Abstract
The techno-functional approach has been employed to better understand one of the more relevant artifact types generally found in Lower Palaeolithic sites: so-called small tools. Particularly, some Italian sites, such as Ficoncella, Isernia and others, have been the subject of specialized studies which provide evidence of an unexpected complexity of technical behaviours mainly related to highly specialized functional properties of the small tools. In this paper, we aim to enhance the debate on the topic by presenting a techno-functional study of the entire lithic assemblage coming from one of the most renown Middle Pleistocene sites in southern Europe, the open-air site of Fontana Ranuccio (Central Italy). Five groups of retouched tools have been identified: cutting tools, where retouch is usually applied to isolate a cutting edge on the blank; pointed tools, where retouch isolates a pointed edge; scrapers; and few other types of retouched tools such as notches and denticulates. We discuss a reconstruction of the reduction sequence in association with the functional features of the produced stone tools in order to better understand these Middle Pleistocene hominin behaviours. Broadly speaking, retouch seems to be used as a real technical process, not distinguishable from the reduction sequence. What seems relevant here is the need to modify the original morphology of flakes and cores in order to shape them into the final objectives of the production. In this perspective, blank production (débitage) and tool shaping (façonnage) are tightly interconnected one on the other.
Highlights
Recent studies have successfully demonstrated a previously unexpected, wide variability in lithic production during the Lower Palaeolithic
The goal of the TFA is to understand the functional potential of a tool thanks to ‘the technical consequences of each removal on the blank; this analysis leads to the identification of the active edge of the tool as well as the volume of the tool which is presumably held in the hand or eventually hafted during the use
On the basis of a long-term experience on this subject (Bietti and Grimaldi 1991; Grimaldi 1996; Grimaldi et al 1999; Grimaldi and Santaniello 2014; Song et al 2019), supported by a robust experimental dataset (Bietti et al 2009), we suggest anvil percussion could have played a very important role during the Middle Pleistocene in the production of blanks made from small pebbles or cobbles such as the case in Fontana Ranuccio as well as in other European sites
Summary
Recent studies have successfully demonstrated a previously unexpected, wide variability in lithic production during the Lower Palaeolithic (among others, Nicoud 2011; Chevrier 2012; Boëda 2013; Aureli et al 2016). As far as the Lower Palaeolithic is concerned, the term ‘small tools’ refers to the production of small, chipped, generally retouched stone tools found between Europe and southwest Asia (see for instance Rocca 2013; Agam et al 2015; Alperson-Afil and Goren-Inbar 2016; Villa et al 2016). Regardless of their chrono-cultural attribution, small tools and bifaces are not necessarily found together in Europe. The association between bifaces, large cutting tools, and small tools becomes more evident starting around 700 ka BP around the Mediterranean and in Western Europe
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