This large silcrete retouched flake is from the Kongorong Hills of South Australia.  It likely dates to the Holocene period and was collected from a surface site in 1939.  This type of tool is referred to as a ‘steep-edged scraper’ in the early archaeological literature.  Retouched flakes like this date from the Pleistocene to the recent past.

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The artefact in this model  was made by removing a series of relatively large hard-hammer percussion flakes from around the perimeter, followed by a series of smaller removals to refine the edge characteristics. The surface of the stone is heavily patinated and modern damage in various places has revealed that the interior of the stone is almost completely de-vitrified (the silica has leached out, and the interior is white and chalky). The patch of reddish cortex on the dorsal surface indicates that the stone was likely from a bedrock source, rather than river gravels.

The artefact is part of the Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology teaching collection, University of New England.

See the annotations for technological details about this stone tool.