Experimental Research And Debitage Analysis On The Obsidian Bifacial Point

This research provides interpretive inferences on tech-typology of obsidianbifacial point and culture and technology of Dadong site by applying experimentalstudy and debitage analysis of lithic artifacts in context of archaeological materials.The author discusses human activities and adaptation in response to changingenvironments at the end of Pleistocene in North China.Full text is divided into six chapters.“Introduction”: The chapter elaborates the reason of the selection of subject, putsforward the hypothesis on advanced or systematic technique of bifacial point atDadong site, and it clarifies that it plays an important role in human activities andcultural communication. Based on it, the paper selects experimental study and debitageanalysis as the primary methods.Chapter1,“Brief Introduction of Dadong site, Helong City”: Dadong site, locatedat the terrace of the Tumen River in the Changbai Mountains area, is situated at HelongCounty, Jilin Province, it was discovered in2007. It is an open-site in the UpperPaleolithic, the main material is obsidian, and the distribution range is about a millionsquare meters, it is also the largest scale Paleolithic site in China. The stoneassemblage are plentiful, they include blade, microblade, microblade core, end scraper,burin and point. The stone assemblage at the Dadong site shows the distinctivecharacter of the microlithic and blade industrial tradition of the Upper Paleolithic inNorth China, and typical bifacial production is absence in this site.Obsidian-used mainly Paleolithic sites concentrate on the Changbai Mountainsarea. Dadong site is the one of most representative sites. The raw materialutilize-strategy and stone tool technology of Dadong site is very similar with the sitesfrom Japanese sea Ring Area of Northeast Asia. In general, the retouch technique of bifacial point is developed in obsidian-used mainly Paleolithic sites, however, bifacialpoints are absence in the Dadong site. Non-tool flakes (e.g. flakes, incomplete flakes,debris) are unearthed in this site, Cultural connotation (e.g. human activities andadaptation) is worthy to have further research.Chapter2,“The definition of bifacial point and the brief history of experimentalstudy”Section1, It defines the concept of Bifacial point. According to the differentemphasis, name or term of stone artifacts is not standard. As far as bifacial point isconcerned, its concept is different between the research of Lower and UpperPaleolithic. In general, scholars replace stone axe and bifacial point by biface. Itdefines explicitly the concepts of biface, bifacial technology and projectile bifacialpoint, meanwhile, confirms the medium-size bifacial point with projectile function asresearch subject.Section2, It introduces the brief history of bifacial point of foreign experimentalarchaeology, selects and understands the main theories and methods. In addition, itdoes the classification and description of methods of debitage analysis, and points outthe concrete methods in this paper.Chapter3,“Design of experimental study, aggregate analysis and debitageanalysis”Section1, It introduces the design of experiments. This section illustrates severalreasons why selecting obsidian as experimental material, introduces preparation ofexperiments, and analyzes the retouch process of bifacial point: obtaining blanks,primary trimming, primary thinning, further thinning with trimming and final shaping.Section2, It elaborates and analyzes the experimental process and does a series ofdebitage analysis. At first, we should choose the hard hammer or soft hammer inreason, according to the different phases of knapping process. The experimenter takesreasonable strategy based on emerging problems during the course of experiments, andselects the effective repairing method for some knapping accidents, summarizes sometechnological points of knapping. Afterward, we collect quantitative data and analyze the debitage during the course of knapping. According to the statistics andmorphological characteristic of debitage, such as scars of platform, scars of dorsalbrim, lip, cortex and the direction of scars on the dorsal surface, we analyze thedifferences between hard hammer and soft hammer on retouching bifacial point anddifferent knapping phases. Finally, this section summarizes the technologicalcharacteristics of bifacial technology.Chapter4,“Contrastive study”. Firstly, this chapter contrasts the morphologicalcharacteristic of stone assemblage at the Dadong site with the Paleolithic sites fromHokkaido area of Japan, confirms the availability of experimental results. According tothe morphological characteristic of samples, the bifacial point could be in the knappingphase of point by contrasting the archaeological and experimental sample. Furthermore,it also filters the technological information from the debitage at the Dadong site anddistinguishes the debitage from the bifacial retouch at the Dadong site, confirms thepresence of bifacial technology at the Dadong site.Conclusion confirms that it exist the mature bifacial technology at the DadongPaleolithic site, ancestors have the ability of retouch bifacial point. This section alsosummarizes some new results or opinions as follows: thinning is the core content ofbifacial technology; adjustment of edge-angle of cores affects the effect of thinning,ancient human also understand this idea; we can find out the particular lip between softhammer and hard hammer technique; flakes are usually broken off during the thinningphase of bifacial point, it maybe the reason why bifacial debitage appear to break off inthe Dadong Paleolithic site.