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This paper presents the results of the analysis of a late Acheulean horizon from the EDAR 135 site, which was discovered in the Eastern Desert, Sudan, in an area heavily transformed by modern mining activity. A lithic assemblage was discovered there, within a layer of gravel sediments formed by a paleostream in a humid period of the Middle Pleistocene. This layer is OSL dated between 220 ± 12 and 145 ± 20 ka (MIS 7a/6). These dates indicate that the assemblage could be the youngest trace of the Acheulean in northeastern Africa. Technological analysis of the lithics reveals different core reduction strategies, including not only ad hoc ones based on multiplatform cores, but also discoidal and prepared cores. The use of prepared core reduction methods has already been confirmed at other Late Acheulean sites in Africa and the Middle East. Microwear traces observed on lithic artifacts could relate to on-site butchering activities. publishedVersion

The Fayum has been known as the oldest center of cereal cultivation in prehistoric Egypt. How Egypt’s earliest Neolithic farmers lived a life is still a subject of controversy. This article focuses...

Triangular non-stemmed points (TNSPs) have been recovered for several decades from early archaeological sites in different regions of South America. We report a synthesis and review of 63 early Hol...

The middle Tanana Valley near Fairbanks, Alaska has been the subject of nearly a century of archaeological research focused on the earliest inhabitants of the region. Recent research at Niidhaayh N...

The interest of this paper lies in the analysis of variability detected within the group of splintered pieces, establishing distinctions within this broad category. A technological and traceologica...

The lithic operational chains at the Mesolithic site of La Una (Leon, N Spain) have been analysed and reconstructed through a joint study of the raw material provenance and technological characteri...

The Johnson site is a Folsom occupation in Larimer County, Colorado. T. Russell Johnson discovered the site in 1935, which led to excavations by the Colorado Museum of Natural History in 1936 and l...

Here we report a newly discovered Fishtail, or Fell 1, projectile-point type, from Coronel Jose Dias, southern Piaui, northeastern Brazil. It is an almost complete bifacial piece on light local sil...

In Beringia, as in many other parts of the world, stone tools are the main diagnostic cultural artifact for understanding prehistoric societies. The analysis of lithic assemblages is the basis for ...

The transition from the dart to the arrow, and the commensurate changes in lithic technology is poorly understood in the American Southwest. This transition has often been linked to shifts in seden...

This paper presents and discusses the analysis of the lithic assemblage from a newly discovered archaeological site, Cueva Ali Mustafa, located in the eastern sector of the Tandilia Range (Buenos A...

Crescent bifaces are one of the most enigmatic stone tool types in North America. While these artifacts are poorly understood, they are widely known from sites throughout a core area consisting of ...

The Fox site (5WL8848) is a collection of Clovis artifacts from the Kersey Terrace in northern Colorado. In the early 1970s, land-leveling for the construction of a large turkey farm near the town ...

About 13,000 calendar years ago, the Atacama Desert (18–26°S) was occupied by some of the human groups who had begun to populate South America. The archaeological evidence from six sites located in...

In this paper we present a review of the oldest lithic assemblages of Tibito 1, El Abra 2, and El Abra 3 (Sabana de Bogota, Eastern Cordillera), among the oldest and most significant sites ...

In a recent article published in PaleoAmerica, authors Metin I. Eren, David J. Meltzer, and Brian M. Andrews describe a set of Clovis-like artifacts recovered from an Archaic context at Goo...

Archaeologists know less about how hunter-gatherers and early agriculturists lived during the Archaic period in the Mexican Northwest compared to the U.S. Southwest. To evaluate Archaic per...

This paper presents technological and iconographic analyses of a Late Classic (a.d. 600–830) lithics cache recovered from the ancient Maya site of Blue Creek, Belize. The cache consisted of...

This report examines the development of lithic technology among the Chumash of California’s northern Channel Islands. By the middle of the first millennium A.D., the Island Chumash began to pursue ...

Excavations at Crawford Bank in Crooked Tree, Belize, exposed a lithic deposit with no associated ceramics. The deposit primarily consists of chipped chert and chalcedony tools and debitage...

For a century, archaeologists have puzzled over the enigma of successful whaling unfolding with no predecessors prior to the last two millennia. The emergence of social complexity is linked with th...

Robert J. Patten passed away suddenly on February 8, 2017. His influence on flintknapping, lithic technology, and archaeology, however, continues on. Here, we review Patten’s life and myriad contributions.

Nine decades after the discovery of the Clovis type site, Blackwater Draw Locality No. 1, we are getting closer to solving the perplexing mystery of Clovis origins. Working together, geneticists an...

