Early Use of Pressure Flaking on Lithic Artifacts at Blombos Cave, South Africa

Vincent Mourre (1, 2) , Paola Villa (3) , Christopher Henshilwood (4)

1 TRACES - Travaux et recherches archéologiques sur les cultures, les espaces et les sociétés
2 Inrap, Nîmes - Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives, centre archéologique de Nîmes
3 University of Colorado Museum
4 UiB - University of Bergen

Pressure flaking has been considered to be an Upper Paleolithic innovation dating to ~20,000 years ago (20 ka). Replication experiments show that pressure flaking best explains the morphology of lithic artifacts recovered from the ~75-ka Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa. The technique was used during the final shaping of Still Bay bifacial points made on heat‐treated silcrete. Application of this innovative technique allowed for a high degree of control during the detachment of individual flakes, resulting in thinner, narrower, and sharper tips on bifacial points. This technology may have been first invented and used sporadically in Africa before its later widespread adoption.

Domains: Archaeology and Prehistory

Vincent Mourre, Paola Villa, Christopher Henshilwood. Early Use of Pressure Flaking on Lithic Artifacts at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Science, 2010, 330 (6004), pp.659-662. ⟨10.1126/science.1195550⟩. ⟨hal-02023234⟩