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Knives, bifaces, and hammers: a study in technology from the Southern Levant
Abstract and Figures
Lithic production in the Late Neolithic workshop site of Har Qeren XIV (western Negev, Israel) was focused solely on the manufacture of large cortical knives made on massive flint flakes. All stages of the reduction sequence are represented in the vicinity, from the removal of large flakes off massive flint nodules, through roughing out, to the final finishing stages (including unsuccessful efforts). This has provided a rare opportunity for reconstructing the chaine operatoire
of knife production, with particular emphasis on differentiation between hard and soft hammer knapping. The wider implications of this study for identifying byproducts of hi facial reduction sequences in assemblages with more than a single reduction sequence are discussed.
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... In his pioneering work, Newcomer (1971) classified flakes resulting from the experimental production of handaxes into three distinct categories: roughout, thinning and shaping, and finishing flakes. This terminology is widely used in both archaeological and experimental technological studies for describing large cutting tool and flake assemblages (e.g., among others, Bradley and Sampson, 1986;Sharon and Goren-Inbar, 1999;Wenban-Smith, 1999;Sharon and Goring-Morris, 2004). Although his classification is a very useful descriptive tool, Newcomer's definitions (1971: 90) impose a somewhat rigid division (three "stages") on a continuous knapping process, a difficulty he himself observed. ...
... They are straight or often convex in section. In many cases, they result from removals intended to create an appropriate striking platform for the detachment of a large "thinning and shaping" flake (Sharon and Goring-Morris, 2004). ...
... Isolated quarries like the studied site are known in the Negev both in the PPNB, in Ramat Tamar (Taute 1994;Barkai et al. 2007;Schyle 2007) and Har Gevim (Gopher and Barkai 2011), and the Late Neolithic in Har Qeren (Western Negev), assigned to the Tuwailan culture (Goring-Morris et al. 1994;Sharon and Goring-Morris 2004). Interestingly, with the exception of Har Gevim, these sites are mainly associated with the production of bifacial tools or knifes rather than blades. ...
... These pastoral societies existed at the geographical margins, or periphery, of the developing agricultural societies of the period in the Mediterranean zone (Goring-Morris 1993; Rosen 2002). It has been suggested that the first pastoral society in the Negev may be identified in several sites showing specific typological and technological traits, e.g. the Tuwailan industry (Goring-Morris et al. 1994;Sharon and Goring-Morris 2004). It was also suggested that this economical shift in these marginal Neolithic societies may be reflected in some typological changes in the lithic assemblages. ...
A salvage excavation took place in a well-preserved Neolithic quarry and blade production workshop near the town of Mitzpe Ramon, Negev desert, Israel. The quarry is part of a larger flint extraction site, where series of knapping localities from different periods were identified along a flint outcrop from the Zafit formation. While all other localities were partly deflated surface collections, in the quarry discussed here evidence for the quarrying process was preserved together with the knapped flint. Quarry loess-like sediments, covering the quarrying waste and knapped flint, were dated by optically stimulated luminescence to the transition between the Pre-Pottery Neolithic to the Early Late Neolithic period. Finds of this transitional period in the Negev highlands are rare and it is suggested that they are remains of nomadic herders of a cultural entity known as Tuwailan. The well-preserved quarry and the finds within it, including a knapped lithic assemblage in situ, represent a short-term event of quarrying and knapping flint. Although it is unknown where the knappers came from, or to what sites were the products transferred to, the new site contributes to our knowledge on this relatively unknown time span in this arid area.
... Late Acheulian handaxes are characterized by careful platform preparation, crosssectional thinning with the aid of a soft hammer, and three-dimensional symmetry (Stout, 2011;Wynn, 2002). Although soft hammers, which were usually made from antler, bone, or wood (Sharon & Goren-Inbar, 1999), are not always preserved at archaeological sites, their presence can be indirectly inferred from flakes and the handaxes themselves, which exhibit morphological attributes that are distinct from those produced by hard hammer percussion (Sharon & Goring-Morris, 2004). There are many late Acheulian sites at which there is lithic evidence for soft hammer use, including Boxgrove, England, La Noira, France, Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, and others (Leakey, 1951;Moncel et al., 2015;Sharon & Goren-Inbar, 1999). ...
A crucial design feature of language useful for determining when grammatical language evolved in the human lineage is our ability to combine meaningless units to form a new unit with meaning (combinatoriality) and to further combine these meaningful units into a larger unit with a novel meaning (compositionality). There is overlap between neural bases that underlie hierarchical cognitive functions required for compositionality in both linguistic and nonlinguistic contexts (e.g., tool use). Therefore, evidence of compositional tool use in the archaeological record should signify, at the very least, the cognitive capacity for grammatical language by that point in time. We devise a novel system to evaluate the level of hierarchical nesting of tool components in single tool use activities. In the application of this system, we demonstrate that nonhuman primates, and by extension, the last common ancestor shared by Pan and Homo, are capable of basic combinatoriality; however, their technology does not approach the compositionality observable in modern human tool use. The prehistoric archaeological record supports a continuous evolution of combinatorial tool use into compositional tool use, with evidence for human-like levels of by 0.93 million years ago (Ma), or possibly as early as 1.7 Ma. While compositional language could have lagged behind compositional tool use, if language and technology coevolved according to the Technological Origin for Language hypothesis, which proposes a feedback system between the two, then evidence for hierarchical tool use structures implies a similar level of complexity in linguistic structures.
