Gloss and use-wear traces on flint sickles and similar phenomena

Abstract

Using a scanning electron microscope, the high optical polish or gloss and other use-wear traces on the edges of sickle blades are characterized and compared with polishes on other artifacts and natural pieces. The photomicrographs of the surface features and cross sections of the sickle blades as well as laboratory simulation tests, show that the gloss does not form an additive surface layer. Instead, polish formation is considered to be the result of surface alteration caused by frictional mechanisms. Use-wear traces also suggest evidence of how and on what crop the sickles were used. © 1982.