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Description: | A small burin or borer, made of black flint. Most of the surfaces have the beginnings of a grey patina, still shiny; however, the apparent later removal of some flakes around the grip, and an apparent line of retouch down one side of the point, have exposed the black flint beneath. Since it can take a considerable length of time for the grey patina to form, this suggests a long period between the original making of the piece and its retouching and reuse. This line of retouching also suggests that the piece was somewhat larger in its original form. The piece has been made by the process of knapping, using hard and soft hammers of stone and wood to remove flakes and shape the tool. It has been shaped from a larger blade which itself has come from a large flint core. The piece is roughly heart-shapes with a descending point, the end of which has been broken off in antiquity (as indicated by the formation of the grey patina over this break. We can thus reconstruct the ?life? of this tool: it was made from a flint blank, and used maybe as a burin; at some point, the point broke off and the tool was discarded. It lay unused for a considerable length of time before being picked up again and retouched to be used as a borer. The angle of the retouch suggests that the borer was used to enlarge holes in leather, bone or wood, and was being twisted in a clockwise direction, which further suggests a right-handed user. The tool wore down, and was finally discarded. This tool dates from a point between the Late Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age (c. 2900 to 600 BC). | Format: | text/html | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ | Publisher: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Rights holder: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Subjects: | archaeology | Temporal: | -2900
-1500 | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefac... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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