Description

High-resolution archaeological surveys near Blanding, Utah have revealed a previously undocumented tool type on the Northern Colorado Plateau—expediently fashioned, unhafted sandstone slabs. We have interpreted these ancestral items as hand tools used to scrape and mound sediments and refer to them as “hand-slab scrapers.” These tools have been found among artificial berm-swale landscapes, and along prehistoric roads suggesting they were used in the construction and maintenance of these features.

This presentation provides an in-depth description of hand-slab scrapers and reports on the experiments using replica tools to create a small berm-swale feature.