Assessing the Potential for Raw Material Profiling Studies in Modelling Neanderthal Behavioural Complexity

Summary

Raw material studies are becoming increasingly popular as the development of technical and methodological advances adds to the macroscopic and geological study of stone tools. In turn this improves our capability to create a link between a stone tool’s archaeological context and geological area of origin. This connection is often discussed in terms of hominin behaviour, such as organisation of subsistence, adaptation to environment, and forward planning. However, the growing body of data provided by provenance research raises the need to critically assess how this information practically translates into proxies of hominin behaviour. This question is particularly prescient when considering the efficacy of raw material studies in exploring the lives of archaic Homo, in this case Homo neanderthalensis. Middle Palaeolithic foraging behaviour has historically been seen as ‘non-curated’, lacking a depth of planning and adaptive response to dynamic environments (e.g. Binford 1979; 1982). However, recent advances in our understanding of Neanderthals, suggest a species capable of complex subsistence behaviour, such as transport and curation. This paper discusses raw material acquisition strategies, and how profiles of raw material variability through time and space can contribute to developing models of Neanderthal behaviour.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21963