Distinguishing features between man made tools

and naturally fragmented alleged tools

Introduction:
There are certain degrees of differences between
the man made tools what we frequently called
artifacts and the naturally fragmented or made
alleged tools. On the other hand there are also some
naturally fragmented rocks which possess certain
similar characters like those of the man made tools
with some specific purposes. Such similar characters
sometimes make confusion which mislead the
archaeologists while identifying and classifying the Artifacts
specimens. The archaeologists sorted out the basic
attributes which are possessed by each man made
or modified tool with a purpose and apply while
identifying and classifying the tools. Hence
archaeologists try to find out the sign of intentional
knapping, because the purpose of intentional
knapping is to make tools, in the broader sense of
the term (as it will always leave similar scars on man Alleged tools
made tools). The technological interpretation of any worked stone
artifact will therefore be specific to that artifact, and based on the precise
observation and recognition of those scars. A (man made) stone artifact
can only be defined as such by removal scars, both positive and
negative. Resulting from either the pressure flaking or percussion
technique, such scars obey physical laws and are identical whether the
knapping is intentional (man-made) or not (natural).
The diagnosis of intentional knapping is best indicated when the artifacts
are discovered in a well defined archaeological context. In the case of
chance discoveries or surveys, the main criteria for recognizing
intentional knapping is the organization of removals. Caution is required
when flakes or even ‘pebble tools’ are found on a beach, for they may
well result from natural phenomena (so called naturally made alleged
tools); to the contrary, the discovery of a single handaxe or a single
Levallois core can prove intentional knapping (man-made): the
organization of removals follows so specific a sequence that the

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possibility of chance ‘knapping’ due to random impacts can be
dismissed. The number of pieces found and their geological position
provide additional information concerning the context and further help to
established the possible presence of a site. However one must bear in
mind that it is not always easy to distinguish (man-made) intentional from
naturally made (unintentional knapping), and the often arises as to
whether the modifications reflect intent or accident. The present topic
aims at discussing the points of difference between the
man-made and naturally made or fragmented alleged tools.

The concept of man made tools :

Man first conceptualizes the would be shape, size,
working edge and butt of the tool beforehand, and
accordingly he selects the suitable raw material,
then chose the flaking techniques to make it.
Therefore, man made tools have generally a
regular pattern. Regularly patterned tools are
therefore considered as the signs of culture.
Stone is the most imperishable of all the materials
which were used by our prehistoric man for the
manufacturing of his tools. He made stone tools by Bulb of percussion
percussion flaking technique (striking a stone with another stone). There
is evidence of gradual technological evolution in the man-made tools.
The resultant character of the blow may be understood first, that a sharp
blow directed vertically at a point on the surface
of the block of rock, say flint, knocks out a solid
cone called conchoidal fracture. However,
when the blow is directed obliquely near the
edge of a slab, a flake
is detached with half
of the cone of
percussion. This half-
formed cone of
percussion at the point Conchoidal fracture
of impact on the flake is called the positive bulb
of percussion, and the corresponding hollowed
flake scar on the parent lump or core is called
the negative bulb of percussion. There are also
Direction of the blow
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low concentric ripples around the bulb of percussion corresponding to
the force of the blow and the amount of the resistance in the block. This
is, according to L.S.B. Leakey, because of the fact that the force from a
blow does not travel in the direction of the blow but at an angle to it, and
not in one straight line, but along a curve representing the ever-widening
circles. He further stated that if the direction of the blow is at an angle to
the surface of the flint only a small part of the cone affects the flint, and
the rest is absorbed outside the flint.

Manufacturing techniques of man-made tools :

