While time often strips away the organic aspects of our material culture, stone artifacts, like tools and the debris generated in their manufacture and maintenance, remain preserved and are frequently recovered at archaeological sites. Often considered of little value at the time they were discarded, the stone waste flakes struck away during flintknapping (the shaping of lithic artifacts) carry critical information on both raw material choices and the intentions of the craftsperson who made them. Grand Meadow Chert (GMC), a high quality, sedimentary toolstone from a very defined source, Wanhi Yukan/Grand Meadow Chert Quarry (GMCQ) in Southern Minnesota, has been recovered in abundance in the form of endscrapers in archaeological sites across the Midwest. Endscrapers are tools primarily used to remove soft tissue and fur when processing animal hides. While recent studies have investigated flaking attributes (physical traits) of the production debris of other stone tool types, little attention has been paid to those coming from endscraper manufacture. Large quantities of GMC waste flakes have been recovered during archaeological projects at GMCQ, but the flintknapping activities that occurred there are undocumented. The knappers may have focused on testing raw nodules, but could have also produced tools like endscrapers. This study explored the flaking attributes of GMC endscraper production by analyzing experimentally created flake sets. After attribute data was collected from experimental endscraper production, it was compared against that of other chipped tool manufacturing experiments. Flaking trends diagnostic of endscraper production were identified. With established tool production data as a guide, the flake assemblage recovered from GMCQ reflected endscraper and general core/flake production occurring at the site. These flakes, physical traces of human being, guide the interpretation of this location; supplying a voice for the significant relationship between endscrapers, the quarry, and communities who contributed to its physical record
Wanhi Yukan / Grand Meadow Chert Quarry Lithic Debitage Analysis
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Student Abstract Submission