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Stone tool experiments and reduction methods at the Acheulean site of Isampur Quarry, India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

C.B.K. Shipton ,
M.D. Petraglia  and
K. Paddayya
C.B.K. Shipton*
Affiliation:
1Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Henry Wellcome Building, Fitzwilliam Street, Cambridge, CB2 1QH, UK
M.D. Petraglia
Affiliation:
1Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Henry Wellcome Building, Fitzwilliam Street, Cambridge, CB2 1QH, UK
K. Paddayya
Affiliation:
2Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Yerwada, Pune, Maharashtra, India
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Abstract

What better way to understand how to make a handaxe or cleaver than getting into an Acheulean quarry and doing it yourself. The authors experimented at Isampur Quarry in India, finding that handaxes were best produced by reducing a slab to shape, while cleavers were best made by striking large flakes. There was a good correspondence with the ancient implements, and the authors deduced that Acheulean hominins were learning and transmitting standardised manufacturing methods to each other.

Keywords

IndiaAcheuleanlithic experimentsreduction sequences
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 83 , Issue 321 , September 2009 , pp. 769 - 785
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2009

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