Obsidian flake tools are an important component of Early Horizon (ca. 800–400 B.C.) lithic assemblages in highland Peru. However, the functions of these tools have not been ascertained. In this paper, we present the results of an experimental project that tests the hypothesis that flake tools were used for shearing domesticated camelids (alpacas and llamas). A collection of 10 replicated flake tools were used to shear an alpaca over different amounts of time. Our results indicate that these implements provide an efficient means of shearing camelids, though their efficiency declines after prolonged use. Following the shearing experiment, optical light microscope (OLM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) analyses were undertaken to determine what kinds of use-wear were present on the tools. We tentatively conclude that shearing does leave recognizable edge-wear, including micro-chipping, faint striations, and residues, which we believe could be visible in Peruvian archaeological lithic assemblages.

This paper analyzes the use of lithic resources by hunter-gatherer groups during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition (c. 10,000 14C yr BP) in the eastern Tandilia Mountain Range (Pampas reg...

At the site of Steenbokfontein 9KR, virtually 80% of the lithic blanks presented retouch—an extreme proportion for Middle Stone Age assemblages. The high percentage of putative retouch led us to in...

Clovis technology is argued to possess distinctive attributes that make a stone tool assemblage recognizable as Clovis, even absent its hallmark fluted projectile points, or radiometric ages that place the assemblage in the late Pleistocene. Excavations at Goodson Shelter in Oklahoma yielded artifacts bearing unmistakable attributes of Clovis biface and blade technology, such as fluted bifaces, overface flaking, and prismatic blades, all from a clearly-delineated, unmixed stratigraphic layer securely dated to the mid-Holocene. This indicates that those technological attributes are not unique to Clovis, and cannot be used by themselves to identify Clovis age material. To illustrate the consequences of this result, we review biface and blade caches assigned to Clovis by their technology alone. Although many could be Clovis in age, they are not demonstrably so. Overall, our findings emphasize the importance of looking at suites of evidence, chronological, technological and otherwise, in assigning ass...

The Lagoa Santa region, located in southeastern Brazil, has been studied archaeologically since the nineteenth century. Paleoindian lithic industries in Brazil have often been associated with archa...

One of the most iconic remains from the South American Paleo-American record is the so-called Fishtail, or just “Fell” projectile point, a distinctive artifact that stands out due to its wide distr...

Recent syntheses for the Long Island Sound region argue for long-term cultural continuity amongst Holocene coastal hunter-gatherers. These notions derive primarily from studies of quartz lithic ass...

El Fin del Mundo is a Clovis site located in the Sonoran Desert of northwest Mexico. The site has produced one of the largest assemblages of diagnostic Clovis stone tools south of the US-Mexico bor...

A piece of obsidian was found during excavations of a possible Middle Holocene Calf Creek biface cache at site 34ML168 in Oklahoma. Energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis of the obsidian flake shows that the source material derives from Glass Mountain in California. This is the first instance of California obsidian in this region. However, most intriguing is that Glass Mountain erupted thousands of years after the presumed Calf Creek artifacts were made. By examining the depositional history and lithic technology of the cache, and source provenance of the obsidian, we discuss the significance of this find and present possible scenarios regarding the long-distance conveyance of the obsidian artifact. This study complements other archaeological cases where the use of geochemical sourcing connects people, places, and things of unexpected distances across ancient North America.

Following my original paper on the history of the concept of the chaine operatoire, Audouze and some colleagues responded by accusing me of being biased and defamatory in my expose. In my response ...

Although more than 500 Clovis points have been found at no fewer than 60 locations in California, the age of these points remains problematic. Here we report stratified deposits more than 3 meters deep at a site in the central Sierra Nevada from which a Clovis point was recovered in 1969. Five radiocarbon (14C) dates provide temporal control for terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene strata at the site, including the sediments in which the point reposed. We also report the analysis of pollen samples from these strata. Our research indicates that the Clovis point most likely dates to ∼11,900–11,400 cal yr BP. We interpret this, in the context of other fluted-point discoveries, to mean that Clovis lithic technology evidently persisted longer in the Far West than it did elsewhere in the U.S.

The concept of the chaine operatoire was popularized in the English-speaking world for the first time in the Archaeological Review from Cambridge in 1990. At that time, the history of the integration of this concept into French prehistory had begun. It would take a few years for this process to be successfully completed and more years for the history of research in lithic technology to take this into account. However, the concept and its history have, since the 1990s, been the subject of particularly intriguing writing and rewriting issues. This article presents the state of knowledge on this matter 1) by exposing what could be called the ‘official’ version of this history and 2) by correcting it with concrete historiographical facts gathered in the literature. In doing so, it also speculates on the context and motivations of scholars involved in these projects of writing the concept of the chaine operatoire.

