page_title: Lithic reduction
section_title: Blanks and preforms
hierarchical_section_title: Lithic reduction / Blanks and preforms
caption_attribution_description: Preform for a polished ax
context_page_description: In archaeology, in particular of the Stone Age, lithic reduction is the process of fashioning stones or rocks from their natural state into tools or weapons by removing some parts. It has been intensely studied and many archaeological industries are identified almost entirely by the lithic analysis of the precise style of their tools and the chaîne opératoire of the reduction techniques they used.
  Normally the starting point is the selection of a piece of tool stone that has been detached by natural geological processes, and is an appropriate size and shape. In some cases solid rock or larger boulders may be quarried and broken into suitable smaller pieces, and in others the starting point may be a piece of the debitage, a flake removed from a previous operation to make a larger tool. The selected piece is called the lithic core. A basic distinction is that between flaked or chipped stone, the main subject here, and ground stone objects made by grinding. Flaked stone reduction involves the use of a hard hammer percussor, such as a hammerstone, a soft hammer fabricator, or a wood or antler punch to detach lithic flakes from the lithic core.
context_section_description: A blank is a stone of suitable size and shape to be worked into a stone tool. Blanks are the starting point of a lithic reduction process, and during prehistoric times were often transported or traded for later refinement at another location.  Blanks might be stones or cobbles, just as natural processes have left them, or might be quarried pieces, or flakes that are debitage from making another piece.  Whatever their origin, on most definitions no further steps have yet been taken to shape them, or they become a preform.
  The next stage creates a preform, or roughly shaped piece of stone, that probably reveals the final form of the tool, but is not complete.  Preforms might also be transported or traded.  Typically, a preform is the shaped remnant of a lithic core. Larger and thicker than the intended tool, it lacks the final trimming and refinement that is present in the completed artifact.  Sometimes basic features such as stems and notches have been initiated.  In most cases, the term refers to an incomplete projectile point.
caption: Upper Neolithic axe-head preform
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