The long blades and their uses: Examples of long laminar flakes from Anatolia

Abstract

This paper displays the case of very long obsidian laminar flakes uncovered at Tepecik Çiftlik. The site is located in Cappadocia, Turkey and dated to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods (7th and beginning of 6th millennium). Most of these artefacts measure about 15 to 20 cm long. Their manufacture implied a specific chaîne opératoire that required skills far above those needed for smaller artefacts. The use-wear analysis shows that most of them were employed to perform tasks similar to those performed with smaller tools. However, their dimensions were most probably a constraint limiting their efficiency. They were too big to be handled easily. Ethnoarchaeological and archaeological comparisons put in perspective this gigantism and enable us to suggest that it was related to social and symbolic aspects. A tool should never be reduced to a device made for practical uses, it is always embedded in a cultural and social context. Large tools, such as the long laminar flakes from Cappadocia are overinvested tools and might have had a special value in the community.