Investigating Microwear Polishes with Blind Tests: The Institute Results in Context

Microwear (use-wear) analysis is a powerful method for identifying tool use that archaeologists and anthropologists employ to determine the activities undertaken by both humans and their hominin ancestors. Knowledge of tool use allows for more accurate and detailed reconstructions of past behavior, particularly in relation to subsistence practices, economic activities, conflict and ritual. It can also be used to document changes in these activities over time, in different locations, and by different members of society, in terms of gender and status, for example. Both stone and bone tools have been analyzed using a variety of techniques that focus on the observation, documentation and interpretation of wear traces. Traditionally, microwear analysis relied on the qualitative assessment of wear features using microscopes and often included comparisons between replicated tools used experimentally and the recovered artifacts, as well as functional analogies dependent upon modern implements and those used by indigenous peoples from various places around the world. Determination of tool use has also relied on the recovery and analysis of both organic and inorganic residues of past worked materials that survived in and on artifact surfaces. To determine tool use and better understand the mechanics of wear formation, particularly on stone and bone, archaeologists and anthropologists have increasingly turned to surface metrology and tribology to assist them in their research. This paper provides a history of the development of traditional microwear analysis in archaeology and anthropology and also explores the introduction and adoption of more modern methods and technologies for documenting and identifying wear on stone and bone tools, specifically those developed for the engineering sciences to study surface structures on micro- and nanoscales. The current state of microwear analysis is discussed as are the future directions in the study of microwear on stone and bone tools.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2051-672X/4/1/013001/pdf

Surface analysis of stone and bone tools

A review of quantification of lithic use-wear using laser profilometry: a method based on metrology and fractal analysis

Ambiguous Use Traces and Blind Test Results: New Data

Discussion of the high magnification/microwear and low magnification/edge-damage techniques of lithic use-wear analysis has been impeded by the use of a single set of accuracy estimates for the latter. The results of six blind test results, apparently indicated almost equal abilities of individuals using microwear and edge damage techniques to determine stone tool uses. The rapid artifact-processing rate of the edge damage approach allows a more inclusive sampling of the archaeological record and a more direct assessment of inter-assemblage functional variability. To increase the relevance of lithic use-wear data, analysts must provide archaeologists with convincing evidence of their own accuracy.

On Accuracy and Revelance in Lithic Use-wear Analysis

The possible use of plastic replicas in lithic use wear anaysis is explored. It can be shown that within the existing observational techniques involving metallographic light microscopes with magnifications up to 400 x that plastic replicas of flint surfaces replicate the surface at a very detailed level. It is detailed enough to permit analysis of microwear traces and can thus be used as substitutes for original tool surfaces when they for different reasons are not available and when the surface to be inspected is to curved to admit scanning with light microscope. It can also be shown that white, ligth reflecting flint surfaces is easier analyzed using a replica surface.

The application of acetate peels in lithic usewear analysis

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

K. Knutsson

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

The application of acetate peels in lithic usewear analysis