PALEORIENT, Vol. 2, n° 2, 1974. pp. 389-398

THE UTILIZATION OF THE MICROBURIN TECHNIQUE IN THE LEVANT

Don O.HENRY

In the Levant, the microburin technique has tradi- tionnally been associated with the Natufian (1). The appearance of the microburin in Natufian assemblages was, in fact, used in seriating the Natufian along the line proposed by Garrod (2) and Neuville (3) in that they both recognized the presence of the microburin technique as being diagnostic of the second phase of the Natufian, i.e. Middle Natufian or Natufian Stage II. Recent research, however, has demonstrated that the microburin technique had restricted spatial, as well as temporal dimensions within the Natufian (4) and that the technique was employed by other Epi-Paleolithic populations within the Levant (5).

Means of Evaluating the Microburin Technique.

Before examining the temporal and spatial parameters of the utilization of the microburin technique in the Levant and the technique's relationship with specific archaeological complexes, it is first necessary to establish criteria for : 1) determining the frequencies and proportions of microburins within an assemblage that are required to demonstrate that the technique was, in fact, employed; 2) ascertaining the degree of utilization of the micro- burin technique, and 3) differentiating between various alternative applications of the technique in the fabrication of lithic tools. Although procedures necessary to satisfy these queries have been proposed, in part, they have not been systematically applied to prehistoric occurrences within the Levant. The traditional classification and means of appraising the degree of utilization of the technique should be reconsidered, as well.

Microburins appear in Paleolithic assemblages as byproducts of the process of dividing blank pieces of debitage (flakes, blades, and bladelets) through controlled, single-blow truncations delivered on notched or abruptly retouched edges (fig. 1). The division of a blank by the microburin technique generates a proximal or distal microburin (6). In rare instances, prehistoric artisans modified microburins into retouched tools (7), but normally the piquant triedre or La Mouillah Point portions of the divided blanks were subsequently fabricated into tools (8). Because microburins were seldomly fabricated into tools, there is no real reason that they should be included in type lists with retouched pieces over other forms of debitage (e.g., burin spalls) that were also occasionally fabricated into tools. Although other special forms of debitage (e.g. éclats Levallois) have been included in type lists of other Paleolithic industries (9), these debitage forms consistently appear as retouched tools in those industries. Therefore, I suggest that microburins be excluded from type lists and reported with other forms of debitage for consistency.

The traditional computational devise used in comparing the frequency of microburins between assemblages is referred to as a Microburin Index (IMbt) (10). The index is computed by dividing the number of microburins by the sum of the number of microburins plus tools and multiplying the resulting figure by 100. While this procedure yields an index as to the proportion of microburins to tools in a given assemblage, it does not define the degree to which the technique was employed in an

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