Section III

The Flint

Worked stone is the most durable thing in a cave deposit and the most legible. How a core is prepared, where it is struck, and what changes when blade production arrives.

• 01The Levallois coreThe core is shaped first and the flake is struck last, which means the toolmaker had the finished shape in mind before the first blow.
• 02Striking and platformWhere you hit it and at what angle decides what comes off, and the scars left behind record the order of the blows.
• 03Blades and the Upper PalaeolithicLong narrow blades struck from a prepared core are a different production system, and they arrive with a different population.