Levallois stone knapping technique

Levallois Stone Knapping Technique

Neanderthals had complex stone knapping techniques – they knew how to obtain a flake, blade or point in a particular shape. They did this employing a technique which we nowadays call ?????????. This technique consists of different variants but we can basically summarise it as follows: the edges around one of the core’s faces is worked first to prepare what is known as the striking platform. On the flipside, a number of flakes are extracted which allows for the shape of the final blade to be predetermined. The final strike is then applied to an edge on this face to extract the blade.
The diagram depicts the different steps of the ????????? knapping technique employed by Neanderthals to achieve the stone tools we find in Gorham's Cave.