What is Levallois flake?

What is Levallois flake?

Levalloisian stone-flaking technique, toolmaking technique of prehistoric Europe and Africa, characterized by the production of large flakes from a tortoise core (prepared core shaped much like an inverted tortoise shell).

What is Levalloisian culture?

Definition of Levalloisian : of or relating to a Middle Paleolithic culture characterized by a technique of manufacturing tools by striking flakes from a flint nodule.

What tool is made from a Levallois flake?

Such tools are known as bifacial. In the so-called Levallois technology, named after the Levallois-Perret suburb of Paris where it was first described, the toolmaker first chisels a suitably shaped core from a stone and then slices off flakes from it.

What is the Levallois core used for?

Definition: A method of creating stone tools by first striking flakes off the stone, or core, along the edges to create the prepared core and then striking the prepared core in such a way that the intended tool is flaked off with all of its edges pre-sharpened.

When were Levallois flake tools used?

240,000–40,000. Middle Paleolithic Period. A core is a stone from which flakes have been detached so that the flakes can be made into tools. This one was made with a special technique called Levallois core preparation that was widely used during the Middle Paleolithic Period.

What are Levalloisian tools?

Who made the Levallois flake?

Dating the Levallois The Levallois technique was traditionally thought to have been invented by archaic humans in Africa beginning about 300,000 years ago, and then moved into Europe and perfected during the Mousterian of 100,000 years ago.

What is so complex about Levallois technology?

Levallois points, a primary example of the more complex stone tool technology, were made by removing flakes from a core in a specific way, such as centripetally around an edge, so that the last flakes detached had a predetermined pointed shape.

Why were the Levalloisian tools called so?

It is named after 19th-century finds of flint tools in the Levallois-Perret suburb of Paris, France. The technique was more sophisticated than earlier methods of lithic reduction, involving the striking of lithic flakes from a prepared lithic core.

What is Levalloisian stone flaking?

Levalloisian stone-flaking technique, toolmaking technique of prehistoric Europe and Africa, characterized by the production of large flakes from a tortoise core (prepared core shaped much like an inverted tortoise shell).

What are the characteristics of Levalloisian flakes?

Such flakes, seldom further trimmed, were flat on one side, had sharp cutting edges, and are believed to have been used as skinning knives. Sometimes the butts of Levalloisian flakes were trimmed in a way that suggests hafting onto a handle.

What was the purpose of the Levallois flakes?

A range of tools made on Levallois flakes are also recognized, including the Levallois point. Archaeologists believe the purpose was to produce a “single preferential Levallois flake”, a nearly circular flake mimicking the original contours of the core.

What is the Levallois technique?

Her work has appeared in scholarly publications such as Archaeology Online and Science. Levallois, or more precisely the Levallois prepared-core technique, is the name archaeologists have given to a distinctive style of flint knapping, which makes up part of the Middle Paleolithic Acheulean and Mousterian artifact assemblages.

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