This study uses lithic technological organization from two successive Middle–Late Holocene archaeological cultures in northwest Alaska to test hypotheses about marine resource intensification through time. Researchers argue that maritime adaptations in northwest Alaska progressed from supplementary seasonal exploitation towards a highly complex, year-round reliance on marine resources. Robust faunal assemblages and organic technologies necessary to demonstrate this developmental transformation are generally lacking in sites from this time period. Instead, our primary sources of data are site locations, features, and lithic technology. Theorists have shown that technological organization, including lithic components, is greatly influenced by subsistence strategy and residential mobility. In theory, an increased reliance on marine resources should result in increased technological complexity, greater use of local raw materials, and overall less concern with optimizing size and weight of tools. I tes...

During the second half of the twentieth century, Brazilian archaeologists organized the Paleoindian sites of southeastern and southern Brazil into an archaeological cultural unit known as the Umbu Tradition. Umbu sites were characterized by the large presence of bifacial points in the lithic industries. However, few studies have been accomplished to determine whether there is technological patterning among the Umbu-related lithic assemblages, especially patterns in flakes and other tools. This article presents new data about the Umbu-related lithic industry from the Laranjito archaeological site. Laranjito is located along the Uruguay River margin, and it has been dated to the Pleistocene-Holocene transition (12,915 ± 116 to 11,904 ± 308 cal yr BP).

For many years, intuition and common sense often guided the transference of patterning ostensibly evident in experimental flintknapping results to interpretations of the archaeological record, with little emphasis placed on hypothesis testing, experimental variables, experimental design, or statistical analysis of data. Today, archaeologists routinely take steps to address these issues. We build on these modern efforts by reviewing several important uses of replication experiments: (1) as a means of testing a question, hypothesis, or assumption about certain parameters of stone-tool technology; (2) as a model, in which information from empirically documented situations is used to generate predictions; and (3) as a means of validating analytical methods. This review highlights the important strategic role that stone artifact replication experiments must continue to play in further developing a scientific approach to archaeology.

Blade production is recognized as a diagnostic component of Clovis lithic technology [Bradley, Bruce A., Michael B. Collins, and C. A. Hemmings 2010 Clovis Technology. International Monographs in Prehistory, Archaeological Series 17; Collins, Michael B. 1999 Clovis Blade Technology. University of Texas Press, Austin, TX; Huckell, Bruce B. 2007 Clovis Lithic Technology: A View from the Upper San Pedro Valley. In Murray Springs: A Clovis Site with Multiple Activity Areas in the San Pedro Valley, Arizona, edited by C. V. Haynes, Jr and Bruce B. Huckell. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ; Waters, Michael R., Charlotte D. Pevny, and D. L. Carlson 2011 Clovis Lithic Technology: Investigation of a Stratified Workshop at the Gault Site, Texas. Texas A&M University Press, College Station, Texas]. Clovis Blade reduction strategies have been previously documented [Bradley, Bruce A., Michael B. Collins, and C. A. Hemmings 2010 Clovis Technology. International Monographs in Prehistory, Archaeological Series ...

Microcores and microliths have been identified in archaeological sites in Montana, Wyoming, and North Dakota. While clearly the product of patterned reduction yielding flakes with roughly parallel sides, the cores seldom produced regular flake removals, suggesting a high degree of variability in the resulting microliths. This irregular pattern of reduction contrasts with classic microblade cores from higher latitudes, where uniformity of microblades was desired. When noted by field archaeologists, microcores are variously described as conical or circular scrapers as well as microcores or microblade cores. They occur in low frequencies in several time periods and are seldom identified with associated production debitage let alone microliths. This article examines microlith manufacture and microcore discard in the Northwestern Plains and adjacent regions and proposes that the technology fulfilled a specialized role in the organization of lithic technology linked to the infrequent manufacture of specialty items.

At the end of the Pleistocene, during Folsom occupation, the Estancia Basin contained the eastern-most pluvial lake in the American Southwest. The basin has a long history of archaeological research, and its story of changing lake levels has played an important part in understanding the Paleoindian occupation of the New World. Within the basin, geoarchaeological assessment at the Martin site can be used as a baseline for understanding environmental change during the late Pleistocene. The large well documented Martin and Lucy Folsom artifact assemblages provide a window into lithic technological organization. Combining these data within a broader basin-wide analysis provides a glimpse at Folsom occupation and land use between the well-studied southern High Plains and the middle Rio Grande. By combining the stories of environmental change, fluctuating lake levels, lithic variability, and human mobility, a better picture of life at the Pleistocene/Holocene transition emerges.

