A Multi-instrument Study of Microwear Polishes on Mousterian Tools from Weasel Cave (Myshtulagty Lagat), Russia

ABSTRACT

The functions of flaked stone tools are usually determined by the observation of microwear polishes with the incident-light microscope with magnifications of 50–400× – known as the Keeley Method. In our study into the function of Mousterian flint tools from Weasel Cave, we employ the atomic force microscope (AFM) and the optical interferometer, in addition to the light microscope and the SEM. The advantage of the AFM and the interferometer are the extremely high resolution permitted and most importantly the quantitative data extracted from microwear polishes. The merits of these different instruments are discussed in the context of polish differentiation for microwear traces on archaeological specimens interpreted as due to contact with meat, fresh hide, dry hide, bone, wood, as well as hafting. A multi-instrument approach contributes to the understanding of the formation of microwear polishes as well.

KEYWORDS:

• Atomic force microscopy
• microwear
• scanning probe
• palaeolithic stone tool function
• Neanderthal
• interferometer

Acknowledgements

We thank Adrian Evans, Harry Lerner, Danielle Macdonald, and William Stemp for inviting us to present an early version of this paper in the symposium “Standardization in Lithic Use-Wear Analysis” at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in 2011, and especially the comments by discussants Patricia Anderson and George Odell. Comments on an early draft of this manuscript by Lerner and Evans, as well as several anonymous reviewers, helped improve this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Larry R. Kimball is a Professor of Anthropology at Appalachian State University. He earned his Ph.D. in 1989 from Northwestern University. Kimball has considerable experience on the archaeology of Native Peoples of the Southern Appalachians and at Weasel Cave, Ossetia, Russia. He has undertaken microwear analyses of Middle Paleolithic, Upper Paleolithic, and PaleoAmerican through Historic Cherokee lithic technologies.

Dr. Tonya Coffey is a Professor of Physics at Appalachian State University, and earned her Ph.D. in Physics in 2004 from North Carolina State University.

Nathan Faulks and Stephen Dellinger earned Masters of Science in Physics from Appalachian State University. This work is part of their thesis projects.

Dr. Nazim Hidjrati is the Director of the Academic and Scientific Job Training Complex at North Ossetian State University, where he has worked since 1977.

ORCID

Larry R. Kimball http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3331-2305

Tonya S. Coffey http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1475-1959

Nazim Hidjrati http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2325-4399

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a North Carolina Space Grant Graduate Research Fellowship; the College of Arts and Sciences at Appalachian State University; the National Science Foundation under [grant number 0821124]; the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research under [grant number 6157]; the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation; IREX; the St. George Russian-American Archaeological Program; and the Institute for History and Archaeology at North Ossetian State University. Drs. Peter J. Blau and Lin Hua-Tay at the Tribology Research User Center at the Oak Ridge National Lab provided use of their Veeco Wyko Optical Interferometer on two occasions.