The Identification and Recovery of Backing Debitage: A New Method for Detecting Backed Artifact Industries

ABSTRACT

This study presents a new method for the detection of backed artifact industries through the identification of backing debitage. The waste flakes produced during backing retouch are found to have a combination of unique attributes that distinguish them from other small retouch and core reduction flakes. Experimentally produced flakes are compared with an assemblage from a mid-late Holocene site in southeastern Australia, which contains multiple backed artifact production events, including a waste-flake-to-backed-artifact refit. It is shown that the waste flakes in the experimental work hold the same diagnostically distinct attributes as the flakes seen in the archaeological assemblage. This provides compelling evidence for the ability to classify backed artifact waste flakes and identify backed artifact production events in the absence of the finished artifact. The small size of the backing debitage and the implications this has for screen size selection are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Backing flakes
• screen sizes
• backed artifact industries
• identification
• classification

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the land owners, the traditional land owners, and Infigen Energy for their assistance in undertaking this study, as well Norma Richardson for insightful conversations on this topic, Peter Hiscock and Amy Tabrett for their assistance with the experiments and comments on drafts, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Amy Mosig Way is a PhD student and Teaching Fellow at the University of Sydney. Amy's primary research interest is in understanding prehistoric behavior through the analysis of assemblages of stone artifacts.

Dr Alun Pope completed his PhD in statistics at the University of London and has more than 35 years' experience collaborating with researchers from diverse disciplines, including archaeology.

ORCID

Amy Mosig Way http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8896-1815

Alun Pope http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5726-1661

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [grant number LP140100911], an Australian Postgraduate Award, and funding from the Carlyle Greenwell Research Fund. Invaluable fieldwork assistance was also provided by Wilfred and Carol Shawcross.