Michael S. Bisson

Interview with a Neanderthal: an Experimental Approach for Reconstructing Scraper Production Rules, and their Implications for Imposed Form in Middle Palaeolithic Tools

This article investigates the degree and nature of ‘imposed form’ in Middle Palaeolithic scrapers, the most common category of stone tool produced by Neanderthals. Novice flintknappers unfamiliar with Middle Palaeolithic tool forms were found to consistently employ two rules in manufacturing scrapers: the striking platform and any adjacent blunt edges were left intact to facilitate prehension, and the longest edge with the most acute spine-plane angle was retouched. Scrapers from three major Middle Palaeolithic sites adhered to these rules in over 90 per cent of cases, but significant divergence from these rules was found in a sample from Skh u l cave (Israel) level B1, associated with early anatomically modern Homo sapiens . It is concluded that Middle Palaeolithic scraper manufacture was structured by the need to create a suitable working edge, and to locate that edge to maximize ease and comfort during manufacture and use. The overall shape of the resulting tools was thus not an expression of ‘imposed form’ in the conventional sense. The discovery of violations of these rules in the Skh u l B1 collection provides evidence of increased use of imposed form, as well as potentially significant behavioural differences between early anatomically modern Homo sapiens and contemporary Neanderthals.

A Survey of Late Stone Age and Iron Age Sites at Luano, Zambia

Abstract This paper describes an intensive survey of the Luano stream drainage located near Chingola, Zambia. Deforestation combined with cultivation of this area allowed a complete picture of settlement sizes and distributions from the Middle Stone Age through the Iron Age to be discovered. Models of Stone and Iron Age site location strategies are developed and compared to the settlement pattern observed at Luano. Site location decisions were found to be identical in the Late Stone Age and Early and Middle Iron Ages, suggesting a possible source of conflict between early agriculturalists and hunter‐gatherers. Iron Age communities became larger over time but split into smaller hamlets after AD 1500. Possible economic and social causes of this fission are discussed.