Abstract
Qesem Cave is assigned to the Acheulo-Yabrudian cultural complex of the late Lower Paleolithic period. The 7.5 m deep stratigraphic sequence is dated to 400-200 ka (thousands of years ago). It is mostly attributed to the Amudian blade-dominated industry, one of the earliest blade production technologies in the world. In this paper, we present the results of a detailed study of five Amudian assemblages from Qesem Cave and suggest two trajectories for the production of blades at the site. We argue that the reduction sequences of blades at Qesem Cave represent an innovative and straightforward technology aimed at the systemic and serial production of predetermined blanks. We suggest that this predetermined blank technology shows planning and intensity that is not significantly different from Middle Paleolithic Mousterian technological systems. Furthermore, this well-organized serial manufacture of cutting implements mainly for butchering might indicates that a significant change in human behavior had taken place by the late Lower Paleolithic period.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 458-479 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | Journal of Human Evolution |
| Volume | 61 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 2011 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This paper benefited from the constructive advice of two anonymous reviewers who offered new perspective toward presenting our work and its results. We are also grateful to the editors for their useful comments, insights and help that significantly improved the manuscript. Field and laboratory work of the Qesem Cave project is supported by grants from the Israel Science Foundation , CARE Archaeological Foundation , Leakey Foundation , the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Thyssen Foundation .
Keywords
- Amudian
- Laminar items
- Levant
- Lower paleolithic
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
- Anthropology
