THE LEVALLOISIAN AND MOUSTERIAN
The easiest Levalloisian tool to spot is a big flake tool. The trick in making it was to fashion carefully a big chunk of stone (called the Levalloisian “tortoise core,” because it resembles the shape of a turtle-shell) and then to whack this in such a way that a large flake flew off. This large thin flake, with sharp cutting edges, is the finished Levalloisian tool. There were various other tools in a Levalloisian industry, but this is the characteristic Levalloisian tool.
There are several “typical Mousterian” stone tools. Different from the tools of the Levalloisian type, these were made from “disc-like cores.” There are medium-sized flake “side scrapers.” There are also some small pointed tools and some small “hand axes.” The last of these tool types is often a flake worked on both of the flat sides (that is, bifacially). There are also pieces of flint worked into the form of crude balls. The pointed tools may have been fixed on shafts to make short jabbing spears; the round flint balls may have been used as bolas. Actually, we don’t know what either tool was used for. The points and side scrapers are illustrated (pp. [64] and [66]).
LEVALLOIS FLAKE