북한의 선사시대 뗀석기 연구

A Study on the Prehistoric Knapped Stone Artifacts of North Korea

Since the latter half of the 1940s, knapped stone artifacts have been unearthed from several prehistoric sites of North Korea. They were recovered not only from Palaeolithic sites, but also from Neolithic and Bronze age sites that raw materials are characterized by obsidian. It seems that this material was used by prehistoric man until the end of the Bronze age. Studies on the technological features of knapped stones have been attempted step by step after the end of the 1950s in North Korea. In North Korea, archaeologists describe the goals and contributions of lithic analysis; these included using the processes of debitage and the technological analysis of stone tools as chronological makers, understanding the evolution in form and function of stone tools. Archaeologists have explained that the most primitive methods of producing flakes for use as tools are block-on block technique and direct percussion with hammerstone. Studies of the flaking technique show that Upper Palaeolithic industry are characterized by indirect percussion and pressure flaking. It can be said that technological approaches applied to the analysis of knapped stone assemblages by archaeologists of North Korea are problematic.