L'apport du réaffûtage à la variabilité morphométrique des pointes de projectile aurignaciennes en bois de cervidé
This project combines experimental archaeology and morphometric analysis with a comparison with the archaeological assemblage from Abri Cellier (Dordogne, France) (N = 12) to quantify the contribution of resharpening to morphometric variability of Aurignacian projectile points made of antler. A morpho-functional re-analysis was performed on the experimental series produced by Knecht (N = 79), and combined with a recent experiment (N = 9) which showed that tip damage depends on (1) the projectile velocity, (2) the nature of the impacted target and, (3) the raw material’s biomechanical properties. On the other hand, resharpening depends on (1) the curator’s experience and, (2) the employed technical sequence. Also, resharpening is considered a standardized behaviour that remains independent of the point or tip damage type. Morphometric changes incurred by this behaviour can be summarized by (1) a gradual shift of the point’s shoulder from the base to the tip of the point, (2) a tendency of the tip to become more obtuse, and (3) a concentration of the curation stigmata at the distal third of the tip. Since use and resharpening are two processes that can’t be distinguished metrically on archaeological specimens, we propose a new metric the Proximo-Distal Ratio (RP/D), which translates the intensity of these two converging processes and allows inter-assemblage comparison.
Aurignacian Projectile points Resharpening Morphometric analysis Antler Upper Palaeolithic Experimental Archaeology standardisation Standardization