Technology and Terminology of Knapped Stone - IRIT

Fig. 25 — Debitage of a Levallois point.
regularly convex bulb. It is therefore by using the convexity of the lower face of this first flake
that the shape and thickness of a second flake (or several successive flakes) can be predetermined
(fig. 27).
After the debitage of the flake whose lower face will serve as a debitage surface, and
before the removal of the Kombewa flake, a striking platform can be prepared, but this is an
optional step. The two impacts that removed first the core-flake, and then the Kombewa flake,
can oriented in any direction relative to one another.
The manufacture of cleavers is one of the main purposes of the big Kombewa flakes of
the African Acheulean (fig. 28). A few rare examples show that the Kombewa method, in
combination with the Levallois method for the shape of the flake, was used to manufacture
cleavers of the Tabelbala type (an intentionally plunging Levallois flake) 67
. In that case the upper
face is mostly formed by the convexity of a large percussion bulb instead of being prepared by
predetermining removals.
The expression "Kombewa method" (based on the expression "Levallois method") is
relevant whenever there is evidence for the clear intention to predetermine, and therefore
produce, Kombewa flakes. This is for instance the case for some French Mousterian pieces 68
, for
the mata'a tanged obsidian pieces from Easter Island (fig. 49 : 3), for some gun flints from
Britain or from the Vaucluse in France, and for the flints used in Spain for threshing sledges.
67 Tixier, 1956; Alimen, 1978.
68 Bordes, 1961 and 1975 ; Geneste, 1985.
69