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To: nickcarraway
lol... just why am I a bit skeptical looking at this handful of rocks...
3 posted on 01/02/2021 1:27:25 AM PST by sit-rep ( )
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To: sit-rep

Actually your looking at several knapped bifaces and possibly the hammer stone they used to knap them. The other stones are most likely the debitage from the knapping process. Probably not their first choice when it came to material to produce tools from but you work with what’s available.


8 posted on 01/02/2021 3:38:10 AM PST by Dusty Road (")
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To: sit-rep

I’m a natural skeptic but it seems obvious that the stones were chipped to form shapes and edges.


10 posted on 01/02/2021 4:56:11 AM PST by trebb (Fight like your life and future depends on it - because they do.)
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To: sit-rep
lol... just why am I a bit skeptical looking at this handful of rocks...

Hey! When I was ten and playing army with my buds that clump of sod in my hand was a hand grenade despite what my mom said. Empirical evidence was on my side, the kid I threw it at collapsed DRT!

23 posted on 01/02/2021 8:46:51 AM PST by Covenantor (We are ruled...by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who can not govern. " Chesterton)
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To: sit-rep; nickcarraway; SunkenCiv; Dusty Road; trebb
"lol... just why am I a bit skeptical looking at this handful of rocks..."

~~~~~~~~~~~
Probably because you have no idea what you're looking at...
~~~~~~~~~~~

Although the photo is lousy, anyone who has experience in successfully replicating stone tools can readily see evidence of planned and controlled bilateral, multiple flake removals on some of the specimens. That simply does not occur by any natural ("geofact") process.

There are three specimens in the photo that show repeated, adjoining flake removals -- positioned to create a sharp cutting edge on one lateral side. All flake removals were made by "hard-hammer percussion" (hitting near an edge with another rock ["hammerstone"] -- specifically to remove flakes from the opposite face of the piece).

The specimen at right, near the top of the 10-cm scale stick, has almost a dozen such carefully-placed "flake scars" along its right edge alone. Given the grainy toughness of that stone material, I'm not sure I could do much better with the same piece of rock.

There is zero question that the mind-eye-hand feedback loop of a human being produced some of the pictured specimens.

As to their actual age, deponent sayeth naught... '-)

TXnMA   

Texas Archæological Steward, lithic technologist, flintknapper...

36 posted on 01/03/2021 12:43:49 PM PST by TXnMA (The Democrat Party has a single-element strategy: CHEATING... Reinstate Public Executions!)
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To: sit-rep

“lol... just why am I a bit skeptical looking at this handful of rocks...”

Because they still think rocks are hi-tech.


43 posted on 01/05/2021 6:39:34 AM PST by PLMerite ("They say that we were Cold Warriors. Yes, and a bloody good show, too." - Robert Conquest)
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