Prehistoric Men

by Robert J. Braidwood

SPECIAL TYPES OF BLADE TOOLS

The most useful tools that appear at this time were made from blades.

1. The “backed” blade. This is a knife made of a flint blade, with one edge purposely blunted, probably to save the user’s fingers from being cut. There are several shapes of backed blades ([p. 73]).

TWO BURINS

2. The burin or “graver.” The burin was the original chisel. Its cutting edge is transverse, like a chisel’s. Some burins are made like a screw-driver, save that burins are sharp. Others have edges more like the blade of a chisel or a push plane, with only one bevel. Burins were probably used to make slots in wood and bone; that is, to make handles or shafts for other tools. They must also be the tools with which much of the engraving on bone (see [p. 83]) was done. There is a bewildering variety of different kinds of burins.

TANGED POINT

3. The “tanged” point. These stone points were used to tip arrows or light spears. They were made from blades, and they had a long tang at the bottom where they were fixed to the shaft. At the place where the tang met the main body of the stone point, there was a marked “shoulder,” the beginnings of a barb. Such points had either one or two shoulders.

NOTCHED BLADE

4. The “notched” or “strangulated” blade. Along with the points for arrows or light spears must go a tool to prepare the arrow or spear shaft. Today, such a tool would be called a “draw-knife” or a “spoke-shave,” and this is what the notched blades probably are. Our spoke-shaves have sharp straight cutting blades and really “shave.” Notched blades of flint probably scraped rather than cut.

5. The “awl,” “drill,” or “borer.” These blade tools are worked out to a spike-like point. They must have been used for making holes in wood, bone, shell, skin, or other things.

DRILL OR AWL

6. The “end-scraper on a blade” is a tool with one or both ends worked so as to give a good scraping edge. It could have been used to hollow out wood or bone, scrape hides, remove bark from trees, and a number of other things ([p. 78]).

There is one very special type of flint tool, which is best known from western Europe in an industry called the Solutrean. These tools were usually made of blades, but the best examples are so carefully worked on both sides (bifacially) that it is impossible to see the original blade. This tool is

7. The “laurel leaf” point. Some of these tools were long and dagger-like, and must have been used as knives or daggers. Others were small, called “willow leaf,” and must have been mounted on spear or arrow shafts. Another typical Solutrean tool is the “shouldered” point. Both the “laurel leaf” and “shouldered” point types are illustrated (see [above] and [p. 79]).

END-SCRAPER ON A BLADE

LAUREL LEAF POINT

The industries characterized by tools in the blade tradition also yield some flake and core tools. We will end this list with two types of tools that appear at this time. The first is made of a flake; the second is a core tool.

SHOULDERED POINT

8. The “keel-shaped round scraper” is usually small and quite round, and has had chips removed up to a peak in the center. It is called “keel-shaped” because it is supposed to look (when upside down) like a section through a boat. Actually, it looks more like a tent or an umbrella. Its outer edges are sharp all the way around, and it was probably a general purpose scraping tool (see illustration, [p. 81]).

9. The “keel-shaped nosed scraper” is a much larger and heavier tool than the round scraper. It was made on a core with a flat bottom, and has one nicely worked end or “nose.” Such tools are usually large enough to be easily grasped, and probably were used like push planes (see illustration, [p. 81]).

KEEL-SHAPED ROUND SCRAPER

KEEL-SHAPED NOSED SCRAPER

The stone tools (usually made of flint) we have just listed are among the most easily recognized blade tools, although they show differences in detail at different times. There are also many other kinds. Not all of these tools appear in any one industry at one time. Thus the different industries shown in the chart ([p. 72]) each have only some of the blade tools we’ve just listed, and also a few flake tools. Some industries even have a few core tools. The particular types of blade tools appearing in one cave layer or another, and the frequency of appearance of the different types, tell which industry we have in each layer.