Сравнение на методи

	Lithic Refitting	Debitage Analysis
Област	Археология	Археология
Семейство	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Година на възникване	2005	1985
Създател	Developed within Palaeolithic technological studies; codified in macroscopic lithic analysis (Andrefsky)	Alan P. Sullivan & Kenneth C. Rozen (interpretation-free typology); systematized by William Andrefsky
Тип	Physical reconstruction of knapping events by conjoining stone fragments	Classification and quantification of flaking debris to infer reduction stage and technology
Основополагащ източник	Andrefsky, W. (2005). Lithics: Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521615006	Sullivan, A. P., & Rozen, K. C. (1985). Debitage Analysis and Archaeological Interpretation. American Antiquity, 50(4), 755-779.
Други названия	Lithic Conjoining, Refitting Analysis, Flake Refitting, Core Reconstruction	Flaking Debris Analysis, Debitage Typology, Mass Analysis of Debitage, Flake Debris Analysis
Свързани	2	2
Резюме	Lithic refitting is the physical reconstruction of stone-tool manufacture by conjoining flakes back onto their parent core and to one another, like reassembling a three-dimensional jigsaw of a single knapping episode. Because each flake removal leaves a negative scar and a matching fracture surface, an analyst who finds two fragments that fit can be certain they were once part of the same nodule and were detached in a known relative order. Refitting therefore recovers both the gestural sequence of stone working — the order, technique, and intent behind each removal — and the spatial relationships among the resulting pieces. When refitted artifacts come from different parts of a site or different stratigraphic units, the lines connecting them measure how material has moved, exposing post-depositional disturbance, intentional transport, and the integrity of the deposit. Andrefsky's standard treatment of macroscopic lithic analysis presents refitting as the most direct, if labor-intensive, window onto reduction technology and site formation.	Debitage analysis is the study of flaking debris — the flakes, fragments, and shatter struck off during stone-tool manufacture — to infer how stone was reduced, by what techniques, and to what stage. Because debitage typically outnumbers finished tools many times over at a site, it is the richest and most representative evidence of production, and quantifying it lets archaeologists reconstruct knapping behavior even where the tools themselves were carried away. Sullivan and Rozen's landmark 1985 paper argued that earlier debitage typologies smuggled interpretation into their categories, and proposed an interpretation-free classification based on a few objective morphological observations, separating description from inference. Alongside this typological approach sit aggregate methods such as mass analysis and size grading, which Andrefsky systematizes, that characterize whole assemblages by weight and size-class distributions rather than piece by piece. Together these techniques turn waste flakes into a quantitative record of the reduction process.