#stone tools

YAYAYAYAYAYYYYYYY

Ok so a microlith is theoretically a very small stone tool made from the broken pieces or chipped discard parts of other stone tools, but there's a lot of controversy on whether they were actually used as tools or if they are just in fact discard, with some notable exceptions! When I was in college I had the opportunity to take a stone tools history course as part of my upper division electives for my anthropology degree, and it very rapidly became a 'making stone tools by ourselves, fuck the textbook you learn better by doing' situation!

Your basic stone tools are going to involve a couple different stages. A round, heavy hammerstone used to fracture your core (usually chert, flint, volcanic glass), and some tools were made by pressure flaking using a bone tool made of antler to create smaller, lighter edges and sharpen a tool that may have worn down. These pressure flakes are a type of microlith we see often- they're very thin, sharp, and they were most likely used to make projectiles like darts, arrow tips, and narrow tools like awls for drilling holes, or perhaps rudimentary razor blades for stuff large scraping tools would be too clumsy for.

https://stonetoolsmuseum.com/tool-type/microliths/ <- this website is a good entry level way to see the many different types, because microliths have been found from multiple regions and periods of the paleolithic! The kinds I learned how to make were bladed microliths, similar to the kind found in the Kebaran culture. We also learned Azilian and Micro-Gravette style, along with a variety of full sized stone tools in the Magdalenian, Gravettian, and Acheulian period-typical styles. I've also linked the wikipedia because it honestly explains it way better than I could and the carpal tunnel is making it hard to do image descriptions. It's so fun though- if you live in an area that participates in living history events, see if you can find one that has a flintknapper! There are a bunch in the appalachian region of the US, and I believe a couple of them have youtube channels now doing education on stone tools and how-to videos!