Taphonomic process versus usewears in the formation of macroscopic traces. An experimental assesment

International audienceSince many decades, the caracterisation of lithic tools that might be used by prehistoric societies is based on the presence of retouch on their active parts. Thereby, typo-technological and then functional analysis were initially interested in retouched tools ; unmodified tools were considered as « remains » of the lithic production, as « roughout » or « technical products ». Recently, lithics functional analysis have proved the common use of unretouched edges of retouched tools and even the use of unmodified tools, especially in case of domestic activities, from final Palaeolithic to Neolitic. These unmodified tools are firstly identified by traceologist thanks to the presence of edge damages, as chips, on their active parts. Researchers are therefor confronted to the difficulty in distinguishing usewears from accidental wears which may be due to trampling, for exemple. This is even more true when it comes to tools used briefly on soft materials, often relative to an expedient production, especially in the Mesolithic. It is the reason why these kind of industry have been ignored by researchers for a long time. But these tools, frequently used for domestic activities, are still a key to better understand the way of life of these prehistoric societies. This poster will present experimentations made since 2015 : two experimentations of butchering on horses and deers made with 85 tools and an experimentation of trempling made with 51 tools, all unretouched. Wears due to these different process are compared by macroscopic and microscopic observations, from x10 to x200. Results are part of a Phd research on lithic traceology interested in the function of unretouched tools from Mesolithic to early Neolithic in south of France. The objective is to propose new standards and criteria to distinguish taphonomic wears from usewears, in order to better recognize the use of unretouched tools by prehistoric societies