TITLE: Differentiation between different soft hammers stigmats, quantitative and traceological approach
AUTHORS: Jean-Thomas Vie, Zixuan Shen

[DESCRIPTION]
Many studies in archaeology focus on the traces associated with stone knapping during prehistory, debating their correlation with the techniques used (Clément, 2021; Pelegrin, 2000). However, it is important to note that these traces are intimately linked to the physical qualities of the rock, as well as its response to the gesture, force, and experience of the knapper. These criteria can lead to a diversity of marks but can also introduce biases into the analysis, especially as the sensitivity of some rocks varies when struck. Thus, the complexity of interpreting knapping traces intensifies when adopting a qualitative approach, highlighting the multitude of factors to consider for precise analysis.

Furthermore, the historical approach to the analysis of soft percussion use has primarily focused on specific regions such as Europe (Roussel et al., 2009), North Africa (Sari, 2016), the Middle East (Pelegrin and Inizan, 2013), and the United States. These analyses have largely relied on locally available materials, such as limestone, deer antler, or boxwood. Consequently, they offer a limited perspective and may not necessarily generalize results to other geographical or ecological contexts. Additionally, while the use of different soft percussors and their identity have been established in areas where deer are found, many questions remain regarding the identity of the soft percussor in historically deer-free ecological zones. Acquiring soft percussors from animal wood is not possible, but the use of other materials such as hard vegetal wood may have played a similar role.

Through experimental flake production and the traceological study of marks on the platforms of these productions resulting from soft percussion, it would be possible to determine specific traces associated with vegetal soft percussion.

Therefore, we try to compare knapping by different percussors (three soft hammers and one hard hammer) on different raw materials, and observe their dimensional data and technical characteristics.

[BEFORE_START]
Be sure to conduct this experimentation in a controlled environment to avoid any contamination of archaeological sites.

[STEPS]
SECTION: Selection of a specific raw material
3. Select Raw material : Sandstone quartzite, Quartzite, Flint, Quartz
SECTION: Knapping with different hammers in order to produce flakes
7. Use hammer from low to high hardness to produce flakes : 
Soft rock percussor, volcanic rock percussor.
We plan to knap in the order of Sandstone quartzite, Quartzite, Flint, Quartz. For each raw material, we use the hammer in order to get 10 flakes (i.e., for each raw material, we will get 40 flakes totally）

8. please use only tangential gesture

SECTION: Camera setting
1. Place the camera in front of the experimentator
SECTION: Camera setting
2. run the carmera and the experimentator explain what do he want to produce 
18.5. thickness of the flake
18.9. Existence of hackles
18.7. thickness of the butt
18.6. width of the butt
18.11. Existence of ripples
18.12. Existence of bulb scar
18.14. angle de 
chasse (dorsal talus angle)
18.15. flaking angle (ventral talus angle)
18.13. Existence of point of impact
15. 10 flakes with soft rock percussor
13. 10 flakes with  Deer antler percussor
9. first produce 10 flakes with Boxwood percussor
SECTION: Selection of a specific raw material
6. Preparation of a bifacial preform while opening somes striking platforms (optional)

11. 10 flakes with bone percussor 
17. you can also store the core used to produce the flakes 
10. Store each flake with a paper explaining the type of hammer the raw material the gesture of production position in the dicritical schema with a number or on the excel document
12. Store each flake with a paper explaining the type of hammer the raw material the gesture of production position in the dicritical schema with a number or on the excel document
14. Store each flake with a paper explaining the type of hammer the raw material the gesture of production position in the dicritical schema with a number or on the excel document
16. Store each flake with a paper explaining the type of hammer the raw material the gesture of production position in the dicritical schema with a number or on the excel document
SECTION: Selection of a specific raw material
6.1. Choosing the suitable hammer：1 Boxwood percussor、2 Deer antler percussor、3 Soft rock percussor such as sandstone or limestone、 4 bone hammer
SECTION: Selection of a specific raw material
5. Preparation of the elongated flake core：
SECTION: Data record Macroanalysis
18.2. Technological size（length width, thickness，size of the piece)
SECTION: Data record Macroanalysis
18.4. width of the flake 
SECTION: Data analysis
27. Morphometric analysis
SECTION: Data analysis
27.1. Use first morphological lenght of the piece and surface of butts.

SECTION: Data analysis
27.2. Do a Shapiro wilk to verify the normality of the data
SECTION: Data analysis
27.3. If its Normally distribued you can do an anova or Manova to see the relashionship between the surface of the talus regardig the material of the Hammer if its not normally distribued you can don a non parametric test as Kruskal-Wallis. 
SECTION: Data analysis
28.1. Angle de chasse and flaking Angle can be analysed like in the previous test
SECTION: Data analysis
29.1. For the qualitatives data you can use a Chi squared test to verify the existence or no of  a stronger correlation between a hammer and the presence of a stigmat.
18.8. morphology of the bulb
18.10. Existence of lips
SECTION: Data record Macroanalysis
18.3. morphological lenght of the piece
SECTION: Data analysis
27.4. To visualise the data a scatter plot with regression line can be interesting.
SECTION: Data analysis
28. For the macro analysis we chose to compare
Angle de Chasse
Flaking angle 
Existence of each stigmats recorded
SECTION: Data analysis
29. For the micro analysis we chos tcompare :
Existence of smached residue, striations and hertzian cone (Byous 2013)
4. Each experimenter would conduct experiments on the two raw materials using five hammers, aiming to obtain at least five elongated flakes as samples for each combination of raw material and hammer.
We stored each flake in separate bags with a paper explaining the position in the sequence (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), the type of hammer, and the raw material.
SECTION: Data record Microanaysis
19. Additionally, we collected micro-trace information, including the existence of residue and a photographic representation of the trace.
SECTION: Data record Microanaysis
20. Using statistical software to analyze the aforementioned data, and we made comparisons between the experimental results.
SECTION: Data record Microanaysis
21. Micro trace (micro ware on talus)
SECTION: Data record Microanaysis
22. smached residue
SECTION: Data record Microanaysis
23. craks
SECTION: Data record Microanaysis
24. hertzian cone 40x 50x zoom
angle of the cone 
size of the cone 
smached crack
SECTION: Data record Microanaysis
25. scar small removal retouchings 
SECTION: Data record Microanaysis
26. stration
SECTION: Data record Microanaysis
19.1. For recording the datas and take the pictures at a microscale, use Dynolite. Thanks to those pocket microscope you can observe the presence or absence of the followings caracteristics and take a picture of it. you can also use RTI to improve the recording of the data.
SECTION: Data record Macroanalysis
18.1. Wave small bags, pens, papRer, cell phones, vernier calipers, rulers, gloves and goggles. Gloves and goggles are used as protaective tools, and we use small bags to store flakes and use a pen and paper to record numbers and other information. The vernier caliper is used to measure the size information of cores and flakes. When taking photos, we use the ruler as a scale. Since we don't have a protractor, we use the app on the phone to meeth a caliper in plastic if it is possible to avoid making new traces on the flakes. 
SECTION: Data record Macroanalysis
18. Macro Mesurments 
Collecting information from the artifacts. Technical information included the length of flakes, the technical size, the size and surface of the butt, the morphology of the butt and bulb, the existence of ripples, bulb scars, impact points, lips, the angle de chasse, and the flaking angle.