An experimental case of bone-working usewear on quartzite artifacts

作者：Chen, Hong; Wang, Jun; Lian, Huiru; Fang, Mengxia; Hou, Ya-Mei^*; Hu, Yue

来源：Quaternary International, 2017, 434: 129-137.

DOI：10.1016/j.quaint.2015.08.086

• Usewear
• Bone-working
• Quartzite
• Experiment

Usewear analysis has become an essential method for studying function of lithic artifacts. This article discusses experiments and analyses of usewear on quartzite artifacts caused from bone-working. The raw materials were collected from the Wulanmulun Site, Inner Mongolia, north China. Four working motions were involved, including cutting, scraping, drilling, and chopping. Five specimens were selected for a multi-stage experiment. This experiment demonstrates that apparent usewear would occur on the employable location on specimens as follows: 1) mainly large and medium scarring sizes; 2) mainly stepped and feathered terminations, and hinged ones occasionally: 3) continuous and overlapped distributions; 4) heavy rounding on the used edges of specimens. The multi-stage experiment shows that the number of newly produced scars declined with time duration and intensity of usage. The development of rounding shows a non-linear increase from light to heavy. This article intends to establish a reference collection of lithic usewear on Chinese quartzite for archaeological analyses.

• 出版日期2017-4-1
• 单位浙江大学; 中国科学院古脊椎动物与古人类研究所