Baillet Mickael, Leventi Areti, Chen Hong, Soressi Marie
School of Art and Archaeology, Zhejiang University, 148 Tianmushan Rd, Hangzhou, 310028 China.
Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Einsteinweg 2, 2333CC Leiden, Netherlands.
J Paleolit Archaeol. 2025;8(1):26. doi: 10.1007/s41982-025-00225-2. Epub 2025 Aug 26.
Microwear analysis of lithic artifacts offers potential to reconstruct the post-depositional history of prehistoric assemblages, as flint's microcrystalline structure preserves mechanical and chemical traces over time. While micro-use-wear studies have long examined tool function, their application to taphonomic processes remains underexplored. The techniques and protocols used in use-wear studies could be applied to reconstruct the taphonomic life-history of these artifacts, but this approach has not yet become mainstream. Here, we perform an in-depth review of use-wear literature and report our findings with organizing them into four main issues: the debates on the mechanical versus chemical origin of post-depositional polishes; the difficulties with classification or quantification of surface and ridges alterations; the distinction of dirt layers from alterations; and the experimental references available for assessing micro-alterations. The limitations we identify allow us to suggest the necessity of performing mineralogical analysis of post-depositional polishes to confirm their origin, systematic high-magnification assessment of alterations on surfaces/ridges-for instance using a simple ordinal scale to facilitate the analysis of large samples of artifacts-and adopting an efficient cleaning protocols prior to microwear analysis. We also conclude that there is a need to design and perform in vitro replication of natural polishes under controlled conditions that mimic the conditions of prehistoric sites in low entropy system close to "primary contexts." With this paper, we show that integrating the techniques of microwear analysis into the toolkit of geoarchaeology has the potential to advance the reconstruction of site formation processes.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s41982-025-00225-2.
对石器文物的微磨损分析为重建史前组合的埋藏后历史提供了可能，因为燧石的微晶结构会随着时间保留机械和化学痕迹。虽然微使用磨损研究长期以来一直在研究工具功能，但它们在埋藏学过程中的应用仍未得到充分探索。使用磨损研究中使用的技术和方案可用于重建这些文物的埋藏学生命史，但这种方法尚未成为主流。在这里，我们对使用磨损文献进行了深入回顾，并将我们的发现组织成四个主要问题进行报告：关于埋藏后抛光的机械起源与化学起源的争论；表面和脊部变化的分类或量化困难；区分污垢层与变化；以及可用于评估微变化的实验参考。我们确定的局限性使我们建议有必要对埋藏后抛光进行矿物学分析以确认其起源，对表面/脊部的变化进行系统的高倍评估——例如使用简单的序数尺度以促进对大量文物样本的分析——并在微磨损分析之前采用有效的清洁方案。我们还得出结论，有必要在模拟低熵系统中接近“原始环境”的史前遗址条件的受控条件下设计并进行天然抛光的体外复制。通过本文，我们表明将微磨损分析技术整合到地质考古学工具包中有可能推进遗址形成过程的重建。
在线版本包含可在10.1007/s41982-025-00225-2获取的补充材料。
