TY - JOUR
T1 - The role of edge angle maintenance in explaining technological variation in the production of Late Middle Paleolithic bifacial and unifacial tools
AU - Iovita, Radu
N1 - Funding Information:
I wish to thank Huw Groucutt and Eleanor Scerri for inviting me to contribute to this special issue. I also wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers whose comments significantly improved the article. Funding for carrying out this research was provided by the National Science Foundation (U.S.A.) , grant BCS#0624962 , the Kolb Foundation , and the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences and Department of Anthropology . The data were collected in 2006–2007 with the permission and hospitality of Victor Chabai, Andrey Veselsky, Alexandr Yevtushenko (National Academy of Sciences of the Ukraine, Crimean Branch), and Jürgen Richter (University of Cologne, Germany) for the Crimean collections; of Christoph Züchner and Leif Steguweit (University of Erlangen, Germany), and Irina Görner (Hessisches Landesmuseum Kassel, Germany) for the German collections; of Alain Turq, Jean-Jacques Cleyet-Merle (Musée National de Préhistoire, Les-Eyzies-de-Tayac, France) for the Pech I and Le Moustier collections, of Jean Airvaux (Service Régional de l’Archéologie du Poitou-Charente, Poitiers, France) for the Jonzac collections, and finally, of Alain Turq (Musée National de Préhistoire, Les-Eyzies-de-Tayac, France), Harold Dibble (University of Pennsylvania, USA), Shannon McPherron (Max Planck Institute for evolutionary Anthropology, Germany), and Dennis Sandgathe (Simon Fraser University, Canada), who allowed the study of the collection of Roc de Marsal, layer 4.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2014/11/6
Y1 - 2014/11/6
N2 - The Late Middle Paleolithic of Europe contains a multitude of assemblages that can be characterized by the presence of bifacially-shaped tools. The cultural meaning of these tools, especially with respect to their geographic and chronological patterning has been debated for a long time, with unifacial and bifacial tools treated as fundamentally different technical systems. This paper builds upon previous work that showed that unifacial and bifacial blanks often follow similar reduction trajectories, and compares the management of edge angles in both of these tool classes using a large sample representing the Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition (MTA), the Quina Mousterian, the Keilmessergruppen, and the Crimean Micoquian technocomplexes. The results show that a) unifacial reduction results in the unequivocal increase in edge angles and b) that plano-convex bifacial reduction in the Central and Eastern European Micoquian, as well as similar techniques in the Quina Mousterian serve the same purpose of reducing and maintaining edge angles within certain limits; finally, c) MTA biconvex reduction results in a slow increase in edge angles. The process of edge angle reduction can be used to explain morphology and technology of the different pieces. Given that all these reduction techniques were part of the Neandertal technical repertoire for long periods of time, disappearing and reappearing at various points in history, the implication is that any geographical patterning may be due not to culture-historical developments, but rather to medium-to long-term adaptations to local environments.
AB - The Late Middle Paleolithic of Europe contains a multitude of assemblages that can be characterized by the presence of bifacially-shaped tools. The cultural meaning of these tools, especially with respect to their geographic and chronological patterning has been debated for a long time, with unifacial and bifacial tools treated as fundamentally different technical systems. This paper builds upon previous work that showed that unifacial and bifacial blanks often follow similar reduction trajectories, and compares the management of edge angles in both of these tool classes using a large sample representing the Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition (MTA), the Quina Mousterian, the Keilmessergruppen, and the Crimean Micoquian technocomplexes. The results show that a) unifacial reduction results in the unequivocal increase in edge angles and b) that plano-convex bifacial reduction in the Central and Eastern European Micoquian, as well as similar techniques in the Quina Mousterian serve the same purpose of reducing and maintaining edge angles within certain limits; finally, c) MTA biconvex reduction results in a slow increase in edge angles. The process of edge angle reduction can be used to explain morphology and technology of the different pieces. Given that all these reduction techniques were part of the Neandertal technical repertoire for long periods of time, disappearing and reappearing at various points in history, the implication is that any geographical patterning may be due not to culture-historical developments, but rather to medium-to long-term adaptations to local environments.
KW - Keilmessergruppen
KW - Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition
KW - Neandertal behavior
KW - Quina Mousterian
KW - Regionality
KW - Technical repertoire
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U2 - 10.1016/j.quaint.2014.08.032
DO - 10.1016/j.quaint.2014.08.032
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85027958147
VL - 350
SP - 105
EP - 115
JO - Quaternary International
JF - Quaternary International
SN - 1040-6182
ER -