Contrary to the prevailing belief that microblade production was a complicated process that involved indirect percussion or assisted pressure and holding devices, a simple free-hand pressure...
Description
Contrary to the prevailing belief that microblade production was a complicated process that involved indirect percussion or assisted pressure and holding devices, a simple free-hand pressure technique can easily replicate examples comparable to those recovered from pre-contact sites. This paper argues that such a technique prevailed in the past, and that many of the variations in formal and metric attributes of archaeological microblade cores and microblades are the result of a wide range of environmental, behavioural, and functional variables rather than of completely different methods of manufacture.