Manufacture and use of quartz instruments through experimental analysis

DEBORA EGEA; ENRIQUE MORENO

Simposio; 11th international symposium on knappable materials "from tollstone to stone tools"; 2017

Several investigations around time and space have shown the relevance of quartz as raw material to manufacture diverse lithic artifacts. But, at the same time, it has been called the attention on the difficulties for the identification of diagnostic modifications due to the particularities of his fracture, as well as also for his hardness. In our particular case, the investigations developed at El Alto-Ancasti mountains (Catamarca), show the almost exclusive use of this raw material in different sites, so the implementation of new studies about reduction and preparation of edges turns out to be an indispensable aspect for the advance of our investigations. In this sense, a methodological tool that we have begun to develop is the experimentation, with three principal aims: a) evaluate the different technologies used for the reduction of nodules and cores, b) the manufacture of the different types of edges and, finally, c) the possible uses of these instruments.In this presentation we try to show the advances obtained in this respect and the limits and possibilities that we can observe of this experimental analysis, in the comparison with the archaeological materials recovered of the study area.