Analyzing skill in lithic dispersions using width, thickness and width-by-thickness ratio

Abstract

ABSTRACT Lithic dispersions are spreads of various shapes (e.g. tools, preforms, cores, flakes, blades) that have been discarded by stone knappers at similar or various steps of their development. They extend beyond archaeologists’ chronological and spatial boundaries. They hold information on past techniques and practices. To explore that information, archaeologists need to work through the various processes that shaped lithic dispersions. I argue that skill is a process that can help reframe stone knapping to better take into account the dispersion that stone knappers generate. I show how width, thickness and width-by-thickness (W/T) ratios can be used to understand how knappers enacted various levels of skill while working their various bifacial preforms at the dense plowed site of La Martre (Quebec, Canada). This points at ways that archaeologists can work outside of culture-historical, cognitive or mechanistic frameworks to explore past social practices where spatial and chronological control is lacking.