Looking for sharp edges: Modes of flint recycling at Middle Pleistocene Qesem Cave, Israel

What happens around a fire: Faunal processing sequences and spatial distribution at Qesem Cave (300 ka), Israel

“…Hand axes are extremely rare at Qesem, and only a few were recovered within Amudian and Yabrudian assemblages . Evidence of lithic recycling has been detected throughout the stratigraphic sequence and in significant proportions in some of the assemblages examined by Assaf et al (2015) and Parush et al (2015). The use-wear traces on recycling products indicates a wide range of activities, especially in processing soft to medium materials, most likely involving butchery activities and plant processing (Lemorini et al, 2015), demonstrating an effective use of sharp recycled small flakes and blades.…”

Amudian versus Yabrudian under the rock shelf: A study of two lithic assemblages from Qesem Cave, Israel

“…Another fact that might be of interest is that while at sites such as Tabun Layer E and Yabrud I, the Yabrudian and AcheuloYabrudian industries are dominant while the Amudian is scarce and limited to small areas and small parts of the stratigraphy (Rust, 1950;Garrod, 1956;Garrod and Kirkbride, 1961;Copeland, 2000), at Qesem Cave, the Amudian prevails throughout the 10 m sequence of deposits, while the Yabrudian is restricted to single small-scale areas and minor parts of the sequence and the AcheuloYabrudian is missing altogether (e.g., Barkai et al, 2009;Barkai and Gopher, 2013;Assaf et al, 2015;Parush et al, 2015).…”

“…Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize the Yabrudian and Amudian industries share many techno-typological features, differing from one another mainly in frequencies. The recycling of lithic artifacts at Qesem Cave is a conspicuous phenomenon, present in all lithic assemblages and all archaeological contexts at the cave, and mainly manifested in the production of small flakes or blades from a "parent" flake (Lemorini et al, 2006(Lemorini et al, , 2015Barkai and Gopher, 2013;Assaf et al, 2015;Parush et al, 2015). A study of human dental remains from Qesem indicated that the hominins who inhabited the cave were not Homo erectus but rather more similar to later modern populations (e.g., Skhul, Qafzeh) of this region while also exhibiting some Neanderthal affinities (Hershkovitz et al, 2011).…”

“…The recycling aspect was studied Y. Parush et al / Quaternary International xxx (2015) 1e24 3 following the classification presented by Parush (2014) and Parush et al (2015).…”

“…The blanks used for COF-FFs at Qesem appear in a variety of shapes, blank types and vary in size thus indicating that they were not intentionally fashioned in order to be transformed into COF-FFs but rather selected from the wide array of lithic products available on-(perhaps also off-) site (see Lemorini et al, 2015;Parush et al, 2015). Thus, the COF-FFs represent a production trajectory of small flakes by means of recycling.…”