Raw Material Selection and Technological Expediency in the Iberian Middle-Upper Paleolithic Transition

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Expediency, in the sense of applying low-cost, informal technological solutions, characterizes a great deal of hominin technological behavior over time. The degree to which expedient technological behaviors are culturally-laden versus culturally-void remains an open question—one with important implications for our interpretation of hominin evolution. In Iberia, for example, lithic assemblages are widely categorized as Mousterian if they a) appear expedient in nature (especially if made on materials such as quartzite or quartz) and lack UP fossils directeurs, b) have centripetal methods, and c) date to periods when it is known or assumed Neanderthals lived. However, such inferences become problematic when applied to Iberia’s Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition. Since the process and chronology of Neanderthals’ replacement by modern humans remain to be clarified, drawing links between technological expediency and Neanderthal authorship here risks confusing the conclusion for a premise. Towards informing this debate, this paper reviews the role of raw material selection on expedient lithic production during the Iberian MP. Data are presented from Lapa do Picareiro layer FF—an expedient assemblage overlying early Aurignacian deposits—to illustrate the impact of raw materials, and how our own framing of technological expediency shapes interpretations of this key transitional period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38346.0