the older cuture that must HAVE known/AND maybe past it along

This hand axe I found in the same location as the scrapper and skinner.It appears to me to resemble the Kerrville-hand chopper,only the base end is not big and bulbouse/with large ammounts of cortex in-tact like the KERRVILLE chopper.
I am not that far from KERRVILLE so it is my guess is that this technology might have been shared.I got my heart set on finding a corner-tang,andice,or marshall.