On the Significance of Acheulean Biface Variability in Southern Britain

The significance of morphological variation in Acheulean bifaces has been a central issue in Palaeolithic research for well over a century. For much of that period interpretation has been dominated by culture-historical models and it is only in the past 20 years that other explanatory factors have received adequate attention. This paper examines the combined role of several of these factors – namely raw materials, reduction intensity, and function – on biface variability in the British Isles, with special reference to the two major shaped-based ‘tradition’ devised by Roe (1967; 1968). First-hand examination of bifaces from 19 assemblages suggests that final biface shape depends largely on the dimensions of the original raw materials and the technofunctional strategies designed to deal with them. Through these observations a new model is generated and tested. This suggests that the patterning in the British Acheulean simply reflects the nature of the resources available at a site and the hominid procurement and technological strategies used to exploit them. According to this model, well-worked ovates with all-round edges were preferentially produced wherever raw materials were large and robust enough to frequently support intensive reduction procedures, usually when obtained from primary flint sources. Assemblages characterised by partially-edged, moderately-reduced pointed forms were only manufactured when smaller, narrower blanks, that imposed restrictions on human technological actions regarding the location and extent of working, were exploited. Such blanks were usually obtained from a secondary flint source, such as river gravel. Thus, Roe's pointed and ovate ‘traditions’ are seen not as the products of different biface making populations, but as the same broad populations coping with the exigencies of a heterogeneous environment, using different resources in an adaptive, flexible manner.