Quantifying and Comparing Bipolar Versus Freehand Flake Morphologies, Production Currencies, and Reduction Energetics During Lithic Miniaturization

ABSTRACT

Recognized by archaeologists for over a century, and practiced by hominins in nearly every archaeological context in which flaked stone is used, bipolar technology involves the coordination of at least three components (hammer, anvil, and core). Archaeologists are increasingly aware of the variability within bipolar reduction, such that it can hardly be considered a single unified reduction strategy. Our experiments investigate the role of axial bipolar reduction versus freehand reduction as strategies for lithic miniaturization on flint. The results provide clear, probabilistic, and quantifiable methods for identifying bipolar reduction in archaeological assemblages. They also show the time and energetic benefits of bipolar reduction over freehand reduction in contexts involving small, elongated flake production. Our results have wide applicability for interpreting archaeological assemblages across Africa, Europe, North America, and Australia.

KEYWORDS:

• Bipolar reduction
• lithic miniaturization
• flint
• energetics
• efficiency
• experiment

Acknowledgements

John Shea, Peter Mitchell, Alex Mackay, and Elisabeth Hildebrand provided helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. We are grateful for their time and effort.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Justin Pargeter is a postdoctoral researcher at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, USA, and holds an honorary research fellowship with the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Justin received his M.Sc. degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, after which he gained teaching experience in Malawi, central Africa, helping to establish the first archaeology degree program in this country. His doctoral dissertation research focuses on testing the proximate and ultimate causes for variability in lithic miniaturization processes during MIS 2 (c. 29 - 12 kcal. BP) in southern Africa.

Metin I. Eren is Director of Archaeology and Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA.

ORCID

Justin Pargeter http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6536-8568

Additional information

Funding

Justin Pargeter’s research is funded by the National Science Foundation [grant number DDIG 72177], the Leakey Foundation (Mosher Baldwin Fellowship), and the Dan David Prize. Metin I. Eren’s research is sponsored by Kent State University.