Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1987 - 59

Microflahesare photographed with sand grains to show the shape differences.
The rounded grains are sand. The lines on the background grid are 0.2 inch apart.

A sample of sand grains, which may contain microdebitage , is ready for microscopic examination.
one type of microdebitage microflakes.
They look like lithic flakes and are
almost certainly made by flintknapping.
Sometimes stone working makes little
angular lumps that are not microflakes,
but were formed by human activity.
These I call microchunks. Together,
microflakes and microchunks make up
Fladmark's microdebitage, but it is easier to count them separately, because
miniature flakes can be counted as microflakes, and questionable grains called
microchunks.
Uses

of microdebitage
Microdebitage has not been an archaeological technique for very long, and so
far it has primarily been utilized to find

sites in areas where normal survey methods are difficult. Soil samples can be
taken from the surface or with coring
devices, and can then be examined for
microdebitage. Because we know that it
is produced by flintknapping, microdebitage can also be used for determining the location of that specific activity in archaeological sites.
The analysis of activity location in
archaeology is based on one or more of
several assumptions. A traditional assumption often used in interpreting archaeological sites is that the place where
an artifact is found archaeologically
corresponds with where it was used: as
if raw materials, tools, and garbage
were used and then dropped and left
there until the site was abandoned. A
more recent model developed by Michael

Schiffer suggests that material is left
on sites in three different ways: primary
refuse, which is the material that remains on a site area where it was used
after the removal of garbage and of
anything like tools or raw materials
that was going to be reused; secondary
refuse, the trash that was collected from
where it was dropped and put into a
separate garbage place or pile; and de
facto refuse, which is indeed everything
left where it was dropped, usually when
a site was about to be abandoned. This
model has found favor based on the
current behavior of people (and the
presence of garbage dumps in archaeological sites).
Microdebitage is formed by a specific
activity where that activity takes place,
and because of its size it is not likely to
be cleaned away or removed. It is probably trampled into the dirt or other
floor by normal foot traffic. Therefore
(barring vacuum cleaners!) microdebitage is likely to be available for archaeologists to find as primary refuse. As
such, it can identify lithic manufacture
areas even when all of the larger debitage
and tools have been removed.
While an MA candidate at the University of Calgary, Kathleen Hull used
microdebitage in the spatial analysis of
excavated tipi rings (which are conventionally interpreted as representing the
outlines of tipis). Areas where samples
showed presence of microdebitage were
thought to be where lithic tools were
manufactured or refurbished. Presence
of other types of artifacts was used to
suggest the function of other areas in
the tipis, but the presence of microdebitage allowed Hull to differentiate
between the areas where stone tools had
been made and those where the tools had
been used and lost or dropped.
A study I participated in used microdebitage to determine activities in the
Sba'badid longhouse, near Seattle, Washington. The structure is thought to
have been about 26 feet by 79 feet (8 by
24 meters), and ethnographic evidence
suggests that it would have been occupied by several families, each with its
own area. The house was divided into
six sections for study. Based on the
artifacts found, sections I and IV were
thought to contain stone-workers. But
based on the amount of microdebitage
from several samples in each section,
section I did not contain a flintknapper,
while sections III and IV probably did.
Microdebitage can be used this way,to
supplement artifact data in determining what happened where in sites, as it
can be used to help locate sites. It is a
new technique, not yet commonly applied at archaeological sites. But as its
use becomes more widespread, it can
add a great deal to our understanding
of cultures known to us only through
archaeology.
1987
July/August

Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1987

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1987