The essential mechanics of conchoidal flaking

✍ Scribed by B. Cotterell; J. Kamminga; F. P. Dickson

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1985
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 996 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1573-2673
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00125471

✦ Synopsis

Flaked stone tools are the most durable and therefore the most common artifacts available to archaeologists for tracing the development of early Man. However, the essential mechanics of conchoidal flake formation has not yet been described. In order to successfully create a relatively thin flake that does not terminate prematurely, the direction of the flaking force has to be reasonably precise. We show that the direction of the flaking force is determined mainly by the stiffness of the flake, the actual angle of the blow or impulse having relatively little effect. Long thin flakes can be easily produced because this direction of the flaking force is very close to that necessary to produce local symmetry at the tip of the crack propago.ting parallel to the surface of the stone.