The Helwan retouch was a bifacial microlithic flint-tool fabrication technology characteristic of the Early Natufian culture in the Levant, a region in the Eastern Mediterranean (12,500 BP – 11,000 BP) such as the Harifian culture.[1]: 172–3  The decline of the Helwan Retouch was largely replaced by the "backing" technique and coincided with the emergence of microburin methods, which involved snapping bladelets on an anvil.[2][1]: 172–3  Natufian lithic technology throughout the usage of the Helwan Retouch was dominated by lunate-shaped lithics, such as picks and axes[1]: 167  and especially sickles (which were predominantly—at least 80% of the time—used for harvesting wild cereals).[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c Belfer-Cohen, Anna (1991). "The Natufian in the Levant". Annual Review of Anthropology. 20 (1): 167–186. doi:10.1146/annurev.an.20.100191.001123. ISSN 0084-6570.
  2. ^ Ofer Bar-Yosef, ASIA, WEST | Palaeolithic Cultures. In: Deborah M. Pearsall, Editor(s)-in-Chief, Encyclopedia of Archaeology, Academic Press, New York, 2008, pp. 873, 978012
  3. ^ Unger-Hamilton, Romana. The Epi-Palaeolithic Southern Levant and the Origins of Cultivation. Current Anthropology, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Feb., 1989), pp. 95, 96
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