Abstract:In recent years, there is growing interest in the study of percussion scars and breakage patterns on hammerstones, cores and tools from Oldowan African and Eurasian lithic assemblages. Oldowan stone toolkits generally contain abundant small-sized flakes and their corresponding cores, and are characterized by their structural dichotomy of heavy- and light-duty tools. This paper explores the significance of the lesser known heavy-duty tool component, providing data from the late Lower Pleistocene sites of Barran… Show more
“…Early Lower Palaeolithic examples comprise cupmarks, anvils, hammerstones and pounders (e.g. [19][20][21][22][23][24]). Implements mainly operating through abrasive motions, such as grinding slabs and handstones (also known as metates and manos), seem to have developed later in South Africa (e.g.…”
In recent years, the study of percussive, pounding and grinding tools has provided new insights into human evolution, more particularly regarding the development of technology enabling the processing and exploitation of plant resources. Some of these studies focus on early evidence for flour production, an activity frequently perceived as an important step in the evolution of plant exploitation. The present paper investigates plant food preparation in mobile hunter-gatherer societies from the Southern Levant. The analysis consists of a use-wear study of 18 tools recovered from Ohalo II, a 23 000-year-old site in Israel showing an exceptional level of preservation. Our sample includes a slab previously interpreted as a lower implement used for producing flour, based on the presence of cereal starch residues. The use-wear data we have obtained provide crucial information about the function of this and other percussive tools at Ohalo II, as well as on investment in tool manufacture, discard strategies and evidence for plant processing in the Late Pleistocene. The use-wear analysis indicates that the production of flour was a sporadic activity at Ohalo II, predating by thousands of years the onset of routine processing of plant foods.
“…Early Lower Palaeolithic examples comprise cupmarks, anvils, hammerstones and pounders (e.g. [19][20][21][22][23][24]). Implements mainly operating through abrasive motions, such as grinding slabs and handstones (also known as metates and manos), seem to have developed later in South Africa (e.g.…”
In recent years, the study of percussive, pounding and grinding tools has provided new insights into human evolution, more particularly regarding the development of technology enabling the processing and exploitation of plant resources. Some of these studies focus on early evidence for flour production, an activity frequently perceived as an important step in the evolution of plant exploitation. The present paper investigates plant food preparation in mobile hunter-gatherer societies from the Southern Levant. The analysis consists of a use-wear study of 18 tools recovered from Ohalo II, a 23 000-year-old site in Israel showing an exceptional level of preservation. Our sample includes a slab previously interpreted as a lower implement used for producing flour, based on the presence of cereal starch residues. The use-wear data we have obtained provide crucial information about the function of this and other percussive tools at Ohalo II, as well as on investment in tool manufacture, discard strategies and evidence for plant processing in the Late Pleistocene. The use-wear analysis indicates that the production of flour was a sporadic activity at Ohalo II, predating by thousands of years the onset of routine processing of plant foods.
“…For the experiments, we used the same type of quartz and reproduced similar marks to those described at similar sites (Crabtree, ; Shott, ; Leakey and Roe, ; Curtoni, ; Mourre and Jarry, ; Barsky et al ., ; Hayden, ; de la Torre and Hirata, ; Li, ; Rodríguez‐Álvarez, ; Li et al ., ). Geological data indicate that the pebble layer was a possible source of raw material for hominins.…”
The Pont-de-Lavaud site, located in the Centre Region of France (Creuse Valley), yielded a quartz lithic assemblage composed of a few hundred artefacts with cores, pebble tools, flakes and flake-tools, mixed with several thousand debris items and pebbles. The archaeological site is covered by a fossil fluvial deposit from the Creuse River (sheet I, with a relative altitude of þ 90/105 m), dated by Electron Spin Resonance at the site itself to around 1 Ma. We will focus in this paper on the lithic assemblage with clear anthropogenic features to describe the technological strategies applied to quartz pebbles, with the help of experiments. The core technology is based on short 'cha^nes op eratoires' on local quartz aimed at producing pointed end-products on pebbles and flakes. The methods and techniques include both the bipolar technique on an anvil and direct percussion with a hard hammer. The reduction sequences were strongly conditioned by the morphology and the physical characteristics of the raw material. Few flakes are retouched. The Pont-de-Lavaud lithic assemblage is one example of the diversity of the 1-Ma European industries. The assemblage shows techno-cultural behavioural variability at this period and adaptation to raw material constraints. Comparisons with series where the use of quartz is widespread demonstrate the ability of hominins to use stones of varying quality and to adapt technology to the raw material in zones located beyond the 45th parallel north.
“…At these sites, differential use of raw materials has been documented. Flint was used for recurrent processes to produce blanks, while limestone blocks were mainly devoted to percussion activities (Barsky et al 2015). The bipolar-on-anvil technique is predominant among the reduction sequences, and was exclusively used on small and semi-rounded flint nodules with parallelepiped morphologies.…”
The lithic assemblage of the Pont-de-Lavaud site (Indre, France) shows a technical choice within the Lower Pleistocene European Mode 1 sites, which is defined by the widespread use of the bipolar-on-anvil knapping technique. Although it is traditionally considered an expedient percussion method, in this lithic assemblage a selective technical behavior regarding the reduction methods and raw material is identified. In this respect, different knapping methods are applied in accordance with a combination of the percussion axis and the recurrence of the reduction series. These features are also observed in the archaeological record from other Lower and Middle Pleistocene sites, which are discussed in the text. The role of this knapping technique in the hominin technology is, in our opinion, greater than previously believed. Its implementation cannot be considered as proof of opportunistic or expedient activities. The bipolar-on-anvil technique is applied in different contexts, on different raw materials and as a technical choice or gesture in the reduction sequences. Because of its low technical requirements, it can be considered as a successful technological strategy for overcoming raw material constraints for producing some specific types of pieces. Its ubiquitous presence, both from a diachronic and geographical point of view, is proof of its considerable technical versatility and, hence, of Mode 1 hominin technological flexibility and capabilities.
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