Flint knapping and determination of human handedness. Methodological proposal with quantifiable results

The products of technological activity of our ancestors, and particularly the artefacts made by hand, are a potential source of information for a diachronic study of the handedness process in different human species. In the flint flakes, around the point of percussion, a system of fractures is developed in connection with the cone of percussion and the conical fracture of the flint. On this paper we prove that the direction of percussion can be deduced from these fractures, and the knapper's handedness can be determined if the direction of percussion is known.