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The piece critiques recent definitions of the Acheulean technocomplex as presented in a publication by Key et al. It highlights significant methodological problems with their definitions and the implications these have on archaeological interpretations. The author argues for a re-evaluation of how differing definitions of archaeological technologies can shape our understanding of cultural continuities and transitions during the Paleolithic.
Related papers
2014
"Despite a rich archaeological record, northwest Europe (Belgium, the Netherlands, western, northern and eastern France) is often not included in detailed debates on Middle Palaeolithic lithic variability. This is, in part, related to a lack of contextual information for some assemblages, but also to a scarcity of widely accessible publications, especially in relation to early 20th century excavations. However, it is clear that across Europe, including in this northwest region, the late Middle Palaeolithic (here MIS 5d–3, ∼115–35 ka) is characterised by an increase in the use of bifacial technologies, and this paper provides a wider, integrative perspective on late Middle Palaeolithic bifacial tool variability in northwest Europe. Primary data from seven key assemblages (Oosthoven, Grotte du Docteur, Sint-Geertruid, Saint-Just en Chaussée, Saint-Julien de la Liègue, Bois-du-Rocher and Champlost) is integrated with published data from an additional 45 assemblages, allowing for an extensive assessment of the characteristics of these biface-rich assemblages. Results suggest a large amount of typo-technological variability, as expressed through the varying nature of several technological attributes (raw material, blank type, cortex remnant, cross section and edge angles), as well as through the presence of different bifacial tool concepts and bifacial tool types. The limited chronostratigraphic information available suggests the presence of bifacial tools in northwest Europe throughout the warm phases of both MIS 5 and MIS 3. Furthermore, a detailed regional overview identifies common ground within many of these northwest European late Middle Palaeolithic assemblages. Rather than a series of region-specific entities, this research proposes that a larger-scale distinction can be made between assemblages dominated by classic handaxes, and assemblages characterised by the generalised application of bifacial retouch. The latter contain a wider variety of bifacial tools and it is, therefore, suggested to group these assemblages under the overarching label of ‘Mousterian with Bifacial Tools’ (MBT). Detailed studies of new, well-contextualised assemblages are needed to fully unravel the causal factors and behavioural intricacies underlying this bifacial tool variability and the MBT entity."
The classic Mousterian Debate of the 1970s has recently been revived, as researchers propose cultural, functional, and chronological interpretations for the Mousterian "technocomplexes". These interpretations, however, are likely to lead to the same impasse that was previously reached forty years ago. The root cause of the problem is analyzing assemblages according to taxonomic units, whether they are Bordian facies or chaîne op eratoire technocomplexes, which conflate as well as mask multiple sources of variability. In this paper, we use a database of well-excavated, well-dated sites from the Middle and Upper Pleistocene in western Europe to track changes in key lithic variables through time. We show that the chronological patterning of typological and technological facies yields little information useful for elucidating the causes of Mousterian variability. When individual lithic variables from within assemblages are plotted through time, however, new patterns of variability emerge. Our results show that bifaces are not characteristic only of the "Acheulean" and the "Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition." They occur continuously and in low frequencies across the European landscape from MIS 14 onwards. Second, we reveal chronological patterning in Levallois technology, which reaches a height of popularity between MIS 6e4. In the future, more progress in understanding technological behavior during the Paleolithic will be made if we compare the properties of the lithics themselves across assemblages, rather than comparing assemblage types.
In: Multiple approaches to the study of bifacial technologies, Soressi M. and Dibble H. (Eds), Publication of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Press, University Museum Monograph 115, Philadelphia: 125-147, 2003
Science 345 : 1609-1613
The Lower to Middle Paleolithic transition (~400,000 to 200,000 years ago) is marked by technical, behavioral, and anatomical changes among hominin populations throughout Africa and Eurasia. The replacement of bifacial stone tools, such as handaxes, by tools made on flakes detached from Levallois cores documents the most important conceptual shift in stone tool production strategies since the advent of bifacial technology more than one million years earlier and has been argued to result from the expansion of archaic Homo sapiens out of Africa. Our data from Nor Geghi 1, Armenia, record the earliest synchronic use of bifacial and Levallois technology outside Africa and are consistent with the hypothesis that this transition occurred independently within geographically dispersed, technologically precocious hominin populations with a shared technological ancestry.