Researches on the techniques of making stone tools by prehistoric man
have now established various ways of flaking. These can be grouped
under three categories -
(a) Direct percussion flaking,
(b) Indirect percussion flaking and
(c) Pressure flaking.
In the direct percussion flaking, the hammer strikes directly on the
surface of the block of stone for detaching a desired flake. The flakes
detached by using different hammers will
exhibit different characters. For example, the
flake struck off the core by using large heavy
hammer stone will exhibit very prominent
bulb of percussion on the main flake surface,
while light stone hammer produces flakes
with small and flatter bulb of percussion. At
times some of the massive flakes are also Prominent bulb of percussion
used in making tools like cleavers and hand axes. This will be hard to
believe in case of the nature. The prehistoric man in making the stone
tools also employs step flaking and bi-polar techniques. These two
techniques are the evidence of preconceived ideas of man for making
the stone tools. The naturally fragmented alleged tools do not exhibit
such preconceived ideas.
Flakes produced by the levallois or discoid core technique will always
have a regular pattern, and the levallois flakes could be used as tool
without further modification. But nature cannot produce such flakes with
regular patterns. Another convincing character of the man made tools is
the presence of the alternate secondary flaking that nature cannot
produce. The purpose of the alternate and secondary flaking is for
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producing sharp working edge and blunt suitable handholding or hafting
place. Pressure flaking is a highly specialized technique adopted by the
prehistoric man in making tools like leaf-shaped points. This technique
produces very thin flake scars resembling the fish scales arranging in a
regular systematic pattern. However, such regular set of meaning full
fish scale-like scars are not present on the naturally made alleged tools.
Prehistoric man had also adopted the techniques of pecking, sawing,
grinding and polishing in making Neolithic stone tools; and these
techniques were applied purposefully. There is no evidence of such
purposeful techniques in the naturally produced tools.

Types of man made tools and naturally fragmented alleged tools :

Man made tools are best represented by the types such as Chopper,
Chopping tool, various types of Hand-axes and Cleavers, Pick, Hand-
azes, Scraper, Point, Borer, Blade, Burins, Micro-blades, Denticulates,
various types of celts, Ringstones or
Mace-heads and naturally made
alleged tools are called Eoliths. Even
the oldest Hand-axes from the earliest
Pleistocene deposits have
standardized forms, whereas the
eoliths though used as tools by the
immediate forerunners of man lack
such character. K.P.Oakley (1965)
stated, “The possibility of discovering evidence of man in the Pliocene
was being considered towards the end of the last century, and in 1891
Prestwich published an account of some crudely shaped flints, looking
like simple tools which had been found in patches of the “Pre-glacial”
plateau drift on the North Downs of Kent by an amateur archaeologist,
Benjamin Harrison, of Ightham. They came to be known as Eoliths, since
it was suggested that they were the earliest recognizable implements,
and represented the dawn of tool making. However, detailed studies
have shown that all the Kent and Sussex Eoliths can be matched exactly
by stones chipped by natural agencies. Thus, any among them which
have been chipped by man would not be distinguishable from the
probably far greater number which has been shaped through the
accidents of nature.”

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Knapping Accident
A knapping accident, which may occur during flaking, shaping or
retouching, is an unforeseen and unintentional accident generating
products with a specific morphology. Archaeologically observed and
experimentally produced knapping accidents are identical, thus
strengthening the credibility of the analogy-based experimental
approach.
They come as a certain number of ‘types’ and are due either to flow
flaws in the raw material (such as joints, vesicles, saccharoid, nodules
etc.) or to some mismanagement on the knapper’s part. Knapping
accidents have varying repercussions on the continuation of the
knapping sequence to which they belong. They can be irreversible (for
instance, the fracture of a large leaf-shaped bifacial piece, pluging
Levallois point etc.) put right (hinged blade removed from a core with two
striking platforms : in the case, a single removal struck off from the
opposite platform is sufficient for debitage to proceed unimpaired), or of
no consequence (bulb scars, fracture of a burin spall when the later is a
waste product, etc.) Although unintentionally obtained, the products
resulting from knapping accidents can also be used as blanks.

Knapping accidents can broadly be divided into four groups. They are :
(1) Breaks, (2) Plunging flakes, (3) Hinged flakes, and (4) Miscellaneous.
1. Breaks : Breaks are accidental snapping of a flake upon removal, or
of any artifact in the process of being knapped. The occurance of breaks
is irrespective of technique employed (percussion, pressure etc.). The
main type of breaks are :
i) Clean breaks, ii) Siret accidental breaks, iii) Languatte breaks and iv)
Nacelle breaks.
i) Clean break : It is the type of the break whose surface is
perpendicular to the dibitage axis and the lower face.
ii) Siret accidental break : It refers to the snapping of a flake into two
aligning the debitage axis. Such accidents were long mistaken for
burins; they leave but a partial arris on the core (when it is at all visible),
on the distal part of the removal negative.
iii) Languette breaks : They usually occurs on the upper or lower face.
They can be simple or double, in which (the latter case) they sometimes
generate characteristic waste products.
iv) Nacelle breaks : It is initiated by bulb scars which arch suddenly
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towards the upper face, removing parts of the two edges, and then
intersected suddenly at the lower face. The small waste product
corresponding to the Nacelle has a very specific shape. Such incidents
are very common when pressure rather than percussion is applied.

