Microliths

Microlith barb thingie Oleny Ostrov Russia 1

A microlith is a small stone flake, less than ca. 30 mm long, that was mounted onto a shaft or handle. The sharp, exposed edge of the microlith was the cutting element.

Microliths were mounted individually or were arranged in a line to provide a long edge. They were used as armatures on arrows or darts, or were the cutting edge for knives. By using small microliths in composite tools, the repair-kit did not require large stones. Microlith technology was independently invented in many different times and places, and archaeologists have developed elaborate typologies to describe these small stone tools. The earliest microliths are from the Howiesons Poort period in South Africa, ca. 60,000 BP, and they are an early example of technological innovation in our species.

‘Backed’ microliths are small blades or flakes that have been steeply trimmed on one edge. The opposite edge, called the chord, is left sharp and unmodified. The technique of steep trimming is called backing, in the sense that trimming creates a ‘back’ opposite the sharp working edge. Often backing was accomplished by supporting the microlith on an anvil during trimming, which creates a steep, nearly 90 degree edge. Special core reduction techniques were invented to produce the blanks for microliths.

Microlith inserts were not always backed. Finely-crafted blades made by a pressure technique were used in many places, and these were snapped into segments to use as microliths. Pressure blades were very uniform in width and thickness, which made it easier to fit them together. These regular blade segments were often inserted into a groove in the bone or wood, and cemented solidly in place with pitch or glue. In contrast, Aboriginal people in Australia made ‘death spears’ in the recent past by affixing scores of unmodified quartz or glass flakes directly to an unmodified shaft with plant resin. It was made this way so that the barbs would break off inside the victim.

Long composite daggers have been found in Europe and Russia with microliths affixed to both sides of a handle made from a metatarsal bone. Aztec warriors in Mexico made a fearsome sword, called a Macuahuitl, by affixing obsidian blade segments to a wood shaft. Conquistadors reported that these swords were capable of decapitating a horse.

Single-microlith knives were made in many regions, with the replaceable microlith mounted onto a handle for leverage. Examples have been recovered from Neolithic lake houses in Switzerland, and Makah First Nations people at the Hoko River Site in North America used microlith-sized flake knives to process salmon and other fish. From the Epipalaeolithic through the Neolithic periods, microliths were used as the cutting elements in sickles to harvest grain, and until recently, microlith-sized stone flakes were pounded into boards in the Mediterranean region and used to thresh grain.

Examples of microliths hafted onto bone dart points have been recovered from Palaeolithic sites in Russia, and this way of making armatures was widespread across Ice Age North America, and into later periods. Microliths were popular from Mesolithic times as the armatures for arrows. Examples have been recovered from peat bogs in Europe with the microliths mounted on the arrowshaft as projecting barbs, pointed tips, or long cutting edges. A particularly well-preserved example was recovered from the Ronneholms Mosse bog, southern Sweden, dating to about 7000 BP.

A counter-intuitive arrowhead was made by mounting a microlith with the cutting edge oriented at right-angles to arrow’s shaft. It was evidently an effective approach, as ‘transverse’ microlithic arrows arose in the Mesolithic and were found in Tutankhamun’s tomb many thousands of years later. They were widespread during the Bronze Age in West Asia, and were used alongside metal arrowheads for thousands of years. They can be seen in Bronze Age sculptures portraying hunting and warfare scenes. Transverse arrowheads continued to be made by San people of South Africa into the recent past, armed with stone or glass microliths.

Microlith-based dart and arrow armatures were predominately used for hunting, but evidence exists that they were also used in violent encounters. At the Jebel Sahaba cemetery site in the Nile Valley of Egypt, dating to the Epipalaeolithic period, 13,400 BP, numerous microliths were found protruding from bones. An obsidian microlith was found embedded the skull of a skeleton at Nataruk in Kenya, dating to 9500-10,500 BP. In Australia, the skeleton of a man was discovered next to a bus shelter in the suburb of Narrabeen, near Sydney, with microliths embedded in the spine. The skeleton is 4000 years old, and according to the Garigal traditional owners, the manner of the killing suggests that the man was punished for violating tribal law.