Lithic Use-Wear Studies

Use-wear analysis of one of the Amudian lithic assemblages from Qesem Cave documented the outstanding state of preservation of the flint items and indicated that butchering was the main activity at the site.

The very good preservation of the Qesem faunal assemblage has also given us the opportunity to link use-wear data to faunal results, enriching the use-wear interpretation of activities related to the processing of prey.

A sample of Quina and demi-Quina scrapers coming from various layers of Qesem Cave have been studied by means of traces analysis. Thick flakes imported from outside and made out of flint of good quality have been mostly retouched by means of demi-Quina detachments. Déjeté scrapers, simple convex scrapers, simple straight scrapers, ventral scrapers for a total amount of 30 tools have been analyzed.

The retouched edges have been used to work medium hard material which, in one case, has been interpreted as skin working, various actions have been recognized. They consist of two cutting, four scraping and one mixed action (longitudinal plus transversal motion). Just in one more case the retouched edge could be cautiously interpreted as a grip area opposed to a natural edge used for scraping.

Use-wear data compared with edges morphologies have add new details on the functional meaning of the Quina technique of retouching