When the Leafpoints are Missing: On the Possibility of Identifying of Jerzmanowician Assemblages based on the Small Debitage Alone

ABSTRACT

The paper examines the possibility of recognising leafpoint industry in the case that its most characteristic feature is missing. The conducted research aimed at identifying whether it is possible to determine Jerzmanowician assemblage based on the small debitage solely. To answer this question, leafpoints were experimentally knapped and all the produced debris carefully collected. The obtained debitage was subsequently analysed in respect to its morphometric and morphologic features to determine whether one can observe any distinctive characteristics. The results were compared with the stone assemblage from Koziarnia Cave, one of the few Jerzmanowician sites in Poland, confirming that one can determine which layer contains Jerzmanowician features.

KEYWORDS:

• Jerzmanowician
• leafpoints
• experimental archaeology
• Koziarnia Cave
• small debitage analysis

View correction statement:

Correction

Acknowledgements

Researches were financed by the National Science Centre, Poland: the archaeological fieldworks within the framework of the project no. 2016/22/E/HS3/00486 and the experimental knapping under the project no. 2016/21/D/HS3/02665. We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their remarks and valuable comments, which allowed us to improve the text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Researches were financed by the National Science Centre, Poland: the archaeological fieldworks within the framework of the project no. 2016/22/E/HS3/00486 and the experimental knapping under the project no. 2016/21/D/HS3/02665; .

Notes on contributors

Małgorzata Kot

Małgorzata Kot, PhD is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Archaeology, University of Warsaw. Her field of expertise is Palaeolithic. Her researches focus on Middle Palaeolithic knapping technologies and Middle/Upper Palaeolithic transition in Eurasia. She conducts archaeological fieldworks in cave sites in southern Poland (Koziarnia Cave, Tunel Wielki Cave, Bramka Rockshelter) as well as in the western Tian Shan Piedmont in Uzbekistan (Katta Sai 1, 2, Ertash Sai 2, 5)

Natalia Gryczewska

Natalia Gryczewska is a PhD student of Interdisciplinary Doctoral School at the University of Warsaw, Poland. Her thesis focuses on human occupation of caves in Polish Jura in Upper Pleistocene, as seen from analyses of archaeological assemblage and lipid biomarkers from sediments samples. Her other research interests center on Palaeolithic of Central Europe, bioarchaeology and human evolution.

Miguel Biard

Miguel Biard is a researcher at INRAP (Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Préventives), Passy, France. His a specialist in lithic technology (study and experimentation). His research focuses, among others, on the end of the Upper Palaeolithic in Normandy, Solutrean technology and early Neolithic. He conducts Palaeolithic and Mesolithic fieldworks in Normandy.