Microliths (backed bladelets)
Microlitos (hojitas de dorso para armas compuestas)
- Date
- c. 71 ka · confidence high
- Place
- Pinnacle Point 5-6, Mossel Bay, South Africa
- Credited to
- Homo sapiens
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Small geometric bladelets of heat-treated silcrete, designed to be inserted in series into wooden or bone shafts. A modular, lightweight and repairable technology.
It reappears and disappears several times (Howiesons Poort 65–60 ka, then 40 ka); the European Mesolithic microlithism is a reinvention.
What it led to
- Light, long-range projectiles: safer hunting
- Economy of raw material: maximum edge length per gram
- Standardisation enabling the exchange of components between groups
- A tradition that culminates in the Mesolithic and the Later Stone Age
Built on
- Systematic stone blade productionc. 500 ka
- Levallois prepared-core techniquec. 300 ka
- Birch bark tar adhesivec. 200 ka
- Compound adhesive of plant gum and ochrec. 70 ka
- Heat treatment of silcretec. 72 ka
- Heat treatment of silcrete
- Levallois prepared-core technique
- Birch bark tar adhesive
Made possible
- Bow and arrowc. 64 ka
- Flint sicklec. 23 ka
- Spear-thrower (atlatl)c. 20 ka
- Bow and arrow
- Flint sickle
- Spear-thrower (atlatl)