Anthropology 2233F/G Lecture Notes - Lake Simcoe, Muskox, Arctic Fox

• School: Western University
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: Anthropology 2233F/G
• Professor: Peter Timmins

Document Summary

Stone tools are often the only artifacts that are found on great lakes paleo-indian and archaic sites and lithic specialists conduct experiments to understand how stone tools were made through the process of flintknapping. There is a basic distinction between chipped stone tools and ground stone tools. This is the main category of tools that are often found and they were more for heavy working of objects. They are made by chipping or flaking very fine grained stone like chert, flint, or obsidian. Fracture properties of chert, flint, and other silicious rocks: A conchoidal fracture is when lines of force radiate out from the point of impact in a conical fashion causing the material to fracture in predictable way. Percussion flaking is done with a percussor (hammer) with a hammerstone used for hard hammer percussion. Hardhammer percussion was used in the early stages of forming an object because it was just for preliminary shaping.