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2020-05-09 16:29:07   •   ID: 2179

Convergent Scraper from the Yonne Valley

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This is a 9 cm long Convergent Middle Paleolithic convergent scraper made on a Levallois flake- a single surface find from a brickyard at the Yonne river.

German Typologists would possibly classify such an artifact as „Bogenspitze“ (sensu Bosinski: Die mittelpaläolithischen Funde im westlichen Mitteleuropa; Fundamenta 4; 1967)

The Yonne in Northern France is a left-bank tributary of the Seine.

The Yonne Valley and its tributaries are rich in Lower and Middle Paleolithic sites- see 1172 and attached external links.

The craper was made on a thin flake which exhibits marginal-semi-invasive retouches. Both edges are slightly convex and end in a well executed point.

If this scraper was initially a single scraper and consecutively reworked into a convergent tool, remains unclear, the overall design, in my view, speaks for the second hypothesis.

The age of the artifact covers a long period of time (MIS 8-3) and can not be seriously determined.

In N/W Europe such scrapers were present during MIS7, for example at Maastricht-Belvedère [K], Rheindahlen, Biache-Saint-Vaast and Weimar Ehringsdorf and part of an early Middle Paleolithic, chacterized by different prepared core techniques.

At Biache and Ehringsdorf lithic ensembles, which included convergent scrapers were associated with the remains of Early Neanderthals.

Further information about the Levallois-Mousterian in N/W-Europe and adjacent areas can be found here: 1564

Use-wear evidence over European Lithic ensembles indicates that convergent and pointed tools were used for different tasks like:

1) cutting work on soft, semi-hard and hard materials, depending on the overall design of the tool. 2) As classical scrapers 3) As piercing tools.

In addition V. Rots showed, that many of these tools were hafted at Biache-Saint-Vaast- even if the morphology of the tools allowed a free-hand use.

Suggested Reading: Rots, V: Prehension and Hafting Traces on Flint Tools: a Methodology ; 2010

Provenience: Collection Vanderkeulen (BE)



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