Sentences with phrase «off sharp flakes»

Not exact matches

This technology, named after the famous Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania where archaeologists Louis and Mary Leakey discovered the implements in the 1930s, consists of hitting a stone «core» with a stone «hammer» in such a way that a flake sharp enough to butcher an animal is struck off.

Unlike earlier populations, Middle Paleolithic toolmakers followed a set of steps to prepare chunks of rock, or cores, before pounding off sharp tools, or flakes.

Stone artifacts unearthed in the same sediment as the fossil jaw included chunks of rock from which sharp flakes were pounded off and used as cutting tools.

«The traditional view was that hominins started knapping to make sharp - edged flakes so they could cut meat off of animal carcasses, and maybe used the cores, called «choppers», to break open bones to get at the marrow» Lewis says.