Abstract
Stone knife has been known as a category of agricultural tools in resent years. However, there are not much effective explanations about the real functions that stone knifes were before. In Taiwan, the Japanese scholars like Kokubu Naoichi had investigated and excavated a lot of stone knifes, and applied typology and ethnography to mention the possible functions and the objects used on. Many studies followed the traditions, but in this study, there is another method called use-wear analysis to apply to break the framework of typology. The method is a part of experimental archaeology; it is through establishing standard observation method to record the forms and distributions of scarring and micro-fractures on the artifacts, and returning the possible usage pattern by concrete wear. The stone knifes this study analyzed were form NNK Site, WK Site, SPP Site, SPC Site, YHFS2 Site and WCTN Site from Dahu Culture Wushantou Phase (2800~2000 B.P.). This study applied low-power method to observe the use-wear on drills and blades. According to the results of the observations, there are different forms and distributions of use-wear on the blades in different types of stone knife. This study divided stone knifes into five types, such as rectangular, triangular, half-moon-shaped, almond-shaped, and comb-shaped. The results presented that there were some shared characteristics in the six Site, for instance, most of stone knifes were side edge style, most of the fractures were not on the blade-side and some types preferred particular apex forms. This mutual use-wear pattern implied Dahu people had certain concepts and thoughts about the stone knifes. There must be some rules when they using them; nevertheless, there also showed different types presented differences of use-wear conditions in the blades and drills. It means that different types may have different usages. Besides, in each Site, different types presented different fractured levels on blades. Also there were different combinations of stone knifes in the Sites, the result may represent there were different business activities in these Sites.