Working Processes on Cereals: An Approach Through Microwear Analysis

Abstract

The exploitation of cereal crops implies several working processes (e.g. preparation of land, harvesting, selection of grain, subsequent use or disposal of the straw, storage and food manufacture) that require the development of different specific working tools, such as hoes, sickles and mortars. Lithic tools which have been used to cut plants are usually identifiable because of their characteristic microwear traces. In the course of several research projects concerning microwear analyses of lithic assemblages from Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age sites, many tools were discovered which have been used as sickles. In addition, many tools were observed which showed microwear traces differing from those on sickles and the microwear pattern of threshing sledges. This paper presents the results of research which aimed to reproduce these microwear traces and to interpret them on archaeological flint tools. We present different hypotheses put forth by other researchers in order to explain wear traces similar to those described here and propose that these tools were used to cut straw directly on the soil, either to separate grain from the straw and/or to deliberately cut the straw itself.