Above: Tools of the prehistoric basketweaver. (a) Stone knife. There are many shapes and sizes of these and probably their uses were multiple, including cutting and preparing material for baskets. (b) Bone awl from Broken Flute Cave, a tapered style. (c) A short tip on a more blunt bone awl from Broken Flute Cave. (d) An awl made from a splinter of a long bone, Broken Flute Cave. (e) Splinter awl from a bird bone, from Pecos. (f) A wooden awl with a knob on the head, Obelisk Cave. (g) Splinter awl made from a bird bone, from Pecos. (h) A bone awl (maybe a hair ornament) decorated with the head of a mountain sheep, from Swarts Ruin. (i) Splinter awl made from a sharp fragment of bone by grinding down the point.
Below: Photo of bone awls showing thin and thick ones, short and long ones, very crude and very refined styles of workmanship.
Images from Tanner 1976
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Frank Provo -- mosaic@innocent.com