Understanding Levallois: Lithic Technology and Cognitive Archaeology

Schlanger, Nathan

doi:10.1017/s0959774300001724

Cited by 152 publications

(96 citation statements)

References 37 publications

(17 reference statements)

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“…Site C contained flint knapping scatters of mainly Levallois debitage, from which large amounts of artifacts could be refitted (Fig. 4) (21.5% of the 3D recorded flint artifacts at site C; 70.4% by total weight), including a Levallois recurrent reduction sequence (15,26). The excavations entailed 3D recording of all identifiable finds, including small (<0.5 cm) flint chips and pieces of bone and >5,800 charcoal fragments.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of red ochre by early Neandertals

Roebroeks

Sier

Nielsen

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

238

118

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The use of manganese and iron oxides by late Neandertals is well documented in Europe, especially for the period 60–40 kya. Such finds often have been interpreted as pigments even though their exact function is largely unknown. Here we report significantly older iron oxide finds that constitute the earliest documented use of red ochre by Neandertals. These finds were small concentrates of red material retrieved during excavations at Maastricht-Belvédère, The Netherlands. The excavations exposed a series of well-preserved flint artifact (and occasionally bone) scatters, formed in a river valley setting during a late Middle Pleistocene full interglacial period. Samples of the reddish material were submitted to various forms of analyses to study their physical properties. All analyses identified the red material as hematite. This is a nonlocal material that was imported to the site, possibly over dozens of kilometers. Identification of the Maastricht-Belvédère finds as hematite pushes the use of red ochre by (early) Neandertals back in time significantly, to minimally 200–250 kya (i.e., to the same time range as the early ochre use in the African record).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of red ochre by early Neandertals

Roebroeks

Sier

Nielsen

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

238

118

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“…The recognition engendered by a material practice perspective -that the act of writing and its material products are fundamentally technological -makes it incumbent upon archaeologists to study the marks of inscription in the same way that lithic, ceramic or other types of data are examined. Similar to analyses of these archaeological data types (Schlanger 1996;Tite 2008), it follows that explanatory frameworks developed for studies of mark-making should also incorporate theories of practice. Etienne Wenger's concept of "communities of practice", with its emphasis on learning, and participation and reification (1998: 58-62), offers ways for exploring writing on the levels of both individual and collective practice.…”

Section: Practice: Text As Process and Outcomementioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction: Developing an approach to writing as material practice

Piquette¹,

Whitehouse²

2013

Writing as Material Practice: Substance, Surface and Medium

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Scope and ImpetusThis book grapples with the issue of writing and related graphical modes as forms of material culture. The diverse case studies are unified and underpinned by the notion that writing is fundamentally material -that it is preceded by and constituted through the material practices of human practitioners. From this vantage point, understandings of things that are written must therefore go beyond study of textual meanings and take account of the material worlds in which writing is inextricably embedded. In aligning along this common theme, analytical and interpretive priority is given, not to the linguistic and semantic meanings of graphical marks, but to their physicality and the ways in which this relates to creators and users. Covering a temporal span of some 5000 years, from c.3200 bce to the present day, and ranging in spatial context from the Americas to the Near East, the papers bring a variety of perspectives which contribute to both specific and broader questions of writing, its meaning and significance. As such, these case studies also contribute to an emerging discourse (below) on 'writing' and 'materiality' . They also contribute to the development of contextualising paradigms equipped to cope with the complexities of graphical cultures in relation to the people who created and attributed meaning to them through a diverse array of individual and wider social practices.While an increasing emphasis on materiality has characterised many fields of archaeological research over the last 20 years, studies of writing have lagged behind in this respect. The main reason is a long established and difficult-to-shift disciplinary division between archaeology and philology, in which the philologists -often brought in by archaeologists as technical experts whose interpretations are hard to challenge -have had the upper hand. This has led to an emphasis on the content of inscriptions and other writing, concentrating on languages, scripts and the semantic meanings of texts. These studies not only neglect materiality, which is our focus here, but they also tend to neglect context (both the specific archaeological context of the artefact, and the broader cultural and historical context into which written surfaces fit). Studies of content, context and materiality are all necessary for a holistic study of writing and many of the papers in this volume, while concentrating on material aspects of writing, do also deal with the meaning of the texts being studied and the contexts of their production and use. Our concern with the question of writing artefactuality was prompted by methodological problems arising out of our own research on ancient writing (e.g. Piquette 2007;forthcoming;Whitehouse 2008;2012). Our interest in exploring writing materialities cross-culturally is also inspired by the work of several scholars who also challenge the traditional disciplinary division between archaeology and philology (e.g. Moreland 2001;2006; cf. Bottéro 1992;. "Textaided archaeology" (Hawkes 1954; see also Little 1992) an...

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“…These various strategies co-exist within assemblages, suggesting that they were part of an interchangeable suite of technical options open to Neanderthals, and there is evidence that knappers actually switched between different methods during the reduction of individual cores (cf. Dibble, 1995;Bietti and Grimaldi, 1995;Texier and Francisco-Ortega, 1995;Jaubert and Farizy, 1995;Schlanger, 1996).…”

Section: Lithic Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Early Middle Palaeolithic in Britain: archaeology, settlement history and human behaviour

White

Scott

Ashton

2006

J Quaternary Science

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A number of archaeological sites dated to MIS 8 and MIS 7 and containing Early Middle Palaeolithic Levalloisian assemblages can now be identified within the British Palaeolithic record. These provide a mixture of high-and low-resolution signatures, which together permit the reconstruction of aspects of early Neanderthal behaviour, settlement history and technological organisation within the British Isles. Much is certainly missing, but it is now possible to begin the task of disentangling the previously conflated Middle Palaeolithic, separating those sites belonging to the Middle Pleistocene from those dating to the last climatic cycle. This paper presents the first attempt to synthesise the data from the Early Middle Palaeolithic and presents some of our preliminary and tentatively held interpretations of what it might mean.

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Understanding Levallois: Lithic Technology and Cognitive Archaeology

Cited by 152 publications

References 37 publications

Use of red ochre by early Neandertals

Use of red ochre by early Neandertals

Introduction: Developing an approach to writing as material practice

The Early Middle Palaeolithic in Britain: archaeology, settlement history and human behaviour

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