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Bifacial Cores and Flake Production Efficiency: An Experimental Test of Technological Assumptions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Mary M. Prasciunas
Mary M. Prasciunas*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071 (mmp@uwyo.edu)
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Abstract

Many researchers assume that the greater flake tool production efficiency of bifacial versus amorphous cores helps explain the prevalence of bifacial core technology among mobile populations. This paper describes experiments that test whether bifacial cores are more efficient carriers of flake cutting edge than amorphous cores. The first experiment established a size threshold of flake cutting efficiency. The second experiment reduced ten bifacial and ten amorphous cores to exhaustion and calculated the amount of usable and total flake edge produced by each core type, excluding flakes beneath the size threshold. Results indicate that bifacial cores are not significantly more efficient producers of usable or total flake edge than amorphous cores. Bifaces do produce flakes with significantly higher edge-to-weight ratios than do amorphous cores, but more of the weight of bifacial cores is lost to waste during the flake production process. Flake production efficiency therefore does not explain the use of bifacial cores among mobile populations.

Résumé

Résumé

Muchos investigadores consideran que una de las razones por la cual prevalece la tecnología lítica con base en núcleos de silex bifaciales entre grupos móviles se debe a que la producción de herramientas a partir de estos es mas eficiente que las que se obtienen a partir de núcleos amorfos. Este trabajo compara los resultados de dos experimentos para determinar si los núcleos bifaciales son mas eficientes como portadores de bordes cortantes que los núcleos amorfos. El primer experimento estableció un umbral de tamaño con base en la eficiencia para cortar lascas. En el segundo experimento se redujeron diez núcleos bifaciales y diez núcleos amorfos hasta el agotamiento y se calculó la cantidad de bordes de lasca útiles y el total perimetral en bordes de lasca a partir de cada tipo de núcleo excluyendo lascas cuyo tamaño era inferior al del umbral establecido. Los resultados indican que los núcleos bifaciales no son significativamente mas eficientes enproducir lascas útiles o bordes totales de lasca que los amorfos. Las lascas a partir de nucleos bifaciales si presentarón una mayor proporción de bordes relativas alpeso de la lasca que las obtenidas a partir de núcleos amorfos, pero es mayor el desperdicio en términos del peso en núcleos bifaciales durante el proceso de producción de lascas. Por lo tanto la eficiencia en la producción de lascas en si no explica por que los grupos móviles favorecieron el uso de núcleos bifaciales.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 72 , Issue 2 , April 2007 , pp. 334 - 348
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2007

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