Opinions please!

[Brian Higgins]

Its a geofact

[uniface]

With regard to Shaun B's artifact :

Type Levallois Point into google & click on "images."

[comanche]

Further, the curvilinier aspect seems to be comprised of three separate action events. It takes three edge flakes to make one serration segment. On the opposite side there is second, smaller, curvilinier aspect. These are often created when the side is used as a scraper. Both curvilinier aspects are loaded toward the front of the piece where human activity would place them. The piece suddenly gets fatter toward the base, right where it would likely have been gripped by the fingers and protected from the use which could have narrowed the pointed end of it.
So "UNI" do you agree or disagree with the Posters idea.
I understand the segments of the Levallois technique,,,but do you think that the subsequent flaking can be justified through "Use Analysis"////c

[uniface]

So "UNI" do you agree or disagree with the Posters idea. I understand the segments of the Levallois technique,,,but do you think that the subsequent flaking can be justified through "Use Analysis"?

If the question is whether use-wear is deteterminable using microscopes (both optical and electron), it's pretty much common knowledge (or should be) that it is. Marilyn Shoberg at TARL does this especially well.

To the extent that the bigger question behind this is what does uniface think, in the first place, who cares, really ?

In the second place, IMHO, there's way too much of a tendency to fall into line behind somebody else where artifacts are concerned, and there always has been. Relying on someone else's opinion might be a helpful crutch in the short term, but substituting belief or disbelief in somebody else's opinion for knowledge and leaving it at that doesn't get anybody closer to the familiarity that comes from studying, reading and thinking that ought to be the goal. Asking knowledgeable people what they see in something and HOW they arrived at their opinions is another matter (!)

My saying that ShaunB's piece could easily be a poster child example of a well-used Levallois point would only set people off. Not everybody sees that kind of controversy as valuable because it conduces to discussion, clarification and everybody (who's paying attention) learning something. For a lot of folks, this is more like the Elks Club, where people go to enjoy themselves and each other. For them, controversy is a red flag that indicates that something's wrong. That makes anything that might set somebody off automatically something to be scrupulously avoided, as a public service. Either way is fine, but it can't be both.

I've been FOS in a few previous opinions (posted elsewhere), and happily admit it. Examining what the problem was after the fact (so as not to make the same mistake twice), it's been generalizing from a too-narrow range of information, no matter how deep it was. With that as a personal perspective, it saddens me to see how ready many people here are to write off anything they're not familiar enough with from their collecting perspective to see any other way than as a "geofact," a waste flake (debitage) or a frost-split. It appears, on this end, that they're basically saying, "that isn't something I recognize as being an artifact, so it isn't one."

There's a leap of faith involved in that I'm not willing to make -- either pro, or con. That's why I didn't stand up on my hind legs and announce that ShaunB's artifact IS a Levallois point, and PROVES that people were here 50,000 years ago. The best I can say is that it well might be one, and it's an interesting question that doesn't (and can't) have an off-the-shelf answer. If that leads people to do some homework and expand their horizons, great. Then I've done my job by contributing what I have to contribute. If it only rubs somebody the wrong way, all I can do is point out, intending to be helpful, that all the vitamin A in the world doesn't avail somebody who could possibly use some vitamin D.

In the final analysis, I see there being different worlds intersecting here, and overlapping. One is the arrowhead collector / typology books / what's it worth? / is it a fake?-centered one. The other sees (or tends to) US artifacts from the perspective of world history over a much longer time span and as involving information learned from this, questions and procedures that don't much concern the guy who (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this) only wants to collect and study arrowheads.

If this writes me off as a hopelessly disruptive influence here, that's out of my hands. I've done what I could.

[comanche]

"UNI",,,I have learned to formulate my own opinions about Items,,,But through the knowledge you and others have directed me to.And I think this is where the Rubber meets the road.I have noiticed several times people deffering to your opinion on certain items,,,Just because they think it is safer for them to let you make the call.Either because they them selves did not do the work to study or feel that thier reputation or lack there of will be damaged.Then on the other hand are the folks that like to be contentiouse that use the forums to hash out age old debates over all kinds of questionable archaeological information and evidence.Which is fine,,, but to be be strife-ful for the sake of being contentious,,,is a waste of time and futile,,
What I was questioning,,,is the subsequent flaking being either tumble scars,or as far as my research goes on "Levallois" flake points,,,could useware analysis differinciate,,between 50,000 year old flake marks and 10,000 year old subsequent flake marks?
The thing on this piece that raises a question is the Ventral side is so smooth and flat,,No compression rings,no signs of Hatchure fissures,No apparent bulb of force...
Thanks in advance Uni for allowing me to ask such questions,,,just trying to learn///your bud///comanche

[rokdok]

I agree with uniface. Looks like there have been at least 3 previous flake removals from the dorsal aspect. Is there a bulb of percussion on the plane surface(assuming it is a uniface)?

[ShaunB]

WOW, I thought this thread had already died! Would more pics, maybe close ups help any?

[uniface]

In the part of the world I'm familiar with you can find a number of paleo blades (as in detached from cores) that show no appreciable rippling at all. When the ends are worked off by retouching, you can't tell which end of them was which.

Further : Bob Patten (Tony Baker's collaborator, who's spent the last twenty or so years working at replicating Paleo stuff the way the Paleo folks did it) will tell you (and says in what he's written) that a properly managed hard-hammer flake will be much less rippled than one struck using an antler, run straighter (not tend to follow surface irregularities), and have a smaller bulb. So if what you're going by is what an antler does, you can potentially misread what you're looking at.

If it was made using the Levallois technique, it would have been struck off at the butt end. The effect such a wide platform would have on the release scarring (along with what it was struck with, the material used, &c.), along with learning to recognise & understand stuff like this is a project started this year. It ought to provide me with enough of interest to keep me busy the rest of my life