Continuities in stone flaking technology at Liang Bua, Flores, Indonesia

Title
Continuities in stone flaking technology at Liang Bua, Flores, Indonesia
Publication Date
2009
Author(s)
Moore, M W
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4768-5329
Email: mmoore2@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:mmoore2
Sutikna, T
Jatmiko, Jatmiko
Morwood, M J
Brumm, A
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Academic Press
Place of publication
United Kingdom
DOI
10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.10.006
UNE publication id
une:5924
Abstract
This study examines trends in stone tool reduction technology at Liang Bua, Flores, Indonesia, where excavations have revealed a stratified artifact sequence spanning 95 k.yr. The reduction sequence practiced throughout the Pleistocene was straightforward and unchanging. Large flakes were produced off-site and carried into the cave where they were reduced centripetally and bifacially by four techniques: freehand, burination, truncation, and bipolar. The locus of technological complexity at Liang Bua was not in knapping products, but in the way techniques were integrated. This reduction sequence persisted across the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary with a minor shift favoring unifacial flaking after 11 ka. Other stone-related changes occurred at the same time, including the first appearance of edge-glossed flakes, a change in raw material selection, and more frequent fire-induced damage to stone artifacts. Later in the Holocene, technological complexity was generated by "adding-on" rectangular-sectioned stone adzes to the reduction sequence. The Pleistocene pattern is directly associated with 'Homo floresiensis' skeletal remains and the Holocene changes correlate with the appearance of 'Homo sapiens'. The one reduction sequence continues across this hominin replacement.
Link
Citation
Journal of Human Evolution, 57(5), p. 503-526
ISSN
1095-8606
0047-2484
Start page
503
End page
526

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