Yubetsu technique

For other uses, see Yūbetsu.
The Yubetsu technique (湧別技法, Yūbetsu gihō) is a special technique to make <a href="/facts/Microblade_technology/eV9LLnT1">microblades</a>, proposed by Japanese scholar Yoshizaki in 1961, based on his finds in some <a href="/facts/Upper_Palaeolithic/BnpabgyJ">Upper Palaeolithic</a> sites in <a href="/facts/Hokkaido/kwacDkYD">Hokkaido</a>, Japan, which date from c. 13,000 BP.
The name comes from the <a href="/facts/Y%C5%ABbetsu_River/8256VWmf">Yūbetsu River</a> (湧別川, Yubetsugawa), on the right bank of which the <a href="/facts/Shirataki,_Hokkaid%C5%8D/wyADVvG0">Shirataki</a> (白滝遺跡, Shirataki Iseki) Palaeolithic sites were discovered. 
To make microblades by this technique, a large <a href="/facts/Biface/GeUl1rAm">biface</a> is made into a <a href="/facts/Lithic_core/eeWjREN9">core</a> which looks like a tall carinated scraper. Then one lateral edge of the bifacial core is removed, producing at first a triangular spall. After, more edge removals will produce ski spalls of parallel surfaces. 
This technique was also used from <a href="/facts/Mongolia/ogQzUcQb">Mongolia</a> to the <a href="/facts/Kamchatka_Peninsula/w9DK3jE6">Kamchatka Peninsula</a> during the later Pleistocene.

<ul><li>(In Japanese) 江坂輝爾, 芹沢長介, 坂詰秀一, 『新日本考古学小辞典』（2005）p416</li>
<li>(In Japanese) 千葉英一, 吉崎昌一, 横山英介, 「湧別技法」 『考古学ジャーナル』（1984）p229</li></ul>

Yubetsu technique open-in-new

Yubetsu technique