Helwan retouch

{{Short description|Flint-tool fabrication technology}}

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.{{cite journal | last=Belfer-Cohen | first=Anna | title=The Natufian in the Levant | journal=Annual Review of Anthropology | volume=20 | issue=1 | date=1991|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234147661| issn=0084-6570 | doi=10.1146/annurev.an.20.100191.001123 | pages=167–186}}{{rp|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.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{{rp|172-3}} Natufian lithic technology throughout the usage of the Helwan Retouch was dominated by lunate-shaped lithics, such as picks and axes{{rp|167}} and especially sickles (which were predominantly—at least 80% of the time—used for harvesting wild cereals).Unger-Hamilton, Romana. The Epi-Palaeolithic Southern Levant and the Origins of Cultivation. Current Anthropology, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Feb., 1989), pp. 95, 96