The Big Deal about Blades: Laminar Technologies and Human Evolution

Abstract

Despite the rapid expansion of archaeological knowledge of the Paleolithic over the past several decades, some generalized interpretive frameworks inherited from previous generations of researchers are remarkably tenacious. One of the most persistent of these is the assumed correlation between blade technologies, Upper Paleolithic industries, and anatomically (and behaviorally) modern humans. In this paper, we review some of the evidence for the production of early blade technologies in Eurasia and Africa dating to the late Lower and the Middle Paleolithic. The basic techniques for blade production appeared thousands of years before the Upper Paleolithic, and there is no justification for linking blades per se to any particular aspect of hominid anatomy or to any major change in the behavioral capacities of hominids. It is true that blades came to dominate the archaeological records of western Eurasia and Africa after 40,000 years ago, perhaps as a consequence of increasing reliance on complex composite tools during the Upper Paleolithic. At the same time, evidence from other regions of the world demonstrates that evolutionary trends in Pleistocene Eurasia were historically contingent and not universal. [Middle Paleolithic, Upper Paleolithic, blade technology, human evolution, hominid behavior and capacities]

Climate and Demography in Early Prehistory: Using Calibrated14C Dates as Population Proxies

“…), it then became a fi xed feature of all Homo populations from then on (see McBrearty and Brooks 2000, Figure 13), with the exception perhaps of geometric microliths (Wurz 1999) and the associated projectile technology (Bretzke et al 2006;Villa et al 2005). By the same token, could low and fl uctuating population numbers have acted to create the periodic emergence and disappearance of blade or leaf-point technologies in the Middle Paleolithic (e.g., Bar-Yosef and Kuhn 1999;Bolus and Conard 2001;Bosinski 1967) or of microlithic technologies in many parts of the world during the Pleistocene (Burdukiewicz 2005)?…”

Aproximación al fenómeno laminar en el Paleolítico medio : el ejemplo de la Cueva Morín (Villanueva de Villaescusa, Cantabria)

“…Existe otro factor por el que estos conjunto de hojitas son importantes y es que refutan la idea de algunos investigadores (Bar-Yosef & Kuhn, 1999) que arguyen que la verdadera diferencia entre el Paleolítico Medio y el Superior no está en la producción de hojas, sino en la de hojitas y las implicaciones de comportamiento, sobre todo cinegético, subyacentes. Sin entrar en valoraciones funcionales de los conjuntos de hojitas cantábricos (en proceso de realización) consideramos que la hipótesis reseñada más arriba debe ser sometida a una reflexión mas intensa en donde se deben de tener en cuenta más variables que la meramente biológica.…”

“…La producción de hojas, al ser un método estandarizado y recurrente, permite la obtención de un número de soportes mayor que bajo otros métodos con igual cantidad de materia prima, lo que genera más cantidad de filo útil. Por último, las hojas permiten una mejora en los métodos de enmangue y aprehensión y permiten un mejor reavivado de los utensilios, sobre todo si el retoque se da en la parte distal del mismo (Tixier, 1984;Bar Yosef & Kuhn, 1999).…”

Culture and cognition in the Acheulian industry: a case study from Gesher Benot Yaʿaqov

“…These have revealed elaborate and sophisticated technological achievements (prepared core techniques and production of blades) from both East Africa and the Levant that date from a much earlier era, the Acheulian period (ca 0.5 Ma) [20,68,69].…”