ABSTRACT The Victoria West core technology (VWCT) has long been regarded as an important and uniquely prepared core tradition in the Acheulean. This technology is currently the earliest prepared core technology (0.8–1.1 Ma) to appear during the Paleolithic. The VWCT is thought to have many conceptual and technological similarities with the Levallois technology and is sometimes considered to be a “proto-Levallois” tradition. The discovery and subsequent analyses of VWCT have led to extensive discussion among Paleolithic archaeologists about the origin and development of prepared core technologies and associated complex cognitive abilities of early hominins. Unfortunately, VWCT has only been reported from one restricted area of the world, central South Africa. This has made it difficult to determine how widespread this behavior may have been. Here, we report evidence of a similar technology to the VWCT outside South Africa, from the Bose (Baise) Basin in southern China, a basin that has long been considered a core large cutting tool-bearing region in eastern Asia. Eight stone artifacts from the Middle Pleistocene Fengshudao site in Bose appear to be quite similar to the VWCT from the Canteen Kopje site in South Africa. These findings from Fengshudao potentially expand the distribution area of this technologyto eastern Asia and for the first time demonstrate that prepared core technology, along with the required cognitive abilities, also exists in the East Asian Early Paleolithic. The Fengshudao evidence from southern China, being so far east of South Africa suggests this may be a case of convergent evolution.

ABSTRACT Recycling was an activity carried out by ancient hunter-gatherer populations. It has been demonstrated by many studies on this matter. However, there are main issues in relation to it that are still under debate: what we call recycling, how we identify it, and what implications it has for the technoeconomic dynamics of these groups. In order to contribute to this topic, we present here the Neandertal flint materials from the stratigraphic unit viii of the El Salt rockshelter (Alcoi, Alacant, eastern Iberia). We have selected a series of artifacts exhibiting time-dependent postgenetic alterations (i.e. white patinas and thermal alteration) that affect previous technical intervention and, additionally, display subsequent anthropogenic actions that reveal an intermediate stage between the initial and the second use. The data obtained point to a principal relationship of recycling with mobility dynamics, and entail implications for Neandertal lithic technology and provisioning.

ABSTRACT The Kasten Site is a multicomponent plowzone site in Erie County, Ohio that possesses a Late Pleistocene Clovis lithic assemblage. Here, we describe the late Pleistocene Clovis, and possible-Clovis, lithic artifacts via technological descriptions, illustrations and images, morphometrics, and microwear. The lithic artifacts are made from cherts which appear to outcrop between 94.7 and 356.8 km from the site. Based on our descriptions, we suggest that the Kasten site is a small logistical site, whereby a small number Clovis people occupied it ephemerally for the purposes of resource procurement. Given the microwear evidence, this resource may have been animal prey, but given that the site is adjacent to a topographic depression, the desired resource could also have been water.

ABSTRACT The archaeological site of Calicantone (Sicily, Italy) is known since the 1970s for its necropolis. In 2012, after a survey, archaeologists found close to the necropolis a bi-apsidal hut. The use-wear and technological analysis of the knapped lithic assemblage revealed the presence of artefacts crafted by specialists with advanced technical skills alongside expedient flake tool production. Some technological solutions, such as an obliquely-hafted long pressure-lever blade used as a sickle, are unprecedented for Sicily but find earlier comparisons in the east and north-west Mediterranean. This fact raises questions about the neolithisation in Sicily. Other solutions are novel and shed new light on the function of a particular tool typology, such as the bifacial cleaver used to scrape hides. Furthermore, the lithic assemblage exhibited peculiarities, such as the single functionality of the tools and their brief use, which could be correlated with communal funerary functions performed within the hut.

ABSTRACT This study explores the reworking of projectile point stems by hunter-gatherers in southeastern South America. Techniques employed to rework stems included pressure and percussion flaking and, eventually, light abrasion of fractured sections, methods that were applied opportunistically to resolve various types of stem fractures. Although the local literature has often overlooked the presence of reworked stems, it appears that point rebasing was a relatively common practice in the region, especially for points made from microcrystalline rocks and other highly silicified rocks. The reworking of points was likely carried out to preserve high-quality raw materials and to reduce the cost of manufacturing new points. Although the recognition of reworked stems can be challenging, it is a crucial task for subsequent morphometric and stylistic analysis. This allows for the identification of one of the sources of point variation thus avoiding an artificial increase in the variability of the original designs.

