Identical scraper miles away.... coincidence?

[Sam James]

See here my scraper found in Swindon UK, I have seen this illustrated piece and was amazed to see it was exactly the same but about 2/3 smaller and in a orange colour flint. The illustrated one was found in Dorset some 75 miles away. Thanks !

[Hal Gorges]

Nice tool, looks like you’re lookin in the right place... I can tell you that tools from all over the world in whatever time period, that were used for the same tasks, looked pretty much the same, including modern day ones...It’s a same folks ,same tools thing, at least that’s one criteria I use to help me figure out what’s what...I Hope Painshill sees your post, again, welcome, James

[gregszybala]

Welcome to the site Sam. Not so much coincidence more function and form. Made from a flake and many flakes come off like that then modified and utilized.

[painshill]

Welcome to arrowheads.com

Yes, that looks to be a nice little scraper which I would think is probably Mesolithic or early Neolithic. It does have some secondary flaking but if you compare it more critically to the illustration you found, the resemblance is only superficial with respect to the overall shape. That's coincidental .

Have a really close look at the lower end of the illustrated piece and compare it to your own. See all those little nibbles taken out of the edge of the illustrated tool? That's extensive secondary flaking which is not present on your piece. That kind of flaking usually represents the 'working edge' of the tool and is a refinement to both shape and improve the functionality of the tool. By contrast, yours has much more limited secondary flaking of a completely different kind and the working edge of the tool is positioned differently. It's more in the territory of an expedient tool produced in a rough and ready manner from a primary flake.

In fact, it's not really possible to be completely sure that it has a cutting edge at all from a single picture taken at that angle. I'm assuming that it does, but if you take a look at the top left there are a few long flakes removed and it could possibly just be a core that was used to produce some micro-flakes. Those were commonly produced in the Mesolithic for use in composite tools as a series on mini-blades on serrated artefacts.

You've said that yours is two-third the size of the illustration but haven't given us the actual size of either piece. That would be helpful information, together with additional pictures that show the actual 3-D form and confirm to what extent it has a 'working edge'.

[Sam James]

Thanks Guys and thanks Painshill.... here is some more pix showing ruler in CM

[painshill]

From the additional pics, I am inclined to think that this is (or was) a scraping/cutting tool but the unusual flaking pattern suggests it has been subsequently cannibalised to remove some micro-flakes for another purpose.

[redrocks]

Nice scraper Sam!

[clovisoid]

Cool find!

It's neat how effective that simple scraper shape is. You could find relatively similar examples (with some particular differences as Painshill detailed) on basically any continent where humans lived in a neolithic stone age context.)