The use of “second rate” raw materials during Middle Palaeolithic. Technological and functional analysis of two sites in north-eastern Iberia

Abstract

In recent years many issues arose regarding the technological and functional analysis of lithic assemblages dominated by “second rate raw materials” like vein quartz, metamorphic or volcanic rocks. Nevertheless, the technological study of this kind of assemblages and their consequent interpretation seems to be still based on the techno-typological criteria elaborated for flint artefacts, thus leading to the common inference that these lithic assemblages are archaic and mainly linked to opportunistic production systems. Pedra Dreta and Can Garriga, located in the north-east of the Iberian Peninsula, present two small lithic assemblages dominated by local raw materials (vein quartz, quartzite, porphyry, syenite, etc.) and by opportunistic reduction sequences but with the presence of Levallois and discoid châine operatoires. The technological analysis is aimed to answer two main issues that emerged during the study and that can contribute to the study of non-flint lithic assemblages: 1. Which criteria should we adopt to distinguish between discoid and recurrent centripetal Levallois products? 2. Is it possible that the Levallois products are the result rather of the opportunistic and expedient reduction sequences that are dominant in these assemblages than of a real use of the Levallois method? A use-wear analysis has also been conducted for the first time on Pedra Dreta and Can Garriga lithic assemblages. The peculiarities of the lithic raw materials employed made necessary the adoption of specific methodologies and the realization of a particular procedure for the analysis of porphyry's tools.