64 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 182 



time to have desired to make different shaped gravers in different ways, gradua- 

 tions between these so-called types certainly do occur, and hard and fast divi- 

 sions are all very well when the selected specimens exhibited in museum series 

 are considered, but in the field intermediate varieties are also found. ... It 

 depends on whether the working edge of the graver is like a screwdriver or 

 like a gouge. Several subdivisions within each of these classes are distinguished 

 according to the formation of the other side of the working edge, the one side 

 of which is formed by the graver facet. Sometimes this just consists of another 

 graver facet, in which case the working edge is formed by the intersection of 

 two graver facets ; at other times it is seen to be a trimmed edge, and so on. 



Miller (1955, 1956) lias stated: 



The screwdriver type is further subdivided into : Ordinary, Angle, and Single 

 Blow types while the gonge type is broken down into : Polyhedric Angle, Single 

 Blow, Multiple Blow, Beaked, and Flat types, all of which do not appear in the 

 southern Virginia category. Those that do occur have been examined and classi- 

 fied as belonging to the ordinary scretvdriver or ''hec-de-fliite" type, single faceted 

 ordinary, polyhedric, parrot-ieaJc (oblique convex), and oblique concave angle 

 types. Heretofore, such tools have been either overlooked, unnoticed, or not 

 considered as part of the lithic industries of this portion of Virginia and North 

 Carolina. This assemblage of burins must not be confused as of comparable 

 age with European and Asiatic specimens but they can be assigned to the 

 Paleo-American horizon. 



Associated with these burins are various types of projectile points, scrapers, 

 borers or perforators, choppers, and a few cleavers or "coup-de-poings," com- 

 parable in chipping tradition to Old World Chellean-Auchellean examples. 

 These burins or gravers occur not only on lamellar but on rough percussion 

 flakes of chert. 



The single burin from Grassy Creek site, 44Mc53, was fashioned 

 from a lamellar chert flake 28 mm. long. A number of chips were 

 struck from one edge, the longest of which measured 19 mm., to create 

 the burin facet. From the opposing face a number of smaller chips 

 were cast off to make a shorter burin facet. Along one of the long 

 sides were a number of very fine chipping scars indicating that this 

 tool was not only a burin but a scraper as well. 



In speaking about burins, MacGowan (1950) indicated that the 

 Magdalenians made better blades and burins than the people of the 

 Aurignacians who started this artifact concept. "The burins helped 

 the Magdalenians to make new implements of bone such as needles, 

 fishhooks, harpoons, and spearthrowers." Just exactly w^hen these 

 tools were first conceived is miknown for "one authority puts it from 

 11,500 to 8,500 years ago, and another from 70,000 to 25,000." This is 

 the fault of relative chronology based on geological estimates. He 

 stated that "there are no burins in northern Asia or the New World," a 

 statement which has been corrected by later studies. 



'Wliether burins are a carryover from Magdalenian times into the 

 New World and the artif actual concept difl'used into the existing cul- 

 tural groups cannot be stated with any assurance, for it is not known. 

 So far, no burins have been reported from the Lindenmeier site, the 



