Summary: | ill. 25 cm Core-shaped forms are one of the most distinctive kinds of artefacts identified in Aurignacian assemblages. Classification of such pieces frequently causes difficulties, and the boundaries between certain types seem to be fluid and intuitive. The question whether to categorise those artefacts as tools or as cores is another unresolved issue. This leads to conflicting interpretations of morphologically and technologically identical lithics. The present paper investigates these topics, using the assemblage of core-shaped forms from the group of sites in Spadzista Street in Kraków as an example. The authors propose a standardised examination method, without dividing the artefacts into typological categories, tools or cores. Such an approach, combined with microwear analysis of the materials, confirms the hypothesis that the forms may have been used both as tools and as cores, and that their use was not always the same, but depended on the specific needs of their users/makers. il. 25 cm Core-shaped forms are one of the most distinctive kinds of artefacts identified in Aurignacian assemblages. Classification of such pieces frequently causes difficulties, and the boundaries between certain types seem to be fluid and intuitive. The question whether to categorise those artefacts as tools or as cores is another unresolved issue. This leads to conflicting interpretations of morphologically and technologically identical lithics. The present paper investigates these topics, using the assemblage of core-shaped forms from the group of sites in Spadzista Street in Kraków as an example. The authors propose a standardised examination method, without dividing the artefacts into typological categories, tools or cores. Such an approach, combined with microwear analysis of the materials, confirms the hypothesis that the forms may have been used both as tools and as cores, and that their use was not always the same, but depended on the specific needs of their users/makers.
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