Resharpening and recycling: Different conceptions of the Magdalenian tools
Introduction
Studies devoted to the Late Glacial period often establish a clear link between tool shaping and use, where one tool equals one function. For the last thirty years, lithic industries from important sites such as Meer, Pincevent, and Verberie (Leroi-Gourhan and Brézillon, 1972, Keeley, 1978, Van Noten, 1978, Audouze et al., 1981, Keeley, 1987, Beyries et al., 2005, Janny et al., 2006) have been studied from two perspectives: the characterization of the debitage economies, and the retouched tool assemblages.
Such an approach relies heavily on lithic refitting and use-wear analyses. It is particularly accurate for the identification of specialized products, activity zones, and relationships between different occupational areas. As well, it highlights tool manufacture, retooling, and resharpening, providing evidence of the tool's life history until its final discard. Within this analytical framework, use-wear analysis plays an important role as it highlights the successive transformations undergone by the tools.
The objective of this article is to examine resharpening and recycling using examples from three European Magdalenian sites: Monruz and Champréveyres in Switzerland, and Roc-aux-Sorciers in France, dating respectively to the Upper Magdalenian (ca 13 000 BP) and the Middle Magdalenian (ca 14 500 BP). Organized around a technical coherence, tool sharpening is possible as long as:
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the morphological characteristics of the tool's active part (width of the cutting edge, delineation and angle of the edge) remain unaltered; and
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sharpening remains technically possible (e.g. surface angles inferior to 90°, convex sharpened surface, no flaws that would result in major reworking, thus changing the tool's morphology).
From this perspective, the definition we adopt for “sharpening” is the following: retouch of a cutting edge in order to restore its primary efficiency, where the retouch method is the same as the method employed for initial tool manufacture (Tixier et al., 1980). After sharpening, the tool can either maintain the same function and/or the same way of operating (e.g. woodcutting, bone scraping), or be devoted to a completely different activity.
Tool recycling is not systematically organized around a technical coherence. We employ the term “recycling” when there is a change in the tool's function and/or operating state, possibly accompanied by a modification of the haft. In contrast to sharpening, recycling is more complex to identify in the archaeological record, especially because it cannot be observed without refitting and/or use-wear analyses. The activities that were performed at Monruz, Champréveyres, and Roc-aux-Sorciers show that the tools had very specific functions, which appear to be deeply intertwined with the sites' function and their geographical relationship to flint deposits.
Section snippets
Context
The Magdalenian sites of Monruz and Champréveyres were excavated from 1989 to 1992, and from 1983 to 1986 respectively. Both sites are located on the northern shore of Lake Neuchâtel (Switzerland), 1 km apart (Leesch, 1997, Cattin, 2002, Bullinger et al., 2006, Cattin, 2012). Monruz is one of the most exceptional Upper Paleolithic open-air sites known in Europe because of the excellent preservation at the site. It is comparable to sites in the Paris Basin in France and the Neuwied Basin in
Context
Carved rock shelters dated from the Middle Magdalenian around 14,500 BP (Débrias and Evin 1974) and are located in France between the Vienne and Charente -Dordogne départements. These shelters are representative of an artistic phenomenon that is unique for this period (Fig. 6). The Roc-aux Sorciers is located at the base of the Dousse cliffs, along the Anglin valley (Rousseau, 1929, Rousseau, 1933, Saint-Mathurin and Garrod, 1957, Iokovleva and Pinçon, 1997, Pinçon, 2010) and is approximately
Discussion
Certain patterns arise from the analysis of the three sites, which show that tool sharpening depends on different parameters (and constraints) and, particularly, object morphology (form and dimensions), and material. As the objective is to preserve the tool's efficiency, any removals that would not meet these requirements lead to the tool's final abandonment.
The grain size of the material can influence the decision to sharpen a tool. For coarse-grained flint, a material that is found near the
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