Sentences with phrase «sharp flakes»
"Sharp flakes" refers to small, thin, and pointy pieces of a material, typically referring to objects like glass, metal, or ice. Full definition
Averaging about 2 to 4 inches across, they were made using what paleoanthropologists call a «free hand» technique: A core is held in one hand and repeatedly struck with a round hammerstone held in the other hand to release sharp flakes.
discovermagazine.com
Archaeologists have long considered the advent of the Levallois method of making stone tools — a strategy for obtaining broad, thin, sharp flakes from a chunk of stone called a core — to be a significant development in human prehistory.
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.
Then you strike that surface to chip off sharp flakes, and finish the job by carving the base of a flake into the telltale chunky stem.
The maker mainly used a two - handed technique, holding a core on another large rock, or anvil, and hitting it with a hammer stone to release sharp flakes.
«The premise was that our lineage alone took the cognitive leap of hitting stones together to strike off sharp flakes, and that this was the foundation of our evolutionary success.»
«They show that the knappers already had an understanding of how stones can be intentionally broken, beyond what the first hominin who accidentally hit two stones together and produced a sharp flake would have had.
«With a sharp flake you could cut more effectively than with a carnivore's canine.
They date back at least 118,000 years — some might even be 194,000 years old — and include an array of choppers and sharp flakes.
The flint artefacts of these pioneer settlers are of a characteristic type known as Clactonian, mostly comprising simple razor - sharp flakes that would have been ideal for cutting meat, sometimes with notches on them that would have helped cut through the tougher animal hide.
«The premise was that our lineage alone took the cognitive leap of hitting stones together to strike off sharp flakes and that this was the foundation of our evolutionary success,» the researchers said, in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.