Resharpening and Recycling of Flint Bifacial Tools from the Southern Levant Neolithic and Chalcolithic

Abstract

This paper attempts at reconstructing the life cycle of flint bifacial tools in two major technological trajectories, each aimed at a different end. It is focused on discarded polished flint bifacial tools (axe, adze, chisel) and bifacial polished debitage items found in Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites (9th–6th millennium BP) from the Southern Levant.Recent studies of Holocene flint assemblages revealed special types of debitage items such as blades, flakes, cores and core trimming elements, all bearing traces of polish. The discovery of these polished debitage items in Levantine sites enabled a study of bifacial tool resharpening and recycling techniques, emphasising the exceptional attention paid to this tool category. Since polished bifacial tools appear in many old world Holocene archaeological contexts, the data and interpretation presented in this study have implications far beyond the Southern Levant and could relate to universal technological properties of flint axes and other bifacial tools.