The effect of raw material properties on flake and flake-tool dimensions: A comparison between quartz and chert

Abstract

Experimental studies suggest that the high fragmentation tendency of vein quartz can be controlled to some degree by favorable technological choices, i.e., by producing thicker artifacts and by using bipolar-on-anvil reduction. In this paper, I explore the question of whether strategies that reduce quartz fragmentation were used in prehistory and present data that suggest that this was often the case. It has been suggested that due to its fragmentation proneness vein quartz should have been avoided by highly mobile groups when raw materials of better flakeability and controllability were available because of higher transportation costs and greater risk of raw material failure when using quartz. The data presented here shows that quartz nevertheless was not always avoided by highly mobile groups but that the inclusion of quartz into the raw material base necessitated the acceptance of thicker tools when using relatively large flake blanks, or the use of technological strategies that compensated for the risk of failure when relatively thin quartz flakes were in use.