burin

The absence of bladelets from any British site is striking, given the presence of many bladelet core artefacts (burins busques, Paviland burins, carinated burins and thick-nosed scrapers), but unsurprising, since, when complete, most of these bladelets would have been [less than or equal to] 15mm in length.

Only at Paviland is there good reason to suspect a greater variety of activities, since here true burins and worked osseous artefacts, some possibly of Aurignacian age, were present.

Paviland burins therefore probably post-date burins busques.

Of course, the burial comes from the same cave which has yielded the largest assemblage of Paviland burins currently known.

Burins prehistoriques: formes, fonctionnements, fonctions (ArcheoLogiques 2): 77-100.

About 52 sites show some association between Raysse burins and Gravette backed points, but very few of them have the required contextual integrity.

Sites with only Raysse burins, and no Noailles burins or backed points (La Picardie, Les Artigaux, Plasenn'al Lomm).

Sites with a stratigraphic sequence showing a decreasing proportion of Noailles burins and abrupt-backed points, and an increasing proportion of Rayssian burins, going from the bottom to the top of the stratigraphy (Pataud and Flageolet I).

Therefore, the association of backed bladelets with the rest of the assemblage cannot be accepted without doubt, and the validity of an association of Raysse burins and backed points (Gravette, microgravette or backed bladelets) is not proven at la Grotte du Renne.

That is not to say that there are no well documented examples of local succession: the stratigraphy of Pataud and Le Flageolet I show well that Raysse cores appear after Noailles burins.

Burins were the other common implement form found in the Dabba, and in this sample they comprise 19.

The feasibility of morphological transformations between burins and scrapers can, in the first instance, be evaluated by comparing the size and shape of the flakes on which each class of artefact is made.

Mean values of burins are consistently slightly larger and longer that the values for scrapers, but although both classes are quite variable in size they show much the same range of sizes.

For example, most burins have one or more margins that display a series of regular flake scars indicating blows applied to the ventral surface of a flake have retouched the dorsal face.