Middle Palaeolithic stone tool technology in the Kortallayar Basin, South India

Antiquity ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 75 (287) ◽  
pp. 107-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shanti Pappu
Keyword(s):  
South India ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Tool Manufacture ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
Tool Technology

A study of the Middle Palaeolithic stone tool technology from assemblages in South India reveals diverse reduction strategies, including preferences exercised in the choice of row material and blanks for tool manufacture. Various behaviour patterns are identified which have significant implications for the relatively little known Indian Middle Palaeolithic

Hierarchical Organization in the Acheulean to Middle Palaeolithic Transition at Bhimbetka, India

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 601-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Shipton
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Central India ◽  
Hierarchical Organization ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Critical Threshold ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Homo Neanderthalensis ◽  
Cognitive Pattern ◽  
Thin Flake ◽  
Tool Technology

The transition from the Acheulean to the Middle Palaeolithic represents a critical threshold in human evolution when archaic behaviour patterns gave way to the Levallois stone tool technology that characterizes later Pleistocene hominins including Homo neanderthalensis and early Homo sapiens. This article examines that transition through a comparative perspective on handaxes and cleavers (collectively referred to here as bifaces) from the site of Bhimbetka in central India. The Bhimbetka bifaces are compared to those from Patpara, another transitional assemblage in central India, as well as non-transitional Indian Acheulean assemblages. Bhimbetka and Patpara share unusually refined bifaces. While this refinement is attributed to invasive flaking at Patpara, at Bhimbetka it appears to be related to the ability to strike large thin flake blanks. These both have consequences for biface symmetry, with Patpara handaxes being particularly symmetrical in profile, while Bhimbetka cleavers are particularly symmetrical in section. Unlike Patpara, most of the Bhimbetka bifaces have not undergone resharpening. However, cleavers from the two sites do share unusually high rates of damage on their bits and the occasional use of cleavers as notches. It is argued that, while the transition at the two sites occurred independently, it was underpinned by the same cognitive pattern: an increased capacity for hierarchical organization.

The fragmented character of Middle Palaeolithic stone tool technology

2013 ◽  
Vol 65 (5) ◽  
pp. 641-655 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Turq ◽  
Wil Roebroeks ◽  
Laurence Bourguignon ◽  
Jean-Philippe Faivre
Keyword(s):  
Stone Tool ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Tool Technology

scholarly journals Nubian Levallois technology associated with southernmost Neanderthals

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
James Blinkhorn ◽  
Clément Zanolli ◽  
Tim Compton ◽  
Huw S. Groucutt ◽  
Eleanor M. L. Scerri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Fossil Specimen ◽  
Archaeological Collections ◽  
Direct Association ◽  
Reduction Methods ◽  
Quantitative Analyses ◽  
Tool Technology

AbstractNeanderthals occurred widely across north Eurasian landscapes, but between ~ 70 and 50 thousand years ago (ka) they expanded southwards into the Levant, which had previously been inhabited byHomo sapiens. Palaeoanthropological research in the first half of the twentieth century demonstrated alternate occupations of the Levant by Neanderthal andHomo sapienspopulations, yet key early findings have largely been overlooked in later studies. Here, we present the results of new examinations of both the fossil and archaeological collections from Shukbah Cave, located in the Palestinian West Bank, presenting new quantitative analyses of a hominin lower first molar and associated stone tool assemblage. The hominin tooth shows clear Neanderthal affinities, making it the southernmost known fossil specimen of this population/species. The associated Middle Palaeolithic stone tool assemblage is dominated by Levallois reduction methods, including the presence of Nubian Levallois points and cores. This is the first direct association between Neanderthals and Nubian Levallois technology, demonstrating that this stone tool technology should not be considered an exclusive marker ofHomo sapiens.

Mode 3 Technologies and the Evolution of Modern Humans

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Foley ◽  
Marta Mirazón Lahr
Keyword(s):  
Strong Association ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
African Origin ◽  
Biological Models ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Archaeological Interpretation ◽  
Mode 3 ◽  
Tool Technology

The origins and evolution of modern humans has been the dominant interest in palaeoanthropology for the last decade, and much archaeological interpretation has been structured around the various issues associated with whether humans have a recent African origin or a more ancient one. While the archaeological record has been used to support or refute various aspects of the theories, and to provide a behavioural framework for different biological models, there has been little attempt to employ the evidence of stone tool technology to unravel phylogenetic relationships. Here we examine the evidence that the evolution of modern humans is integrally related to the development of the Upper Palaeolithic and similar technologies, and conclude that there is only a weak relationship. In contrast there is a strong association between the evolution and spread of modern humans and Grahame Clark's Mode 3 technologies (the Middle Stone Age/Palaeolithic). The implications of this for the evolution of Neanderthals, the multiple pattern of human dispersals, and the nature of cognitive evolution, are considered.

Neanderthal behaviour and stone tool function at the Middle Palaeolithic site of La Quina, France

Antiquity ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 78 (301) ◽  
pp. 547-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce L. Hardy
Keyword(s):  
Stone Tools ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic

Neanderthal diet is explored by examining stone tools found at the site of La Quina for residues and microwear. The Neanderthal people are found to be using their scrapers for working plants and woods as well as meat.

Evolution of Cognitive Archaeology through Evolving Cognitive Systems

2019 ◽  
pp. 79-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Original Work ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Cognitive Systems ◽  
Cognitive Evolution ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Productive Research ◽  
Tool Technology

Tom Wynn’s original work that looked at the evolution of stone tool technology using Piaget’s developmental sequence was the beginning of productive research into the evolution of hominin and human cognition. In this chapter, I evaluate those beginnings and discusses recent attempts to provide a more satisfactory understanding of changes in stone tool technologies, including work by Philip Barnard and William McGrew, subsequent work by Tom Wynn, and my own work with various collaborators. It suggests that some of the previous understandings of cognitive evolution were shaped by the fact that approaches to stone tools were largely determined in the nineteenth century. I propose some new ways of looking at stone tools and the sort of story that allows for more productive models of the evolution of human cognition.

scholarly journals The First Acheulian Quarry in India: Stone Tool Manufacture, Biface Morphology, and Behaviors

1999 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Petraglia ◽  
Philip LaPorta ◽  
K. Paddayya
Keyword(s):  
Stone Tool ◽  
Tool Manufacture ◽  
And Behaviors

Levallois

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Chazan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
General Level ◽  
Significant Component ◽  
Tool Manufacture ◽  
Core Technology ◽  
Artifact Analysis ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The 19Th Century

Levallois refers to a way of making stone tools that is a significant component of the technological adaptations of both Neanderthals and early modern humans. Although distinctive Levallois artifacts were identified already in the 19th century, a consensus on the definition of the Levallois and clear criteria for distinguishing Levallois from non-Levallois artifacts remain elusive. At a general level, Levallois is one variant on prepared core technology. In a prepared core approach to stone tool manufacture, the worked material (the core) is configured and maintained to allow for the production of detached pieces (flakes) whose morphology is constrained by the production process. The difficulty for archaeologists is that Levallois refers to a particular process of manufacture rather than a discrete finality. The study of Levallois exposes limitations of typological approaches to artifact analysis and forces a consideration of the challenges in creating a solid empirical basis for characterizing technological processes.

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