2. Pluging flakes : They result from phenomenon causing the fracture

plane, whose proximal part is normal, to plunge suddenly away from the
exterior surface and remove a whole section of the blank, be it a core, a
debitage product or a tool.
3. Hinged flakes : They are the opposite of plunging flakes, although
they probably share the same physical causes (variation in the
propagation speed of the fracture front). A hinged flake is a removal
whose fracture plane, normal in its proximal part, arches suddenly and
intersects prematurely with the upper face of the blank, resulting in a
rounded fistal end (hinge-fracture) or an abrupt clean break (step-
fracture). The blank is therefore shorter than what was expected.
Hinge pieces and their removal negatives are very prominient. It is the
most common accident that befalls the beginners when they try their
hand at knapping.
4. Miscellaneous : These includes incipient fractures, lipped flakes,
parasitical flakes, and spontaneous removals.

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 Agencies for producing naturally made alleged tools :
We need to know the various agencies in nature that cause flaking of
stone to distinguish these
characters from those of
the man made tools.
Flaking could also be done
by the natural agencies.
Thermal change termed
as thermal fracture is one
of the chief accidental agencies by which stones are flaked.
K.P.Oakley (1965:9 – 10) stated that “Rapid changes of
temperature cause unequal expansion or contraction of the
surface of the stone or rock relative to its interior. In
deserts, for example, the exposed
Blade-core like
fracture due to
surfaces of some types of rock are
Thermal changes continually flaking as a result of the
difference between the day and night
temperature. In the cold regions, flakes are
commonly split off by frost – the outer layer of the
stone expanding through the freezing of absorbed
water. A flake or flake-scar due to frost or other
thermal fracture is easily recognized for the surface
of fracture has either a roughish,
blank appearance, or shows A residual
frost-pitted lump
ripples concentric about a central
point.”. Flakes with round in outline are produced by
the frost action, and the residual frost-pitted lump of
appropriate shape is easily mistaken as implement.
Thermal changes are sometimes cause flint to break
into prisms resembling blade-cores; and stones

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splintered by fire or facetted by sandstorms are occasionally mistaken as
blades. However, in closure examination it could be noticed that such
splintered blades break through the joint-plane or the strains setup by
slow internal shrinkages.
When heavy stones carried by the
waves of sea or heavy torrential water or
the glacier strike against the fixed stone
in the beach or gravel bed the detached
flakes will flatter and more diffused bulb
of percussion will be formed. After
Friction sometime the flaked stone is eroded and re-
deposited at another location, and again strikes by another heavy stone
in the same process as above resulting to
the detaching of another flake either
unidirectionally or bidirectionally to the
previous flake scar. Such repeated course
of action may produce the stone resembling
the shape of an implement. Since the
flakings are not done simultaneously, the flake scars exhibit different
rate of weathering or patination and are
also not purposeful. Another evidence of
man-made tool is the presence of
purposeful secondary flakings. But thin
pieces of stone can be chipped through
friction against another stone as occurs in
soil-creep (solifluxion), in torrent action, or
in glacier. Such naturally chipped flakes lack logical design, the flake-
scars occur in uneconomical profusion, the edges have brushed
appearance, and the flake-surfaces are usually scratched.

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Difference between the man made and naturally
flaked alleged tools :
In short, there are many differences between
the man made and naturally fragmented or
made alleged tools. Six points of differences
are discussed here. In the case of man made
tools the cone of percussion is prominent. In
contrast to it, the naturally made alleged
tools, the cone of percussion is either flatten
or almost absent. Similar, in the man made Point of impact
tool the flaking ripples are concentrated to the point of impact whereas in
the naturally flaked or made alleged tools the flaking ripples are
concentrated around a central point. Regarding the primary and
secondary flakings, these are purposefully
present in case of man made tools but irregular
and uneconomical in those naturally made
alleged tools. In addition to these characters,
alternate flaking is present in the case of man
made tools but absent in the case of naturally
made alleged tools. Moreover, the patination of
the flaking scars are uniform in the case of man
made tools but different patinations are found in
Naturally chipped flake the naturally made alleged tools. Above all, there
is a regular set pattern in the case of man made tools but it is irregular in
the naturally made alleged tools. Thus, we may summarise the
differences between the man made tools and naturally made alleged
tools in a tabular form as below: