Heat Treating of Chert: Methods of Interpretation and Their Application

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Abstract
The practice of heating chert to facilitate its flaking has been documented for primitive cultures widely distributed in time and space. The basic procedure for interpreting evidence of prehistoric heat treating is analogy with ethnographic and experimental findings. When this procedure is properly structured in its logic and employs suitable measures of physical property change, sound inferences are possible. In Kentucky, evidence for heat treating of cherts by various prehistoric groups is emerging and indicates that the practice was important in several cultural periods and was practiced widely in the state.