Early Epipaleolithic Settlement Patterns: Insights from the Study of Ground Stone Tools from the Southern Levant

Abstract

As information from survey and excavation projects in the southern Levant accumulates, the archaeological map of the Early Epipaleolithic becomes a more complex mosaic of regional entities. Ground stone is one aspect of material culture that can be used to examine important aspects of site variability. Here, ethnographic examples are used to generate a series of expectations for plant processing tools. Applying these expectations to Early Epipaleolithic ground stone assemblages reveals several broad regional patterns, including one which is described as ‘flexible’ both in terms of mobility strategies and resource processing range.