The Quantification of Microwear on Chipped Stone Tools: Assessing the Effectiveness of Root Mean Square Roughness (Rq)

Abstract

Although considerable progress has been made by archaeologists and materials scientists toward the development of a method to quantitatively document use-wear on stone tool surfaces, experimentation and refinement of methods continue. The experimental program tests root mean square roughness (rms or Rq) of measured profiles for their ability to quantitatively discriminate the surface textures, or roughness, of experimental stone tools used on five contact materials (shell, wood, dry hide, dry antler, and soaked antler). It employs a method for evaluating texture characterization parameters based on their ability to discriminate wear, and to determine a level of confidence for the discrimination, using the F-test. The results of this experiment demonstrate that Rq is not consistently reliable in discriminating measured profiles based on the wear caused by different contact materials on the stone tools.