Making it small in the Palaeolithic: bipolar stone-working, miniature artefacts and models of core recycling

Abstract

Throughout the Palaeolithic and across the globe small, regular cores were made using bipolar techniques, in which the object was placed between an anvil and hammer. While there has been much discussion about whether they might have been used as tools or were debris from a manufacturing process it is likely that both are true in different locations and at different times. What is distinctive about the bipolar technique is that it allows knappers to work artefacts down to a very small size, and this may facilitate the extension of both core life and tool life. In this article a model of that miniaturization process is evaluated against Holocene material from Australia and Middle Stone Age material from South Africa. It is likely that the capacity to miniaturize lithic artefacts would have been valuable in a variety of Palaeolithic contexts.

Keywords:

• Miniaturization
• Palaeolithic
• lithic technology
• bipolar
• Australia
• South Africa

Acknowledgements

I thank the Aboriginal owners of Kakadu, in particular the late Mick Alderson, for providing me access to Kun-Kundurnku. I thank Alex Mackay for providing access to the Klein Kliphuis assemblage and for hospitality in the field. Comments from Amy Tabrett and an anonymous reviewer were helpful. This research was supported by the Tom Austen Brown Endowment at the University of Sydney.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peter Hiscock

Peter Hiscock holds the Tom Austen Brown Chair in Australian Archaeology at the University of Sydney. He has a PhD from Queensland University and a DSc from the Australian National University. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He has projects in desert, temperate and tropical Australia. This work reconstructs sequences of technological change and the articulation of technology to occupational strategies and environment. He also has a current project in South Africa examining the Middle Stone Age occupation of inland areas of the Western Cape. Previous projects included analyses of lithic technology in North Africa and in Western Europe. Peter Hiscock spent two years analysing the Neanderthal assemblages from Combe Grenal in France. He has presented a synthesis of Australian prehistory and is now examining the implications of Australian evidence for stories of global human colonization. His publications include more than five books and 140 articles in refereed journals or edited volumes. His books cover topics such as desert occupation, quarrying activities and lithic assemblage variation in Australia. His book Archaeology of Ancient Australia, published by Routledge, won the Mulvaney Book Award.