Revisiting Bipolar Technology‘s African Distribution and Diversity

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.

Bipolar reduction is a central strategy in Pleistocene archaeology, recognized as an archetypal “expedient” technology. It entails hammer and anvil flake production, suitable for stabilizing smaller cores during miniaturized flake production. Despite its widespread occurrence and decades of study, debates persist in the bipolar literature. These debates center on how and why ancient toolmakers used bipolar reduction (e.g., the wedges vs. cores debate) and whether shifts in humans’ use of bipolar technology delineate periods in Paleolithic archaeology. This paper assesses Horta et al.’s (2022, “Lithic Bipolar Methods as an Adaptive Strategy through Space and Time”) recent bipolar technology metastudy, focusing on their use of African archaeological evidence. We augment their survey with (1) search terms for African bipolar technology instances and (2) a reevaluation of bipolar implements as cores rather than wedges. The results show a strong correlation between periods of lithic miniaturization and bipolar technology, supporting the widespread assumption that bipolar implements represent cores and not wedges. Our study demonstrates the complexities of understanding ancient humans’ use of expedient technologies across space and time.

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): 37920.0