On questions surrounding the Acheulean 'tradition

Bibliographic Data

ID3919720
AuthorsStephen J Lycett (British Academy), J A J Gowlett (0000-0002-9064-973X, British Academy)
Year2008
Volume40
Issue3
Pages295-315
Publication date2008-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueWorld Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0043-8243 • E-ISSN: 1470-1375
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00438240802260970
OpenAlexW2021374562
LanguageEN
Citations received141
References cited58

The Acheulean, sometimes known as 'the great handaxe tradition', is the longest-lasting entity in the human cultural record. The oldest sites are in Africa at around 1.6 million years ago and the most recent approach the last 100,000 years. The geographical extent is also enormous, ranging across Africa, the Middle East, most of Europe and large parts of Asia. Is it however a real tradition? The Acheulean represents a set of stone-working ideas that endure, but the strength of 'tradition' is often an assumption made by archaeologists. This paper re-examines Acheulean biface variation, looking at sets of assemblages measured in different ways, but amenable to discriminant analysis (DFA), which is able to highlight differences useful in classification. The analyses show significant differences between European and African assemblages. In the case of the Far East, in line with others, we provide further analyses suggestive of technological differences between putative 'handaxes' from Korea and some 'classic' western assemblages. However, it is not yet fully clear how far a 'typical' Acheulean tradition is represented, as matching of Far Eastern assemblages to other parts of the world depends to an extent upon the criteria used. With regard to the more general Acheulean paradox, the paper notes parallels in biological studies with the idea that a single widely extending phenomenon can incorporate elements of both unity and diversity. Keywords: Traditionssocial transmissionvariationAcheuleanhandaxesMovius Line Acknowledgements Research for this paper was carried out within the British Academy Centenary Research Project, Lucy to Language. SJL is indebted to Christopher Norton and Parth Chauhan for valuable conversations and correspondence in relation to the issues discussed here and to the British Academy for financial support. JAJG is grateful to the British Academy–CSIC Links Project for its support in the study of bifaces from Pinedo and San Isidro, to the Museum of Toledo, the Madrid Municipal Museum and to Ignacio de la Torre. Both of us appreciated thorough and helpful comments on the manuscript from Robin Osborne and the anonymous reviewers

Acheulean · Archaeology · Biology · Ethnology · Genealogy · Geography · Old World · Parallels · Sociology · Variation (astronomy · Anthropology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Ecology · History · Language and cultural evolution · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology

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