The Microwear and Morphology of Microliths from Gleann Mor

Abstract

The Mesolithic in western Europe has been characterized as a period of archery hunting (Rozoy 1989). Stone tool assemblages are frequently dominated by microliths and it has been widely assumed that these microliths formed the tips and barbs of arrows (Mellars 1976; Myers 1989; Zvelebil 1986). There is undeniably some contextual evidence to support this interpretation, but other functional possibilities cannot be discounted. David Clarke (1976), for instance, discussed the potential for microliths to be used as components of plant processing tools, while Dumont (1988) noted a number of alternative microlith functions in a microwear study of material from Mount Sandal in northern Ireland. During the course of research on upland Mesolithic assemblages in southwest Scotland excavated by Tom Affleck, one of the authors inferred a range of functions other than projectile use from wear traces on microliths (Finlayson 1989). This was of particular interest, as conventional wisdom generally divides British Mesolithic sites into upland, microlith rich, hunting camps and lowland, microlith poor, winter residential sites (Mellars 1976). Similarly, it has been assumed that if microliths represent projectile points, they would have had a high degree of visibility and therefore emblematic status. Building on these assumptions, detailed social and economic reconstructions have been proposed by authors such as Myers (1987, 1989), Jacobi (1987) and Zvelebil (1986).