Abstract
The ability to produce large cutting tools (LCTs) is considered as the technological marker of the Acheulean and the indicator of a greater technological complexity compared to the previous Oldowan. Although Acheulean techno-complexes are also composed of a concurrent core-and-flake technology, the iconic handaxes have attracted more attention than any other lithic component. Consequently, little is known of the small and medium-sized flake productions (small flaking), especially starting from 1 Ma, when handaxe and cleaver manufacture becomes intensive and widespread across Africa, including the Atlantic coastal regions of Morocco. Research at Thomas Quarry I yielded a rich early Acheulean lithic assemblage, mainly composed of quartzite LCTs and small flaking, together with a small-sized flint production. Here, we report a particular aspect of this flint assemblage, i.e. a flint bladelet-like flake production. This process represents a discrete technical behaviour among those related to small flaking both in quartzite and flint: pebbles were flaked using the bipolar-on-anvil technique repeatedly employing a specific method to produce bladelet-like flakes. This production represents the oldest dated occurrence of bladelet-like technology in Africa and reveals technical competencies hitherto unknown for these periods, providing further elements for the techno-economic diversification of the African Acheulean.
Highlights
We present a bladelet-like flake production identified in the late Early Pleistocene African Acheulean of Thomas Quarry I (ThI-L1) at Casablanca (Morocco)
A set of flint cores and flakes display a specific technical process for a recurrent bladelet-like flake production, flaking pebbles through the bipolar-on-anvil technique. This technique is the best solution to exploit very small clasts[33,34], in this case the core convexity management and maintenance show a more complex know-how intentionally involved for detaching as many as possible bladelet-like products. This process is independent from the rest of the flint artefacts focused on the small flake production and it has not been identified within the quartzite small flaking
This is the only known case in the African Acheulean of a bladelet-like production recorded with large cutting tools (LCTs) manufacture in the same archaeological layer[35,36,37]
Summary
Large shaped tools (length or width ≥ 10 cm), made on large flakes, cobbles, or tabular clast blanks, are the hallmark of the African Acheulean from its emergence at ~1.8 Ma and for the subsequent 1.5 million years[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22]. This technique is the best solution to exploit very small clasts[33,34], in this case the core convexity management and maintenance show a more complex know-how intentionally involved for detaching as many as possible bladelet-like products This process is independent from the rest of the flint artefacts focused on the small flake production and it has not been identified within the quartzite small flaking. Construction works that started at the dawn of the twentieth century in the city of Casablanca demanded the opening of large quarries and incidentally revealed the longest Acheulean sequence in North Africa recorded in an indisputable stratigraphic context[37,43] One of these quarries, Thomas Quarry I (ThI; Fig. 1a), was made famous in 1969 by the discovery of a human half-mandible in the Grotte à Hominidés[44]. The detailed analysis of the complete lithostratigraphy of the Casablanca sequence demonstrates that OHF Member 1 lays below formations representing three highstand sea-levels older than MIS 15, probably MIS 17 to 21 if the record is complete, more if it is not, pushing it back to 1 Ma at least in the Early Pleistocene[41,42] (see Supplementary Information text and Supplementary Fig. S1)
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