Protoaurignacian Core Reduction Procedures: Blade and Bladelet Technologies at Fumane Cave

ABSTRACT

The Protoaurignacian is one of the European techno-complexes that marks the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic. During this time bladelet implements, frequently intended to be hafted in composite tools, become the primary goal of lithic production. The growing number of technological investigations carried out on several assemblages has revealed that, in most cases, bladelets are not the result of the reduction of blade cores. However, the detailed procedures involved in the production of blades and bladelets have rarely been reconstructed. Here we report on diacritic investigations of early stage and exhausted cores from the Protoaurignacian layers of Fumane Cave in northeastern Italy. We show that core reduction is influenced by two distinct operational concepts that relate to the manufacture of different predetermined products. The first is characterized by a linear and consecutive knapping progression that aims to obtain blades and, to a minor extent, bladelets with sub-parallel edges. The second is characterized instead by an alternated knapping progression that is exclusively used to produce slender bladelets with a convergent shape. We also show that carinated cores do not significantly differ, technologically, from semi-circumferential bladelet cores. We conclude by suggesting that there existed strong technological traditions shared between hunter–gatherers across the geographical extent of the Protoaurignacian.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Lithic technology
• Protoaurignacian
• Upper Paleolithic
• core reduction
• blade and bladelet technologies
• diacritic analysis

Acknowledgements

Research at Fumane is coordinated by the Ferrara University (MP) in the framework of a project supported by the Ministry of Culture—Veneto Archaeological Superintendence, public institutions (Lessinia Mountain Community—Regional Natural Park, Fumane Municipality), foundations (Leakey Foundation, Spring 2015 Grant), and private associations and companies. The doctoral studies of Armando Falcucci are funded by the state of Baden-Württemberg and the University of Tübingen. The authors are grateful to the Editor and to two anonymous reviewers for providing feedback that considerably improved the paper.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on Contributors

Armando Falcucci has an MA degree in Quaternary, prehistory, and archaeology from the University of Ferrara. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Tübingen under the supervision of Prof. Nicholas Conard and Prof. Michael Bolus. He is part of the Evolution of Cultural Modernity (ECM) research group, whose goal is to examine the driving forces that affected the evolution of human behavior during the Middle and Late Pleistocene. His research project investigates lithic technologies at the onset of the Upper Paleolithic, focusing primarily on Aurignacian techno-complexes.

Marco Peresani (PhD 1993, University of Bologna) is an associate professor in anthropology at the University of Ferrara and coordinates projects on the human population in the Alps and central Italy during the Paleolithic and the Mesolithic. His main focuses are the Middle Paleolithic–Upper Paleolithic transition and Late Glacial to Early Holocene hunter–gatherer settlement dynamics. Using lithic technology as his primary research tool, he infers cases of behavioral variability. He has co-authored over 250 articles and books on lithic technologies from these different periods.

ORCID

Armando Falcucci http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3255-1005

Marco Peresani http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6562-6336

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Leakey Foundation [grant number 2015/2016 general grant].