L’analyse des unités techno-fonctionnelles appliquée à l’étude du macro-outillage néolithique

Ground stone tools are lithic tools made on coarse blanks that are not included in the chipped or polished stone studies. During the study of a ground stone tools collection coming from the Campaniform site of Beg ar Loued (Molène island, Finistère, France), the techno-functional unit (TFU) analysis as been adapted to these objects. A TFU is a part of a tool that is technologically independent, having his own part in this tool's overall functioning. The application of this method to ground stone tools needed some adaptations to their characteristics. The aim is to obtain a high level technological analysis for these tools, succeeding to express functional hypothesis. Two concrete examples from Beg ar Loued's collection illustrate the TFU analysis method's application to ground stone tools. This method has the advantage to organize the progress of each piece's analysis. The TFU analysis helps to understand the multifunctional tools by considering each function as a full tool. This allows us to talk about function's hierarchisation and their adaptation to blanks. We also obtain some informations about blank's selection. These many and varied results make the TFU analysis essential for ground stone tool's technological and functional analysis.