The Badger Springs site (AZ D:5:13; NA10924) is a late Paleoindian occupation located on the Kaibito Plateau in northeastern Arizona, just northwest of Black Mesa. The site was discovered and surface-collected in the 1970s. Quantitative analyses conducted as part of this research revealed that the Badger Springs projectile points are morphologically consistent with projectile points of the Angostura type. Previous archaeological investigations have failed to identify late Paleoindian campsites, especially Angostura occupations, on the southwestern Colorado Plateau. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we present a morphological analysis of projectile points from the Badger Springs site in northeastern Arizona using quantitative methods developed by Pitblado [Pitblado, Bonnie L. 2007 Angostura, Jimmy Allen, Foothills-Mountain: Clarifying Terminology for Late Paleoindian Southern Rocky Mountain Spear Points. In Frontiers in Colorado Paleoindian Archaeology, edited by R. H. Brunswig and B. L. Pitblad...

Lithic miniaturisation, the systematic production of small tools from small cores, is a pervasive trend in Pleistocene lithic technology. Miniaturised stone tools are reported from nearly every con...

Both experimental and refitting studies have contributed to our current understanding of Clovis point production. Most Clovis points are manufactured through a series of biface regularization and thinning processes leading to a preform, which in the final stage results in a finished projectile point. However, not all points follow this production process and these atypical examples are identified by preserving evidence of the original flake blank on and of their faces. Such points are relatively rare in the archaeological record. A sample of Clovis points from the central Great Plains is analyzed to determine the frequency and significance of points manufactured on flake blanks. The origin of the raw material for the two subsets of points is also investigated and this shows that as the distance from the lithic source increases, more Clovis projectile points are manufactured on flakes with little additional retouch. This suggests that Clovis points on flakes represent a technological strategy in th...

This study examines a robust sample of lithic assemblages from east-central Wisconsin, including both early and late Paleoindian components and younger Archaic and Woodland material. Average transport distances exceed 200 km in both the early and late Paleoindian samples, but with an important shift from north-south to east-west movement. The Paleoindian/Archaic transition also marks a dramatic change in mobility and toolstone utilization, as Archaic and Woodland assemblages are composed almost entirely of local raw materials.

Excavations at the stratified rockshelter, Rio Ibanez 6 west (RI-6 west), located in west-central Patagonia, uncovered a previously unrecognized lithic industry featuring the production of a range of tools from coarse volcanic rock actually derived from the wall of the shelter. Tool forms from this material at RI-6 west include a variety of bifaces, projectile points, picks, knives, and wedges. This paper will present a description of the industry with a focus on production techniques and tool functions. Conclusions are drawn with a focus on relationships between patterns of lithic technology and those associated with food procurement and processing activities. The study suggests that tools were produced to function as situational and transported personal gear. An implication is that many factors affect decisions to use coarse stone for tool production and use.

Africa's Middle Stone Age (MSA) may have lasted almost half a million years, but its earliest expression is not yet well understood. The MSA is best known for innovations that appear in the archaeological record at various times after about 200,000 years ago with the first appearance of Homo sapiens. These novel behaviours embrace hafting technology, the use of compound paints and adhesives, ingenious lithic technology that included pressure flaking and the heat treatment of rock, the engraving of ochre and eggshell with geometric designs, the stringing of shell beads and the production of a wide range of bone implements. Such innovations might have been linked to new types of social behaviour stimulated by demographic pulses and movements within and out of the continent. Population shifts may have occurred repeatedly during the MSA. Southern African sites seem concentrated in the interior of the subcontinent before 130 kya. Thus, the florescence of MSA innovations described here appears to have coincided...

Throughout the Palaeolithic and across the globe small, regular cores were made using bipolar techniques, in which the object was placed between an anvil and hammer. While there has been much discussion about whether they might have been used as tools or were debris from a manufacturing process it is likely that both are true in different locations and at different times. What is distinctive about the bipolar technique is that it allows knappers to work artefacts down to a very small size, and this may facilitate the extension of both core life and tool life. In this article a model of that miniaturization process is evaluated against Holocene material from Australia and Middle Stone Age material from South Africa. It is likely that the capacity to miniaturize lithic artefacts would have been valuable in a variety of Palaeolithic contexts.

I really like the edited volume Clovis Caches, and I am certain that anyone with an interest in hunter-gatherer lithic technology or Paleoindian archaeology will be happy to have a copy on the shel...

Research into the cognitive foundations of lithic technology has been increasingly prolific and productive over the last 30 years. However, Evolutionary Cognitive Archaeology (ECA) lacks an explicit theoretical framework. In this paper, I selectively review past work and propose a theoretical framework to open discussion amongst researchers. First, I distinguish between the two components of cognition: knowledge and the intelligent systems that make that knowledge possible. The chaine operatoire approach provides a powerful method for describing and analyzing technical knowledge. Thomas Wynn's (1993) three-layer model of tool behavior provides a useful heuristic for organizing research into the underlying neurocognitive processes that make technical knowledge possible. Contemporary work by Wynn, Gowlett, Bril, Moore, Stout, and Uomini are placed within this framework. Notable findings are reviewed to describe the current state of knowledge in ECA. Without an adequate theoretical framework, ECA wil...