Editing Hammerstone (section)

==== Active hard hammer ====
[[File:Percutores duros.jpg|thumb|Various types of hard hammer]]A simple stone with a [[worked edge]] held directly in the hand as a [[hammer]]. The hard hammer is and has been the most used throughout human history, because although other types of hammer are used as main tools for carving, stone hammers are the tools that prepared the way for the more advanced techniques. Hard percussion is the first to appear and the only one known for at least two million years (until the soft hammer is incorporated); it was used to manufacture tools throughout the entire [[Chaîne opératoire|operational sequence]] until lithic technology improved. Then, the hard hammer was relegated to the first stages of making an artifact: the initial roughing, the primary workmanship (the creation of preforms, which would later be refined with a soft or pressure hammer), the attack of percussion planes inaccessible to the soft hammer, the preparation of percussion platforms in certain nuclei, etc.

Despite indirect evidence of its long persistence, [[archeology]] has revealed very few hammers. Among the oldest are those cited by Jean and Nicole Chavaillon in both Gomboré 1B, Melka Kunturé and even [[Olduvai Gorge|Olduvai]] (layers I and II): Active hard hammers are distinguished by their oblong shape with one or two active edges with numerous shock marks and often small flakes (chipping), as well as some cracks.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Cavaillon|first1=Jean|last2=Cavaillon|first2=Nicole|date=1981|title=Gatlets aménagés et nucléus du Paléolitique Inférieur|journal=Préhistoire Africaine|pages=284}}</ref> These are recognized by the numerous traces of blows they have (microstars, percussion cones, fissures, random flakes, etc...).

It is possible that in the old and unsystematic excavations they went unnoticed, but it has also been said that the good stone hammers were so appreciated that the craftsman only abandoned them when they were useless.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Leroi-Gourhan|first1=André|last2=Brézillon|first2=Michel|year=1983|title=Fouilles de Pincevent, Essai d'analyse ethnographique d'un habitat magdalénien (section 36)|journal=Gallia Préhistoire|volume=Supplément 07|isbn=2-222-01479-4}}</ref> Semenov speaks of a deposit rich in hammering (in [[Polivanov]], [[Russia]]),<ref name="Semenov">{{Cite book|last=Semenov|first=Serguei A.|title=Tecnología prehistórica. Estudio de las herramientas y objetos antiguos a través de las huellas de uso.|publisher=Akal Editor|year=1981|isbn=84-7339-575-1|location=Madrid|pages=91, 102}}</ref> but, like the rest of the sites, they are almost all from the [[Neolithic]] period onwards.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Piel-Desruisseaux|first=Jean-Luc|title=Outils préhistoriques. Forma. Fabrication. Utilisation|publisher=Masson|year=1986|isbn=2-225-80847-3|location=Paris|pages=12}}</ref> The size of hard hammers depends on their function: there are very large ones for roughing, medium ones are used for the main work, small ones are auxiliary tools to prepare percussion platforms, or retouch flakes. As for the shape, there are circular, oval, rectangular, etc... In fact, the shape depends a lot on the style of the craftsman (at least for prehistorians who experiment with flint carving who acquire styles, different positions, and tastes).

Despite the fact that stone hammers are more typical of the manufacture of wide and short [[Lithic flake|flakes]], used with mastery they can achieve very precise control of rock chipping. In fact, cases of [[Blade (archaeology)|blades]] manufacture with a hard hammer have been witnessed, mainly in the [[Mousterian|Middle European Paleolithic]] (almost always [[Levallois technique|Levallois]] blades<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Révillion|first=Stéphane|date=1995|title=Technologie du débitage laminaire au Paléolithique Moyen en Europe Septentrionale: état de la question|journal=Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française|volume=92|issue=4|pages=425–441|doi=10.3406/bspf.1995.10058|issn=0249-7638}}</ref>), but also in the [[Upper Paleolithic|Upper]] and [[Epipaleolithic]]. While the extraction of blades is more effective with other techniques, there are enough indications to affirm that it can also be done with a hard hammer. There are even exceptional cases of [[obsidian]] blade of more than 30 centimeters manufactured in pre-Columbian [[Mexico]] and ancient [[Ethiopia]] and greater examples in excess of 70 centimeters found in present-day California. Modern experimental carvers have not been able to recreate these methods.<ref name="Inizan">{{Cite book|last1=Inizan|first1=Marie-Louise|title=Technologie de la pierre taillée|last2=Reduron|first2=Michel|last3=Roche|first3=Hélène|last4=Tixier|first4=Jacques|publisher=CREP-CNRS|year=1995|isbn=2-903516-04-9|location=Paris|pages=32, 75}}</ref>