Is There (and What Is) a “Nubian-Levallois” from the Etic Perspective of Flake and Fracture Formation?

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Establishing the Science of Paleolithic Archaeology: The Legacy of Harold Dibble (1951–2018) Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Lithic experimentation and the understanding of the so-called nubian-levallois technology are just two among many aspects of Harold’s legacy. The results of so far the only controlled experiment on core surface morphology, some of which resembles nubian-levallois in featuring a prominent medial-distal ridge, revealed its dynamic relationship with platform variables in forming a flake, potentially overriding the (un)controlled or (un)wanted effects of these variables on flake size and shape. This paper builds on this insight, and additionally brings the mediating effects of platform width and bulb size into this relationship for its more comprehensive model. In the absence of archaeological nubian-levallois blanks, to test the proposed model here I use a newly excavated sample of complete pointed blanks from the upper deposits of Ain Difla rockshelter in Jordan. These blanks were produced by bidirectional flaking and they feature distal removal negatives and a medial-distal ridge. I compare this sample with the rest of complete blanks from the same deposits that are of various shapes and have no medial-distal ridge and mostly centripetal and unidirectional removals. The paper further discusses the latent trade-offs of nubian-levallois-like morphology in flaking economy and contextualizes the results within a broader evolutionary perspective on lithic technology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Establishing the Science of Paleolithic Archaeology: The Legacy of Harold Dibble (1951–2018) Part I   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35861.0