Interview with a Neanderthal: an Experimental Approach for Reconstructing Scraper Production Rules, and their Implications for Imposed Form in Middle Palaeolithic Tools

Abstract

This article investigates the degree and nature of ‘imposed form’ in Middle Palaeolithic scrapers, the most common category of stone tool produced by Neanderthals. Novice flintknappers unfamiliar with Middle Palaeolithic tool forms were found to consistently employ two rules in manufacturing scrapers: the striking platform and any adjacent blunt edges were left intact to facilitate prehension, and the longest edge with the most acute spine-plane angle was retouched. Scrapers from three major Middle Palaeolithic sites adhered to these rules in over 90 per cent of cases, but significant divergence from these rules was found in a sample from Skhul cave (Israel) level B1, associated with early anatomically modern Homo sapiens. It is concluded that Middle Palaeolithic scraper manufacture was structured by the need to create a suitable working edge, and to locate that edge to maximize ease and comfort during manufacture and use. The overall shape of the resulting tools was thus not an expression of ‘imposed form’ in the conventional sense. The discovery of violations of these rules in the Skhul B1 collection provides evidence of increased use of imposed form, as well as potentially significant behavioural differences between early anatomically modern Homo sapiens and contemporary Neanderthals.

Feminine Knowledge and Skill Reconsidered: Women and Flaked Stone Tools

“…How are we to make sense of this? One of the longest‐standing debates in archaeology concerns the variation present in Paleolithic hide scrapers (Andrefsky 1994; Bamforth 1986; Bisson 2001; Bordes 1961; Dibble 1987; Kuhn 1992; Meltzer 1981; Wobst 2000), yet no one has suggested that perhaps differences in sex and gender may account for the stone‐scraper variability. The latter once again reflects the idea that archaeologists perceive women's technology as unskilled and expedient.…”

Application of a new typological approach to classifying denticulate and notched tools: the study of two Mousterian lithic assemblages

“…In the examples analyzed here we discovered that, as opposed to scrapers, in which flakes with long and regular edges to retouch are preferred (Bisson, 2001), the choice of the blank for the production of denticulates is not associated with a particular shape or size. The most significant feature is the intention to change the properties of the blank to create a denticulate outline with respect to the requirements of manual prehension.…”

Retouch intensity on Quina scrapers at Combe Grenal: A test of the reduction model

“…Bisson, 2001;Bourguignon, 1997;Bourguignon et al, 2004;Thiébaut, 2003;Turq, 2000;Verjux, 1988;Verjux and Rousseau, 1986), reinforcing the possibility that flake form may have an important role in the construction of morphological diversity amongst Mousterian implements. Many discussions of flake-retouch relationships have posited a simple relationship between flake elongation and the position of retouch, suggesting that long flakes were often retouched on their lateral margins, whereas short, wide flakes were often worked at the distal end (e.g.…”