I wish I felt it was possible to have an open discussion of stone tools, without having to justify their existence to people who don't recognize organized flaking, or to justify the ideas in terms of conventional US archeological timelines and vocabulary. I would like to simply look at the data available - the tools themselves.
My problem is mostly that I cannot find referents to some of these items using US terminology. If I say something looks "Solutrean" or [worse] "Mousterian", then this is open to a certain reasonable ridicule. In any case I have no basis for assigning age or chronology to any of the tools I've been posting. I may want to use the phrase "pseudo-Mousterian", or some such, to get around the prohibition against such concepts being applied in America.
Here at home with only rocks to look at, it is surprising how many details emerge from inspecting their edges and surfaces. I can't help thinking things look old.
2 comments :
Similar to the archaeologist in Arkansas who had to create the name Capps technology to open discussion of the Levallois tools he was finding. I’m pretty sure he ended up retiring. Archaeology in this country is very more religion than science at this point.
Of course, the Old World terminology is site-based, such as "Le Moustere" or "Olduvai". There are only so many ways to flake stone tools! We should not assume that similarity of form indicates cultural contact, at least not in the absence of corroborating evidence.
(Maybe you could get away with calling them "miki-Mousterian"?) :-)
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