Differentiation between different soft hammers stigmats, quantitative and traceological approach
Jean-Thomas Vie, Zixuan Shen
Abstract
Many studies in archaeology focus on the traces associated with stone knapping during prehistory, debating their correlation with the techniques used (Clément, 2021; Pelegrin, 2000). However, it is important to note that these traces are intimately linked to the physical qualities of the rock, as well as its response to the gesture, force, and experience of the knapper. These criteria can lead to a diversity of marks but can also introduce biases into the analysis, especially as the sensitivity of some rocks varies when struck. Thus, the complexity of interpreting knapping traces intensifies when adopting a qualitative approach, highlighting the multitude of factors to consider for precise analysis.
Furthermore, the historical approach to the analysis of soft percussion use has primarily focused on specific regions such as Europe (Roussel et al., 2009), North Africa (Sari, 2016), the Middle East (Pelegrin and Inizan, 2013), and the United States. These analyses have largely relied on locally available materials, such as limestone, deer antler, or boxwood. Consequently, they offer a limited perspective and may not necessarily generalize results to other geographical or ecological contexts. Additionally, while the use of different soft percussors and their identity have been established in areas where deer are found, many questions remain regarding the identity of the soft percussor in historically deer-free ecological zones. Acquiring soft percussors from animal wood is not possible, but the use of other materials such as hard vegetal wood may have played a similar role.
Through experimental flake production and the traceological study of marks on the platforms of these productions resulting from soft percussion, it would be possible to determine specific traces associated with vegetal soft percussion.
Therefore, we try to compare knapping by different percussors (three soft hammers and one hard hammer) on different raw materials, and observe their dimensional data and technical characteristics.
Before start
Be sure to conduct this experimentation in a controlled environment to avoid any contamination of archaeological sites.
Attachments
Steps
Camera setting
Place the camera in front of the experimentator
run the carmera and the experimentator explain what do he want to produce
Selection of a specific raw material
Select Raw material : Sandstone quartzite, Quartzite, Flint, Quartz
Each experimenter would conduct experiments on the two raw materials using five hammers, aiming to obtain at least five elongated flakes as samples for each combination of raw material and hammer.
We stored each flake in separate bags with a paper explaining the position in the sequence (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), the type of hammer, and the raw material.
Preparation of the elongated flake core：
Preparation of a bifacial preform while opening somes striking platforms (optional)
Choosing the suitable hammer：1 Boxwood percussor、2 Deer antler percussor、3 Soft rock percussor such as sandstone or limestone、 4 bone hammer
Knapping with different hammers in order to produce flakes
Use hammer from low to high hardness to produce flakes :
Soft rock percussor, volcanic rock percussor.
We plan to knap in the order of Sandstone quartzite, Quartzite, Flint, Quartz. For each raw material, we use the hammer in order to get 10 flakes (i.e., for each raw material, we will get 40 flakes totally）
please use only tangential gesture
first produce 10 flakes with Boxwood percussor
Store each flake with a paper explaining the type of hammer the raw material the gesture of production position in the dicritical schema with a number or on the excel document
10 flakes with bone percussor
Store each flake with a paper explaining the type of hammer the raw material the gesture of production position in the dicritical schema with a number or on the excel document
10 flakes with Deer antler percussor
Store each flake with a paper explaining the type of hammer the raw material the gesture of production position in the dicritical schema with a number or on the excel document
10 flakes with soft rock percussor
Store each flake with a paper explaining the type of hammer the raw material the gesture of production position in the dicritical schema with a number or on the excel document
you can also store the core used to produce the flakes
Data record Macroanalysis
Macro Mesurments
Collecting information from the artifacts. Technical information included the length of flakes, the technical size, the size and surface of the butt, the morphology of the butt and bulb, the existence of ripples, bulb scars, impact points, lips, the angle de chasse, and the flaking angle.
Wave small bags, pens, papRer, cell phones, vernier calipers, rulers, gloves and goggles. Gloves and goggles are used as protaective tools, and we use small bags to store flakes and use a pen and paper to record numbers and other information. The vernier caliper is used to measure the size information of cores and flakes. When taking photos, we use the ruler as a scale. Since we don't have a protractor, we use the app on the phone to meeth a caliper in plastic if it is possible to avoid making new traces on the flakes.
Existence of lips
Existence of ripples
Existence of bulb scar
Existence of point of impact
angle de
chasse (dorsal talus angle)
flaking angle (ventral talus angle)
Technological size（length width, thickness，size of the piece)
morphological lenght of the piece
width of the flake
thickness of the flake
width of the butt
thickness of the butt
morphology of the bulb
Existence of hackles
Data record Microanaysis
Additionally, we collected micro-trace information , including the existence of residue and a photographic representation of the trace.
For recording the datas and take the pictures at a microscale, use Dynolite. Thanks to those pocket microscope you can observe the presence or absence of the followings caracteristics and take a picture of it. you can also use RTI to improve the recording of the data.
Using statistical software to analyze the aforementioned data, and we made comparisons between the experimental results.
Micro trace (micro ware on talus)
smached residue
craks
hertzian cone 40x 50x zoom
angle of the cone
size of the cone
smached crack
scar small removal retouchings
stration
Data analysis
Morphometric analysis
Use first morphological lenght of the piece and surface of butts.
Do a Shapiro wilk to verify the normality of the data
If its Normally distribued you can do an anova or Manova to see the relashionship between the surface of the talus regardig the material of the Hammer if its not normally distribued you can don a non parametric test as Kruskal-Wallis.
To visualise the data a scatter plot with regression line can be interesting.
For the macro analysis we chose to compare
Angle de Chasse
Flaking angle
Existence of each stigmats recorded
Angle de chasse and flaking Angle can be analysed like in the previous test
For the micro analysis we chos tcompare :
Existence of smached residue, striations and hertzian cone (Byous 2013)
For the qualitatives data you can use a Chi squared test to verify the existence or no of a stronger correlation between a hammer and the presence of a stigmat.
