To What Extent Is the Concept of Convergence Applicable to Lithic Technology: An Overview

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.

For many Paleolithic archaeologists, it is important to determine whether similar characteristics of lithic artifacts and/or assemblages resulted from convergent evolution because this may help us better understand the evolutionary developments of stone artifact technologies from H. habilis to H. sapiens. In this respect, similarity and variation in lithic artifacts has been examined from perspectives such as cultural-historical and functional-evolutionary models. Additionally, actualistic and controlled experiments have improved our understanding of flake formation and mechanical processes of making lithics; these show that manufacturing sequences, raw materials, fracture mechanics, taphonomic processes, and environmental constrains had major impacts on causing variation and/or creating similarities in the shape and size of lithic artifacts. It is still, however, not clear to what extent such variables affect how we recognize convergence in lithic assemblages. This paper will review and discuss some of the difficulties in recognizing “convergence” (i.e., similarity that is independent of traditions) in lithic artifacts with a goal of understanding the feasibility of applying the concept of convergence to lithic artifacts and assemblages. To achieve this, this paper presents some examples of lithic assemblages from Europe, Southwest Asia, and Africa.

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): 36136.0