Abstract
Blades in the Initial Upper Paleolithic assemblages from Shuidonggou, Locality 1 (SDG1) are frequently fragmented. Complete blades are rare and proximal, medial and distal blade segments are abundant in the collections from various excavation campaigns at the site. Using a large sample of artifacts from 1963 excavations at the SDG 1 site, this paper evaluates the hypothesis that blades were intentionally broken into regular sections, perhaps to facilitate their insertion into armatures of composite tools. The scarcity of traces of percussion and hafting-related modification, and the non-standardized lengths of segments do not suggest intentional human intervention in sectioning the blades. Instead, the strong correlation between segment length and a measure of blade strength suggests that most if not all blade sections resulted from accidental breakage.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Journal | Archaeological Research in Asia |
| DOIs | |
| State | Accepted/In press - Jan 1 2018 |
Fingerprint
Keywords
- Blade technology
- Composite tools
- Hafting
- Initial Upper Paleolithic
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Archaeology
- Archaeology
Cite this
Abundant blade segments at Shuidonggou, Locality 1 : Intentional or accidental? / Kuhn, Steven L; Li, Feng.
In: Archaeological Research in Asia, 01.01.2018.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Abundant blade segments at Shuidonggou, Locality 1
T2 - Intentional or accidental?
AU - Kuhn, Steven L
AU - Li, Feng
PY - 2018/1/1
Y1 - 2018/1/1
N2 - Blades in the Initial Upper Paleolithic assemblages from Shuidonggou, Locality 1 (SDG1) are frequently fragmented. Complete blades are rare and proximal, medial and distal blade segments are abundant in the collections from various excavation campaigns at the site. Using a large sample of artifacts from 1963 excavations at the SDG 1 site, this paper evaluates the hypothesis that blades were intentionally broken into regular sections, perhaps to facilitate their insertion into armatures of composite tools. The scarcity of traces of percussion and hafting-related modification, and the non-standardized lengths of segments do not suggest intentional human intervention in sectioning the blades. Instead, the strong correlation between segment length and a measure of blade strength suggests that most if not all blade sections resulted from accidental breakage.
AB - Blades in the Initial Upper Paleolithic assemblages from Shuidonggou, Locality 1 (SDG1) are frequently fragmented. Complete blades are rare and proximal, medial and distal blade segments are abundant in the collections from various excavation campaigns at the site. Using a large sample of artifacts from 1963 excavations at the SDG 1 site, this paper evaluates the hypothesis that blades were intentionally broken into regular sections, perhaps to facilitate their insertion into armatures of composite tools. The scarcity of traces of percussion and hafting-related modification, and the non-standardized lengths of segments do not suggest intentional human intervention in sectioning the blades. Instead, the strong correlation between segment length and a measure of blade strength suggests that most if not all blade sections resulted from accidental breakage.
KW - Blade technology
KW - Composite tools
KW - Hafting
KW - Initial Upper Paleolithic
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85042595316&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85042595316&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ara.2018.02.003
DO - 10.1016/j.ara.2018.02.003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85042595316
JO - Archaeological Research in Asia
JF - Archaeological Research in Asia
SN - 2352-2267
ER -