Rethinking the Desirability of Quartz for the Manufacture of Standardized Retouched Flakes: An Example From Weereewaa (Lake George), South-eastern Australia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Quartz is regularly held to be of lower quality than fine-grained siliceous (FGS) material and often correlated with lower levels of retouch. This paper examines the “desirability” of quartz as a raw material for the production of backed artefacts in a landscape which also contains fine-grained siliceous material. Quartz, chert and silcrete backed artefact manufacturing strategies and morphologies are compared to examine whether technological choices differ by raw material. Quartz and chert are found to display high degrees of similarity in terms of core reduction technology, flake selection and backed artefact morphology. This alignment challenges perceptions regarding the desirability of quartz for the manufacture of small, standardized retouched flakes.