Soft hammerstone percussion use in bidirectional blade-tool production at Acila 36 and in bifacial knapping at Shagra (Qatar)
Résumé
A new observation of the flint industry from site 36 at Acila (Qatar) reveals that its blade production, issued from bidirectional cores, was practised using the ‘soft-stone direct percussion technique’. In addition to the similarity of the knapping method (shape of the blade core, intended light straight blades used as tanged arrowhead point blanks), the technique used to produce this ‘Blade Arrowhead Culture’ first described by H. Kapel about fifty years ago, provides yet another argument for a Levantine origin. Soft-stone percussion was also detected as the main shaping technique of foliate and tanged and barbed points in the more recent Qatari site of Shagra.