Quaternary International, 2016
While Late Middle Palaeolithic industries are characterized by a well-documented diversity of stone tool types and blank production methods, the latter of which can at times be exclusively represented in certain assemblages, the bifacial tool component sometimes portrays clear similarities in use and manufacture method. Beyond sharing both comparable volumetric structures and arrangement of active and or prehensile areas, the recurrence in several assemblages of specific groups of bifacial tools used mostly for butchery is particularly striking. Here, we address several techno-economic and cognitive aspects of biface production and use combined with a consideration of their context. Is the same degree of variability in function and manufacture method equally visible in the retouched tool component? What scales of mobility or technical use-lives do these different bifacial tools portray? Do certain highly elaborate flake tools also reflect equally complex behaviors? How to interpret the presence of carefully manufactured pieces in non-local raw materials alongside others made in local varieties that are hardly reduced but nevertheless equally functional? Finally, which components may have carried a symbolic value or shed light on technical abilities or functional objectives evident in the conception, elaboration, use, and ultimate fate of these bifacial pieces. Several recently analyzed assemblages with a relatively significant bifacial component from the Charente, Dordogne and the Pyr en ees-Atlantiques departements show certain similarities or important differences. In characterizing the coexistence of flake production and bifacial-shaping, we attempt to reveal to what extent and in which ways certain bifacial tools stand out. When combined with technological and cognitive considerations, this approach provides new insights on an important behavioral facet of Neanderthal groups who occupied the Aquitaine Basin after the Last Interglacial.
IPT Tomar, 2022
The Acheulean Palaeolithic period is a long-lasted cultural period in human prehistory and history. It persevered for almost 1.5 Ma, demonstrating a crucial timing of human evolution and development in prehistory. Unequivocally, it was the period of diversification of aspects of humanity, i.e., geography, technology, socio-economic, etcetera, and morphological configuration of major prehistoric human groups, i.e., Homo erectus, Anatomically Modern Humans and Homo neanderthalensis. The Acheulean has appeared all over the Old World and was distinctively characterized technologically, chronologically, and in occurrence. European Acheulean mainly appeared during the late period, characterized by assemblages with bifaces and, on the other hand, small to medium-sized flakes without bifaces. Most assemblages with the Late Acheulean bifaces in Europe have been tentatively characterized to have standard features, and some have cooccurred with the advanced succeeding lithic industry. The Guado San Nicola archaeological site in South-central Italy is among the well-known palaeolithic sites in Europe, presenting lithic technological shifts from Lower Palaeolithic to Middle Palaeolithic. This work is dedicated to investigating the association of Acheulean bifaces during transitional periods in terms of functional, technology and site formation factors on an assemblage scale. Through use-wear analysis methodologies, Low and High-Powered approaches, this work has managed to identify a significant hominid activity associated with bifaces at Guado San Nicola to be carcasses processing. Nonetheless, given the small sample size analyzed for this research, the results are immensely supported by comparative analysis from related studies and previously reported analysis results of the same assemblage, such as zooarchaeological, paleontological, geological and archaeological results. Technologically and morphologically, v the bifaces assemblage at Guado San Nicola presents major common traits of such aspects in the European Late Acheulean bifaces.
