Atomic force microscopy of microwear traces on Mousterian tools from Myshtylagty Lagat (Weasel Cave), Russia

Since durable technology emerged between 3.4 and 3.2 million years ago, stone tools served as a major material means that hominins used to survive. Determining how different lithic tools functioned is a principal question in human evolution. The main experimentally based approach to the functional study of lithic technology uses stereo and incident-light microscopy, and is known as the Keeley Method. Although this method has demonstrated success in linking the morphology of microwear traces on flint tools to the function of the tool, there is no agreed upon model of how these microwear polishes form. At the same time, the characterization of these polishes has been a largely qualitative process. Herein, we use the atomic force microscope (AFM) to scan microwear traces on Middle Palaeolithic (Mousterian) tools from Weasel Cave, Russia to show quantitative data and small scale features of microwear polishes interpreted (using the Keeley Method) as due to contact with meat, fresh hide, dry hide, bone, wood, and hafting. These results follow those of to the previous AFM study on the experimental tools, namely that the meat and dry hide polishes are the least developed polishes with smaller changes in roughness and that the bone polish and wood polishes are more highly developed polishes and exhibit larger changes in roughness.