Planing vs. Fluting
Tony Baker December 1, 2000
Planing and fluting are radically different from each other. They were
executed for different outcomes, by different techniques and at different
times in the manufacturing process. Finally, they were executed by
different groups and, therefore, are possibly a cultural trait.
Dome and Planing (D&P) was done to rapidly create flat, parallel faces.
As was seen on the previous page, the New
Clovis people at the Little River Clovis Complex used it to reduce large
nodules into flat bifaces. Folsom people used it to create flat, parallel
faced, thin projectiles. In both cases, planing was performed early in the
reduction process.
Fluting is
only basal thinning and would be better named "basal thinning". It was
executed near the completion of the point manufacture. I have heard some
people argue it was done to give the base a wedge configuration for
socket hafting. A wedge shape is not a flat face, which was the result of
planing. New Clovis is unique and a transitional artifact to Folsom
because it was both fluted and reduced with D&P. Fluting without D&P
reduction was done by Old Clovis, Plainview, Mesa, Dalton, Quad, and many
Archaic groups. Fluting, as it is defined in this document, was
not done by Folsom.
Fluting was accomplished from a platform constructed on the midline of
the nearly completed projectile. Since the projectile was almost finished,
it was also thin and required a well-prepared platform for the fluting
blow. Planing was accomplished by a blow directed at a point between the
midline and the dorsal edge of the biface. If the biface was thick, a
platform was not necessary. However, similar to fluting, as the biface
became thinner, a prepared platform became necessary to hit the correct
location.
Technically, it is very difficult to remove a D&P flake from the
midline of the preform. A flake originating from this location almost
always results in one of two outcomes. A successful channel flake that
exits out the dorsal face as indicated by the red line in the fluting
image, or a very short overshot (reverse hinge) that destroys the preform.
From the D&P platform which is located between the midline and the dorsal
face, there are three common results. These are the two fluting outcomes
plus a D&P flake that travels the length of the biface as indicated by the
red line in the planing image.
The association of D&P with New Clovis and Folsom may have given the
impression to the reader that it is a relatively new lithic technique. It
is not. The Levallois technique of the Mousterian Stage (Middle
Paleolithic) is D&P.