Toward the standardization of use-wear studies: constructing an analogue to prehistoric hide work

This thesis is a use-wear study that deals with microwear on stone endscrapers used on one worked material: animal skins. The first part of the study defines and describes the process of rendering freshly skinned pelts into functional leather or rawhide products, addressing confusing terminology found in the literature as well. Problems with past use-wear experiments dealing with animal skins are also confronted and explained. The second part of the study examines endscrapers used to flesh and dehair bison hides and compares the use-wear traces left on the tool edge by each activity. This suite of characteristics is then compared to those found on an assemblage of Clovis-age scrapers from the Gault site in central Texas.