ABSTRACT This study describes a multi-proxy approach toward a newly discovered open-air loess site, Ertash Sai 2, located in the western piedmonts of the Tian Shan in Uzbekistan. Technological analyzes enabled the identification of an asymmetric core reduction scheme accompanied by a Levallois-like predetermined knapping scheme, along with the production of truncated-faceted pieces and burin-cores. Moreover, the results show a direct relationship between the presence of truncated-faceted pieces or burin-cores and both core reduction schemes, as long as truncated-faceted pieces were mostly produced from débordant blades and flakes. Chronostratigraphic studies enabled the precise chronology of the assemblage to be determined as 68–57 ka BP. This raises questions about the origins of traits usually associated with the Initial Upper Palaeolithic in Central Asia and their roots in local Levallois-based assemblages.

ABSTRACT Research relating to cleavers can help to characterize the Middle Pleistocene European technocultural landscape, via a technomorphometric approach that provides insights into this tool’s composite involvement. A sample of 47 cleavers from the Lanne-Darré site were observed through two scales of technomorphometric analyses. When the studied entities are the entire tools, technomorphometric links are rarely perceptible; moreover, attributing them to specific usage is impossible given the current state of knowledge. Edge-scale analysis, however, is able to highlight significant relations between technical choices and shape. The transversal cutting edge specific to cleavers, directly resulting from the blank’s debitage, revealed recurrent morphologic and morphometric similarities, though differences remained in the nature and organization of other cleaver's parts. Four technico-structural tools groups were determined from these heterogeneous organizations, that differ from J. Tixier’s technotypology. Finally, the proposed technomorphometric approach provides new elements for understanding the structural place of cleavers in technical systems .

ABSTRACT We present the results of technological and protein residue analyses of the lithic assemblages recovered at the Pedernales-38 site (26.5°S; 69°W), located in the highlands of the southern Andes (3380 masl). Based on a reconstruction of the operational chains and the differential representation of their phases, we suggest that the final production, use, maintenance, and discard of large stemmed projectile points occurred at the site. Of the assemblage studied, nine (9) projectile points and one end-scraper were subjected to residue analysis using cross-over immunoelectrophoresis (CIEP). Four positive reactions to antisera of human, camelid (guanaco or vicuña) and canid (Andean fox) were recorded. The results are discussed based on the depositional context and the structure of the archeological record. We propose that Pedernales projectile points were mainly used in hunting weapons to capture wild camelids during the seasonal occupation of the Andes highlands.

ABSTRACT The Jing River Basin is one of the birthplaces of Chinese civilization, but there has been no systematic research on prehistoric archaeology in this region to date. Recently, researchers conducted archaeological surveys of four prehistoric sites in the upper reaches of the Jing River and collected a batch of lithic artifacts. This article employs a combined approach of typological analysis and technique analysis to study the lithic artifacts. Results show that the operational method involves core preparation and flaking by direct percussion. Compared to other prehistoric sites in China, it is evident that the discovered sites belong to the prehistoric culture of the upper Yellow River region. By combining the collected pottery, it can be more precisely determined that the four sites surveyed in this investigation represent the Qijia Culture of the Neolithic period. This is a unique prehistoric culture in the northwest of China.

ABSTRACT The ancient Maya produced chipped chert and obsidian tools for inclusion in religious rituals as both symbolic and/or functional implements. In this paper, we discuss one particular form of these special chipped stone tools – the large laurel-leaf biface. Laurel-leaf bifaces recovered from the cave sites of Actun Chapat, Actun Tunichil Mucnal, Actun Yaxteel Ahau, and Je’reftheel in central Belize are analyzed in terms of context, lithic raw material, production techniques, symbolism, and use-wear in order to better understand their role(s) as ceremonially significant items. When combined with ethnohistoric and ethnographic information, these analyses allow us to see laurel-leaf bifaces as both functional implements for and powerful symbols of sacrifice within ancient Maya ideology and worldview.