Microlith

• 
  Châtelperrón points
• 
  Micro-gravette
• 
  Azilian point
• 
  Ahrensburguien point
• 
  Emireh point
• 
  El-Wad

  point
• 
  El-Khiam

  point
• 
  Adelaide point
• 
  Helwan points (Abu Salem points sub-type)

The Adelaide point is found in Australia. Its construction, based on truncations on a blade, has a nearly trapezoidal form. The Adelaide point emphasizes the range of variation in both time and culture of the laminar microliths; it also shows their technological differences, but sometimes morphological similarities, with geometric microliths. Laminar microliths can also sometimes be described as trapezoidal, triangular or lunate.^[8] However, they are distinct from the geometric microliths because of the strokes used in the manufacture of geometric microliths, which mainly involved the microburin technique.

Geometric microliths

Geometric microliths are a clearly defined type of stone tool, at least in their basic forms. They can be divided into trapezoid, triangular and lunate (half-moon) forms, although there are many subdivisions of each of these types. A microburin is included among the illustrations below because, although it is not a geometrical microlith (or even a tool),^[9] it is now seen as a characteristic waste product from the manufacture of these geometric microliths:

• 
  Microburin
• 
  Trapeze
• 
  Triangle
• 
  Lunate

Geometric microliths, though rare, are present as trapezoids in Northwest Africa in the

The most widely accepted hypothesis is that geometric microliths were used on projectiles such as this harpoon.

Trapezoid microliths and arrow with a trapeze used to strengthen the tip, found in a peat bog at Tværmose (Denmark)

All the currently known geometric microliths share the same fundamental characteristics – only their shapes vary. They were all made from blades or from microblades (nearly always of flint), using the

Archeological findings and the analysis of wear marks, or use-wear analysis, has shown that, predictably, the tips of spears, harpoons and other light projectiles of varying size received the most wear. Microliths were also used from the Neolithic on arrows, although a decline in this use coincided with the appearance of bifacial or "leafed" arrowheads that became widespread in the Chalcolithic period, or Copper Age (that is, stone arrowheads were increasingly made by a different technique during this later period).

Weapons and tools

Not all the different types of laminar microliths had functions that are clearly understood. It is likely that they contributed to the points of spears or light projectiles, and their small size suggests that they were fixed in some way to a shaft or handle.^[11][12]

Backed edge bladelets are particularly abundant at a site in France that preserves habitation from the late Magdalenian – the Pincevent. In the remains of some of the hearths at this location, bladelets are found in groups of three, perhaps indicating that they were mounted in threes on their handles. A javelin tip made of horn has been found at this site with grooves made for flint bladelets that could have been secured using a resinous substance. Signs of much wear and tear have been found on some of these finds.^[13]

Specialists have carried out lithic or microwear analysis on artefacts, but it has sometimes proved difficult to distinguish those fractures made during the process of fashioning the flint implement from those made during its use. Microliths found at Hengistbury Head in Dorset, England, show features that can be confused with chisel marks, but which might also have been produced when the tip hit a hard object and splintered.^[14] Microliths from other locations have presented the same problems of interpretation.^[15]

An exceptional piece of evidence for the use of microliths has been found in the excavations of the cave at Lascaux in the French Dordogne. Twenty backed edge bladelets were found with the remains of a resinous substance and the imprint of a circular handle (a horn). It appears that the bladelets might have been fixed in groups like the teeth of a harpoon or similar weapon.

In all these locations, the microliths found have been backed edge blades, tips and crude flakes. Despite the great number of geometric microliths that have been found in Western Europe, few examples show any clear evidence of their use, and all the examples are from the Mesolithic or Neolithic periods. Despite this, there is unanimity amongst researchers that these items were used to increase the penetrating potential of light projectiles such as harpoons, assegais, javelins and arrows.

