ABSTRACT This study examines the side-blow technique, a significant component of the chipped stone industry at the Late Neolithic settlement of Hakemi Use, from technological, typological, and functional perspectives. A total of 266 obsidian artifacts were analyzed; including 164 cores for side-blow blade-flakes and 102 side-blow blade-flakes. Morphometric data, microscopic use-wear analyses, and experimental replication demonstrate that the technique represents a standardized and controlled flaking strategy. The results show that obsidian blades were transformed into small, sharp, and functional units with minimal modification. Use-wear traces, particularly on the cores, indicate contact with soft organic materials, suggesting use in plant processing or similar activities. Experimental observations further reveal that the method is rapid, controlled, and easily applied without requiring advanced knapping skills. Overall, the findings suggest that the side-blow technique reflects deliberate, efficient, and economically conscious raw material management and production organization.

ABSTRACT Kostenki 14 cultural layer IVb, dated to 40–41.5 ka cal BP, represents one of the earliest manifestations of Anatomically Modern Humans in Eastern Europe. Its lithic assemblage shares traits with the Protoaurignacian and Aurignacian sensu lato but includes distinctive oval plano-convex and bi-convex bifaces, complicating its interpretation. Our study focuses on the production and utilization of bifaces. We conclude that, with a few exceptions, these pieces — previously thought to be tools — are primarily blade and bladelet core preforms. Based on the provided description of blade and bladelet production methods in the assemblage, it is also suggested that burin busqué and the burin de Vachons previously considered ‘specific’ to the assemblage are, in fact, typical carinated burins that represent minor deviations from the main bladelet production sequence. New interpretation of bifacial pieces reveals a stronger similarity between the Kostenki 14 IVb assemblage and other Protoaurignacian/Early Aurignacian sites in Europe.

ABSTRACT This work describes a lithic blade discovered in Cangallo, Ayacucho, Peru, at 3535 meters above sea level. Recovered from 30 cm depth with ceramic fragments, it is the only well-documented lithic blade in Peru. Made of quartzitic sandstone and larger than previously recorded specimens, this discovery suggests that blade technology in the Andean highlands may have emerged by at least 3000 BP.

ABSTRACT This review paper is about the volume book, which is titled Hunting and Fishing in the Neolithic and Eneolithic, edited by Selena Vitezovic and Christoforos Arampatzis. A total of 13 studies that provide an in-depth discussion of hunting and fishing during the Neolithic and Eneolithic (Chalcolithic) periods in Anatolia (present-day Turkey) and Southern Europe were collected in this book. The authors are researchers with expertise in prehistoric archaeology, settlement archaeology, lithic technology, bone technology, and zooarchaeology.

ABSTRACT Since marine isotope stage 3 (MIS3), major alternations in global climate, population dynamics, and human behavioral patterns have taken place in many regions of the world. In China, ambiguity in modern human evolutionary trajectories, variation in lithic industries, and limited previous investigations into archeological sites confound our understanding of Upper Paleolithic human species and technological trajectory in East Asia. To address this issue, we present a newly excavated cave site in southwest China, Zhaoguodong Cave, whose occupation spans the start of the Upper Paleolithic to the Holocene. Our study shows that behavioral patterns, including lithic production, organic tools, and pyro-technologies at Zhaoguodong Cave have not undergone substantial overturns over the past 45 thousand years. This finding implies an adaptive optimum and a consistent cultural framework in southern China that may be attributed to modern humans.

ABSTRACT Microscopic artifacts help archaeologists study ancient societies and site formation processes. They have struggled to analyze them objectively, though. The traditional microscope-based approach has limited the number of samples and increased intra- and inter-observer errors. Here, we present an alternative based on experimental archaeology, Dynamic Image Analysis (DIA), and statistics. We ask whether microdebitage – the almost invisible debris from stone-knapping – has the same shape as macrodebitage or lithic artifacts wider than 4 mm. We collaborated with four modern stone-knappers to gather lithic debris. A new type of particle analyzer allowed us to measure five relevant variables for 23,694 knapping debris items. We use DIA to count, describe, and size-grade the debitage. We then analyze the resulting spreadsheet statistically. The results indicate highly significant statistical differences between microdebitage and macrodebitage as well as among microdebitage size classes. Combining experimental archaeology, DIA, and statistics enables the quantitative study of microdebitage.

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 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 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 Understanding the evolution of jade work techniques remains a central issue in the study of prehistoric cultural dynamics and social complexity, and North China in particular witnessed the emergence and development of this field. Sawing is a significant aspect of prehistoric jade work technology and involves flexible string, knife-cut and rotary sawing techniques. The archaeological record preserves different microwear marks indicating that the first two jade sawing techniques were widely practiced in the prehistoric period. A challenging problem that arises in this domain is the timing of the emergence of rotary sawing. Here, functional experiments and microwear observations verified that five prehistoric jade objects from the Gouwan site in North China are associated with rotary sawing technique, three of which are prehistoric rotary tools. This study presents the earliest and unique evidence that the rotary sawing technique was being used in northern China as early as 6000 years ago. and indicates that three sawing techniques were in use simultaneously in the mid-Yangshao Culture (c. 4000–3500 BC) of northern China. This finding not only demonstrates the selectivity and diversity of prehistoric jade work in northern China, but also has implications for how we interpret the function of prehistoric jade objects.