Flint Procurement and Exploitation Strategies in the Late Lower Paleolithic Levant

Aviad Agam is a researcher at Tel Aviv University, Israel. He specializes in lithic technology, strategies of lithic procurement and exploitation during Paleolithic and Neolithic times, the use of fire among early humans, and human-proboscidea relations during prehistory. He is a team member of projects at the Acheulo-Yabrudian site Qesem Cave (Israel, 420,000-200,000 years before the present day) and the Late Acheulian sites Revadim and Jaljulia (both in Israel, ~500,000 years before the present day).

List of Figures ;



List of Tables ;



Acknowledgments ;



Introduction ;


Introduction ;


The archaeological contexts ;


The Acheulo-Yabrudian cultural complex ;


Qesem Cave ;


Geological background ;


Archaeological raw material studies ;



Materials and Methods ;


Materials ;


Methods ;



The Blind Test Evaluation ;


Blind test evaluation of consistency in macroscopic lithic raw material sorting ;


The rationale behind the blind test ;


The blind test – materials and methods ;


Blind test results ;


The significance of the blind test ;


Conclusions and implication of the blind test ;



Data Analysis ;


Results ;


The potential flint sources ;


Petrographic data ;


Geochemical analysis ;


The assignment of the QC flint types to potential geologic origins ;


Data analysis ;



Discussion and Conclusions ;



Appendix ;


The QC flint types ;


The QC groups of flint types ;


The identified potential flint sources ;



References