Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Another Cache Blade Debris Pit

Over the last two years, we have uncovered several small pits containing the debris from the manufacture of flint "cache blades."  Each of these features contained dozens to hundreds of flint flakes of Upper Mercer chert from Coshocton Co., Ohio.  Among this debris were broken fragments of thin, triangular bifaces of the kind used in Early and Middle Woodland ceremonial contexts.  Today we uncovered another of these pits.  Feature 12-59 is a bit larger than those found in the past but contained a large number of large and thin flakes of a rather fine variety of Upper Mercer chert.  A biface tip was found first and then a base of another biface turned up.  All these biface fragments look to be pieces that were discarded by the flint-knapper during the manufacturing process.  None appear to have been used, although the base fragment found today was nearly complete. There must have been some harsh words at the flint-knapping work station when this one broke!

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