Large Flake Acheulian from Morgaon, District Pune, Maharashtra, India Acheulian artefacts are found eroding from sediments exposed on the left bank of the river Karha near Morgaon over a distance of around 2 km. Three assemblages have been obtained over the last decade of work at the site. The 2000 assemblage is from a recently leveled field in which an assemblage of giant cores and flakes with only a single cleaver was collected. The 2002-2004 assemblage consists is from the excavation of a 4x6 m area. This location was selected as a large number of artefacts were found eroding from the surrounding gullies. The largest number of tools in this assemblage come from the surface of black fissured clay and is sealed by a rubble horizon. A few tools, including a few very well made cleavers are found in sandy pebbly gravel abutting the sealing rubble layer. The main archaeological assemblage from this trench is also dominated by giant cores and flakes. The third assemblage from Morgaon is from a 5x5 m trench excavated in 2007 in which artefacts were found on the buried surface of a gravel bar. In addition to these assemblages a number of finished tools, overwhelmingly cleavers have been collected from the surface of reddish/greenish sandy pebbly gravel. The Acheulian from Morgaon is Large Flake Acheulian (LFA) as recently described by Sharon (2007) and Mishra et al (2010). Some of the important features of the LFA are:-1. The blanks for handaxes and cleavers are large flakes (>10 cm) rather than nodules 2. The large flakes are detached from "giant cores" (>10 cm)
This paper presents the results of a flint type analysis performed for the small assemblage of bifaces found at the Acheulo-Yabrudian site Qesem Cave (QC), Israel (420-200 kya), which includes 12 handaxes, three bifacial roughouts, one trihedral, and one bifacial spall. The analysed artefacts were measured and classified into flint types based on visual traits. Also, extensive fieldwork aimed at locating potential sources was carried out. The bifaces were then assigned to potential flint sources, using both macroscopic and petrographic data, and were compared with a large general sample (n = 21,102) from various typo-technological categories and from various QC assemblages , studied by the same analytic process. Our results show that while the site is located within rich flint-bearing limestone outcrops of the Bi'na Formation (Upper Cretaceous Turonian), which dominate the general sample, non-Turonian flint types dominate the biface assemblage. The presence of roughouts and complete handaxes, alongside the complete absence of bifacial knapping by-products, as well as the absence of a clear spatial distribution pattern of the bifaces throughout the site's sequence, stresses the fragmentation of the bifacial chaîne opératoire and suggests that the bifaces were not produced at the site but, rather, were brought to the cave in their current state. The extremely low quantity of bifaces at QC, compared with the overall rich lithic assemblages, suggests that handaxes did not play a major functional role in the QC hominins' everyday lives. It is therefore possible that the QC bifaces originated from older contexts, most likely Acheulian sites existing in the vicinity of the cave, as part of the habit of the QC hominins of collecting older, previously knapped artefacts.

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References (4)
- Summary: The Handaxe shown here fits well in the development of the final Lower Paleolithic in the Pas de Calais and is most probably around 300 k.a. old. Provenance: Kühnel Collection (GER) Suggested Reading:
- Mark J. White: A Global History of The Earlier Palaeolithic-Assembling the Acheulean World; 2022. Resources and images in full resolution: Image: 2022-11-06_IMG_3263side.jpg Image: 2022-11-06_IMG_3248.jpg Image: 2022-11-06_IMG_3293.PNG Extern Link: www.sciencedirect.com…S0003552119300664
- Extern Link: www.persee.fr…htn_0018-439x_1972_num_1_1_3151_t1_0106_0000_1 Extern Link: www.researchgate.net…301222797_A_new_key- site_for_the_end_of_Lower_Palaeolithic_and_the_onset_of_Middle_Palaeolithic_at_Etricourt- Manancourt_Somme_France Extern Link: www.persee.fr…pica_0752-5656_2013_num_3_1_3597 2022-11-05 16:04:04 • ID: 2355
- Along the tranquil River: A foliated Handaxe from Glisy at the Somme The Somme River in northern France rises in the hills at Fonsommes, near Saint- Quentin in the Aisne Département, and flows generally westward for 245 km to the