Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T08:44:08.114Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The real nature of variability of Levantine Epipalaeolithic assemblages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

James I. Phillips*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, 1007 West Harrison Street, Chicago IL 60607-7139, USA

Extract

N&B, incorrectly attributing variability in these assemblages as representing strategies in lithic reduction, give as an example the differentiation between the Mushabian and the Geometric Kebaran complexes. Their thinking the microburin technique was used by the Geometric Kebarans but is masked by retouch on these trapeze/rectangles (sic!) suggest to me they have either never seen Geometric Kebaran and Mushabian microliths (although I understand that Neeley visited Goring-Morris' laboratory) or they cannot recognize microburin scars when they see them. In my original publication on the Mushabian (Phillips & Mintz 1977), they would see microburin scars on lamelles scalènes which were partially retouched in the Mushabian. Having recently analysed 12 Mushabian sites from Gebel Maghara, containing over 5000 microliths and 3000 microburins, and three new Geometric Kebaran sites from Sinai, containing over 800 trapeze/rectangles and no microburins, I can attest to the differences between these two assemblages in terms of reduction sequences, style of debitage, and the morphology of geometric and non-geometric microliths.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

25 ans d'études technologiques en préhistoire: bilan et perspectives. 1991. Juan-les-Pins: CNRS and Éditions APDCA.Google Scholar
Byrd, B. 1994. Late Quaternary hunt or-gatherer complexos in the Levant between 20,000 and 10,000 BP, in Bar-Yosef, O. & Kra, R. (ed.), Late Quaternary chronology and paleoclhnates of the western Mediterranean: 205-26. Tucson (AZ): Radiocarbon & University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Lemmonier, F. 1983. L'étude des systèmes techniques, une urgence de technologie culturelle, Techniques et Culture n.s. 1: 1134.Google Scholar
Lemmonier, F. 1991. De la culture matérielle à la culture? Ethnologie des techniques et préhistoire, in 25 ans …: 1520.Google Scholar
Phillips, J.L. 1991. Refitting, edge-wear and chaîne opératoires: a ease-study from Sinai, in 25 ans …: 305-18.Google Scholar
Phillips, J.L. & Mintz, E.. 1977. The Mushabian, in Bar-Yoscf, O. & Phillips, J.L. (ed.), The prehistoric investigations in Gehci Maghara, northern Sinai: 149-03. Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press. Qedem 7.Google Scholar
Tixler, J. & Reduron, M.. 1991. Et passez au pays des silex: rapportez-nous des lames!, in 25 ans …: 235-43.Google Scholar