... Hard percussors were used in stone working, which is substantiated by, e.g. thickness of the flakes and absence of faceted butts and lip [75,76]. One hand-axe edge modification flake was identified in the assemblage, but it is possible that some multidirectional quartzite blanks are also connected with this activity. ...
Although essential for reconstructing hominin behaviour during the Early Palaeolithic, only a handful of Acheulean sites have been dated in the Eastern Sahara region. This is due to the scarcity of sites for this time period and the lack of datable material. However, recent excavations in the Atbara region (Sudan) have provided unique opportunities to analyse and date Acheulean stone tools. We report here on EDAR 7, part of a cluster of Acheulean and Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites that were recently discovered in the Eastern Desert Atbara River (EDAR) region, located in the Eastern Desert (Sudan) far from the Nile valley. At EDAR 7, a 3.5 metre sedimentary sequence was excavated, allowing an Acheulean assemblage to be investigated using a combination of sedimentology, stone tool studies and optically stimulated luminescence dating (OSL). The site has delivered a complete Acheulean knapping chaine opératoire, providing new information about the Saharan Acheulean. The EDAR 7 site is interpreted as a remnant of a campsite based on the co-occurrence of two reduction modes: one geared towards the production of Large Cutting Tools (LCTs), and the other based on the flaking of small debitage and production of flake tools. Particularly notable in the EDAR 7 assemblage is the abundance of cleavers, most of which display evidence of flake production. Implementation of giant Kombewa flakes was also observed. A geometric morphometric analysis of hand-axes was conducted to verify a possible Late Acheulean assemblage standardisation in the Nubian Sahara. In addition, the analysis of micro-traces and wear on the artefacts has provided information on the use history of the Acheulean stone tools. Sediment analyses and OSL dating show that the EDAR 7 sequence contains the oldest Acheulean encampment remains in the Eastern Sahara, dated to the MIS 11 or earlier. This confirms that Homo erectus occupied the EDAR region during Middle Pleistocene humid periods, and demonstrates that habitable corridors existed between the Ethiopian Highlands, the Nile and the Red Sea coast, allowing population dispersals across the continent and out of it.
... Systematic surveys northeast of Nizzana atop Har Qeren and the adjacent Shluhat Qeren revealed extensive evidence for prehistoric exploitation of the exposed flint seams from the Middle Paleolithic onwards, including Upper Paleolithic, Epipaleolithic, Neolithic and later workshop sites (Goring-Morris, Gopher, and Rosen 1994;Goring-Morris and Rosen 1987;Marder 2002;Sharon and Goring-Morris 2004), amongst them several Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic/Early Bronze (Timnian) sites. Har Qeren 15 (Grid coordinates 6419/4303; Fig. 2) is one of several tabular scraper quarry and production sites identified in the area. ...
The site of Har Qeren 15 is a small tabular scraper quarry and campsite attributable to the Timnian culture complex,
6th–3rd millennium Cal BCE, perhaps in the earlier part of the span. Analyses of the lithic materials and their spatial
distribution offer a picture of non-intensive production reflecting the production of tabular scrapers and ad hoc tools,
perhaps linked to the seasonal round of local pastoral groups. Combined with other sites from the region, this picture of
extensive, almost opportunistic production, contrasts with some of the models of intensive production of tabular scrapers
based on sites in Jordan. This suggests either that several modes of manufacture operated during this long period, that
the large sites of Jordan represent long, extended periods of exploitation rather than some intensive and specialized
system of production, or chronological shifts in the intensity of production.
A series of eight dwelling sites were discovered recently in south-eastern Jordan, directly associated with eight mass-hunting structures: desert kites. These associated sites also share a clear chronological framework, as they are all dated to the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. The archaeological material, mostly made up of abundant lithic industries, is extremely homogenous and coherent at all the sites. The excavated lithic industries from three of the eight dwelling sites are studied here. They show similarities and consist of a blade and a bifacial component of small to large-sized artefacts, in association with a large assemblage of small arrowheads of various types. On the basis of the specific characteristics of the whole lithic assemblage, a new regional techno-complex, called the “Ghassanian”, is defined for these desert margins of the Fertile Crescent.
Experimental production and modification of handaxes were carried out by D. Ben -Ami in 1995 in an attempt to achieve a better understanding of the characteristics of Acheulian biface byproducts (flakes) and the impact of the use of different types of percussors. A result of these experiments was the identification of flakes devoid of scar pattern on their dorsal face. A refitting project was then mounted with the aim of examining the role of these dorsally plain flakes within the handaxe reduction process. Refitting resulted in the identification of three different types of such flakes: those whose dorsal face derives from the ventral face of a previously detached flake (when a handaxe was made on a flake); those that were not struck deliberately, but split spontaneously from the bulbar surface of a large flake; and those whose dorsal face derives from a large scar. This article describes the results of a technological analysis of these unique flakes. The reported results may be used in cases in which refitting cannot be carried out to identify biface modification assemblages that exploited large flakes.
This paper presents the results of a controlled experiment which examined the relationship between two different indentor types and 11 flake attributes. It was found that the flake attributes commonly used by archaeologists to infer the prehistoric use of soft indentors are more likely a result of flintknapping technique employed during soft hammer flaking than differences produced by indentor type. Antler indentors do affect how the flake mass is distributed into the dimensional attributes of flake length and thickness, thereby maximizing their efficiency for transport and for raw material conservation.