Leptolithic

Describing industries with many blades and blade tools, especially end scrapers, burins, and backed blades, typical of the Upper Palaeolithic. The term leptolithic, literally 'of small stones', has sometimes been used specifically to refer to this type of stone technology, without any dating connotation or evolutionary position.

Term used to describe industries characterized by thin blade lithic technology (i.e. industries of the Upper Palaeolithic onwards), as opposed to cruder flake technology.

It is well known that blades and blade tools, especially end scrapers, burins and backed blades, are typical of the Upper Palaeolithic. The term Leptolithic has sometimes been used specifically to refer to this type of stone technology, without any necessary implication of age or evolutionary position or human type, such as are inevitably involved in the term Upper Palaeolithic.