Lesson plan
Microburin
A microburin is a characteristic waste product from manufacture of lithic tools — sometimes confused with an authentic burin — which is characteristic of the Mesolithic, but which has been recorded from the end of the Upper Paleolithic until the Chalcolithic. This type of lithic artifact was first named by Henri Breuil who defined it as "a type of angular, smooth, with a terminal retouch in the form of a small notch". Breuil initially thought that the microburins had a functional use as a type of microlithic burin. However, he later came to realize that the manufacturing technique was different from that of the burin and that they could be waste products from the manufacture of microliths, but they may have occasionally been reused for a useful purpose, which is expected for parsimonious lithic resource exploitation. A microburin is a fragment of a lithic flake, or more precisely, of a lithic blade, that shows on its upper face the beginnings of a notch terminating in an oblique flection (whose surface can only be seen from the lower side) that ends in a very acute trihedral apex.…
Article summary
A microburin is a characteristic waste product from manufacture of lithic tools — sometimes confused with an authentic burin — which is characteristic of the Mesolithic, but which has been recorded from the end of the Upper Paleolithic until the Chalcolithic. This type of lithic artifact was first named by Henri Breuil who defined it as "a type of angular, smooth, with a terminal retouch in the form of a small notch". Breuil initially thought that the microburins had a functional use as a type of microlithic burin. However, he later came to realize that the manufacturing technique was different from that of the burin and that they could be waste products from the manufacture of microliths, but they may have occasionally been reused for a useful purpose, which is expected for parsimonious lithic resource exploitation. A microburin is a fragment of a lithic flake, or more precisely, of a lithic blade, that shows on its upper face the beginnings of a notch terminating in an oblique flection (whose surface can only be seen from the lower side) that ends in a very acute trihedral apex.…
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
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