Sickle-gloss, also known as sickle sheen, is a

silica Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , commonly found in nature as quartz. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is one of the most complex and abundant f ...

residue found on blades such as

sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting or reaping grain crops, or cutting Succulent plant, succulent forage chiefly for feedi ...

s and

scythe A scythe (, rhyming with ''writhe'') is an agriculture, agricultural hand-tool for mowing grass or Harvest, harvesting Crop, crops. It was historically used to cut down or reaping, reap edible grain, grains before they underwent the process of ...

s. Its presence indicates that the tool has been used to cut the stems of

cereal A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize ( Corn). Edible grains from other plant families, ...

s, which are rich in silica. The gloss or residue forms due to the abrasive action of silica found in both wild and cultivated cereal grasses. Therefore, the presence of sickle-gloss on a reaping tool does not necessarily indicate a connection to agriculture. The earliest known occurrence of sickle-gloss is on

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...

- knapped blades from the

Natufian culture The Natufian culture ( ) is an archaeological culture of the late Epipalaeolithic Near East in West Asia from 15–11,500 Before Present. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentism, sedentary or semi-sedentary population even befor ...

(12,500 to 9500 BC) in the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

, mainly in

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

Characteristics

Sickle-gloss has been recognised as a characteristic of reaping grasses since at least the 1930s. There is general consensus that sickle-gloss forms after reaping grasses and can develop within just a few hours of work. However, it may take more time for enough sickle-gloss to accumulate to be preserved archaeologically. It is also speculated that gloss may form from cutting canes or reeds, woodworking, or even hoeing or digging. Distinguishing between different types of gloss may be possible at either the macro or microscopic level.

Patterns

The direction of gloss lines is relative to the working edge of a sickle. Gloss lines rarely extend more than 5 mm onto the face of the blade. In later periods, sickles were more likely to exhibit gloss patterns that were parallel or nearly parallel to the working edges.

Usage

At sites where sickle-gloss is found, it is reasonable to assume that the sickles were used for varying durations. Sickles without gloss may be considered unused or unfinished, as flint sickles typically develop sickle-gloss after only a few hours of use.

Controversy

According to ''Lithics After the Stone Age: A Handbook of Stone Tools from the Levant'', there is considerable debate about the formation of sickle-gloss. The discussion revolves around whether the gloss results from the abrasive polishing of silica on the flint artifact or from a silica coating transferred from the grasses being harvested. ''Cutting Graminae Tools and 'Sickle Gloss' Formation'' outlines four main theories regarding the origins of sickle-gloss: * Gloss results from working with plant materials, where the tool forms a silica gel that incorporates small plant fragments. * Gloss forms from working with plant materials, where the tool creates a silica gel, but the plant material remains separate from the gel. * Sickle gloss is purely mechanical or involves both chemical and mechanical processes. * Sickle gloss results from a combination of factors, including the aforementioned theories. Additionally, there is debate about the significance of sickle-gloss in understanding the rise of agriculture and its role as an indicator of reaping grasses in

Epipaleolithic In archaeology, the Epipalaeolithic or Epipaleolithic (sometimes Epi-paleolithic etc.) is a period occurring between the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic during the Stone Age. Mesolithic also falls between these two periods, and the two are someti ...

and early

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

societies. This issue is less relevant in late Neolithic societies due to their documented use of sickles for agriculture.

References

* * Bar-Yosef, Ofer (1998), "The Natufian Culture in the Levant, Threshold to the Origins of Agriculture", Evolutionary Anthropology 6(5): 159–177, , http://www.columbia.edu/itc/anthropology/v1007/baryo.pdf * {{Refend Silicon dioxide History of agriculture Natufian culture