Technological change in Iberomaurusian culture: The case of Tamar Hat, Rassel and Columnata lithic assemblages (Algeria)

Abstract

This paper highlights the results of a technological analysis carried out for the first time on nine lithic assemblages belonging to three Iberomaurusian sites in Algeria (Tamar Hat rockshelter, Rassel cave and Columnata open-air site). The purpose of this paper is to identify the technical system adopted for the production of lithic artifacts in each of the studied assemblages in order to search for similarities and discrepancies in the technical behaviours between coastal and inland Iberomaurusian populations. This requires recognition of the reduction core strategies and transformation of the produced blanks, as well as research into debitage methods and techniques employed. In all three sites, local raw materials were preferred and the lithic production was primarily geared towards obtaining relatively standardized lamellar blanks with different debitage schemes. In lower occupations at Tamar Hat, the bladelets were mainly produced by implementing a single and complex chaîne opératoire of lamellar production which integrated variable blanks according to numerous and different schemes. The dominant scheme was an elaborate debitage oriented to the production of short and narrow bladelet blanks from reduced prismatic and sub-pyramidal cores, while by-products were exploited as bladelet cores to produce micro-bladelets and burin spalls. A change in the core reduction strategies appeared in the upper occupations of Tamar Hat where elongated bladelets were produced according to a common simple debitage widespread in the latest occupations. The implementation of a single chaîne opératoire is preserved in the lower layer of Rassel, although with a less elaborate roughing out processing, as for the upper occupations of Tamar Hat. In contrast, at Columnata three independent chaînes opératoires were implemented to produce robust blanks, which represents a stark contrast with previous methods known in the other sites. The technological analysis has provided strong arguments for a different know-how in technical behaviours between Iberomaurusian populations living in coastal rockshelters and those in hinterlands open-air sites. Thus, the different geographical areas seem to cover variable economic entities which would suggest a new adaptation of the same populations to different ecological niches.