69 chApter 7 the chipped StoNe ASSemBlAGe Conn Herriott The chipped stone assemblage from Area B at Yesodot (Khirbet Umm el-Kalkha) is biased towards tools because almost no débitage was retained during excavation. Table 7.1 is a summary of the chipped stone artifacts collected. Figure 7.1 is a site plan showing the find spots of the artifacts. Graphic recording of the chipped stone tools can be found in Figure 7.2. Débitage (N=4, Table 7.1:1, 2, 12, 14): Three core trimming elements (Table 7.1:1, 12, 14) and one chip (Table 7.1:2) were recovered from the site. Smaller débitage fragments were not collected. The retained flakes and chip could conceivably have been used as ad hoc blades or scrapers, although no retouch was applied to them. Microscopic analysis of use- wear patterns would confirm or deny this potential ad hoc usage. These flakes were found in Middle Bronze Age and Late Bronze Age (henceforth MB and LB) contexts. Core (N=1, Table 7.1:13; Fig. 7.2:1): The single core recovered from the site produced both flakes and bladelets. Typologically this piece fits the general mixed core tradition (Rosen 1997: 66). However, it is unclear whether the mixed nature of the scar pattern reflects a desire to produce non-bladelet flakes, or simply to prepare striking platforms for bladelets. This core was found in a disturbed context. A Chalcolithic date is likely (see below, sickles). Blades (N=3, Table 7.1:46; Fig. 7.2:2-4): Three simple retouched blade fragments were found. The large-grained chert used for these blades—as opposed to the smoother, harder gray and Eocene flint of the sickles—is revealing of their function and low value, as is the relatively poor standard of workmanship. Both of these factors might explain the hinge fractures on two of the three blades. Dates for such simple blades are difficult to assign, their presence having been noted in Neolithic-through-Iron Age contexts. The locus in which these blades were found did not yield clearly datable finds, but it overlay an LB locus— which supports an LB date. It may be worth noting here that a poor quality of workmanship has been associated with an increased use of metal objects, which are understood as supplanting stone tools’ practical role and causing their function or status to shift (Rosen 1997: 111, 153, 158, 162)—although Rosen would also maintain that the situation is more complex than this. Sickle segments (N=5, Table 7.1:3, 11, 15-17; Fig. 7.2:5- 9): Five sickles segments were recovered. One (Fig. 7.2:5) is a trapezoidal Large Geometric piece and therefore MB or LB in date. Three others (Fig. 7.2:6- 8) are in the backed-and-truncated sickle segment tradition, which is a Chalcolithic phenomenon in the southern Levant (apart from the Negev; Rosen 1997: 60). Although two (Fig. 7.2:6, 7) were found in MB/LB contexts, these three sickle segments—along with the above-mentioned core (Fig. 7.2:1)—form something of a group in that they were all made from brown Eocene flint. It is likely, therefore, that they represent Chalcolithic or Neolithic items re- used by the Bronze Age occupants. The use of backing in these sickle pieces suggests that they were hafted (Rosen 1997: 64) and therefore—as one expects of sickles—they served a cutting and slicing function, rather than deep sawing. Backing also supports a Chalcolithic date, although there are examples of backed blades from Intermediate Bronze Age contexts (Rosen 1997: 65).