Discoveries

Australia

The most common form of microliths found in Australia are backed artefacts. The earliest backed artefacts have been dated to the terminal Pleistocene, however they become increasingly common in Aboriginal Australian societies in the mid-Holocene, before declining in use and disappearing from the archaeological record approximately 1000 years before the British invasion of the continent in 1788.^[16][17] The cause of this proliferation event is debated amongst archaeologists.^[18][19][20]

Geographically they are found across almost all of continental Australia, except for the far north, but are particularly common in south-east Australia. Historically, backed artefacts were divided into asymmetrical Bondi points and symmetrical geometric microliths, however there appears to be no geographic or temporal pattern in the distribution of these shapes.^[21][22] Backed artefact manufacturing workshops have been identified at Ngungara show significant variation in shape, which has been linked to the need to replace components of composite tools.^[23]

Several studies in the production of backed artefacts have linked identified heat treatment as a key component as well as the use of large flank blanks.^[24][25]

Functional studies of backed artefacts from south-eastern Australia show that they were multipurpose and multifunctional tools with a similar range of uses as unretouched flakes found at the same sites.^[26][27] There is one unambiguous example of them being used as part of composite weapon, either a spear or a club, as 17 backed artefact were found embedded into the skeleton of an adult male dated to approximately 4000 years BP in the Sydney suburb of Narrabeen.^[28]

France

In France, one unusual site stands out: the Mesolithic cemetery of Téviec, an island in Brittany. Numerous flint microliths were discovered here. They are believed to date to between 6740 and 5680 years BP - quite a long occupation. The end of the settlement came at the beginning of the Neolithic period.^[29]

One of the skeletons that has been found has a geometric microlith lodged in one of its vertebra. All indications suggest that the person died because of this projectile; whether by intention or by accident is unknown. It is widely agreed that geometric microliths were mainly used in hunting and fishing, but they may also have been used as weapons.^[30]

Scandinavia

Well-preserved examples of arrows with microliths in Scandinavia have been found at Loshult, at

According to radiocarbon measurements, the Loshult arrows are dated to around 8000 BC, which represents a middle part of the

There are many examples of possible tools from Mesolithic deposits in England. Possibly the best known is a microlith from Star Carr in Yorkshire that retains residues of resin, probably used to fix it to the tip of a projectile. Recent excavations have found other examples. Archeologists at the Risby Warren V site in Lincolnshire have uncovered a row of eight triangular microliths that are equidistantly aligned along a dark stain indicating organic remains (possibly the wood from an arrow shaft). Another clear indication is from the Readycon Dene site in West Yorkshire, where 35 microliths appear to be associated with a single projectile. In Urra Moor, North Yorkshire, 25 microliths give the appearance of being related to one another, due to the extreme regularity and symmetry of their arrangement in the ground.^[32]

The study of English and European artifacts in general has revealed that projectiles were made with a widely variable number of microliths: in Tværmose there was only one, in Loshult there were two (one for the tip and the other as a fin),^[33] in White Hassocks, in West Yorkshire, more than 40 have been found together; the average is between 6 and 18 pieces for each projectile.^[32]

India

Early research regard the microlithic industry in India as a Holocene phenomenon, however a new research provides solid data to put the South Asia microliths industry up to 35 ka across whole South Asia subcontinent. This new research also synthesizes the data from genetic, paleoenvironmental and archaeological research, and proposes that the emergence of microlith in India subcontinent could reflect the increase of population and adaptation of environmental deterioration.^[34][35]

Sri Lanka

In 1968 human burials sites were uncovered inside the Fa Hien Cave in Sri Lanka. A further excavation in 1988 yielded microlith stone tools, remnants of prehistoric fireplaces and organic material, such as floral and human remains. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the cave had been occupied from about 33,000 years ago, the Late Pleistocene and Mesolithic to 4,750 years ago, the Neolithic in the Middle Holocene. Human remains of the several sediment deposits were analyzed at Cornell University and studied by Kenneth A. R. Kennedy and graduate student Joanne L. Zahorsky. Sri Lanka has yielded the earliest known microliths, which did not n't appear in Europe until the Early Holocene.^[36][37]

Dating

Laminar microliths are common artifacts from the Upper Paleolithic and the Epipaleolithic, to such a degree that numerous studies have used them as markers to date different phases of prehistoric cultures.

During the Epipaleolithic and the Mesolithic, the presence of laminar or geometric microliths serves to date the deposits of different cultural traditions. For instance, in the Atlas Mountains of northwest Africa, the end of the Upper Paleolithic period coincides with the end of the

A similar thing is found in England, where the preponderance of elongated microliths, as opposed to other frequently occurring forms, has permitted the Mesolithic to be separated into two phases: the Earlier Mesolithic of about 8300–6700 BCE, or the ancient and laminar Mesolithic, and the Later Mesolithic, or the recent and geometric Mesolithic. Deposits can be thus dated based upon the assemblage of artifacts found.[39]

References