Lithic evidence for changing land-use patterns in Central Europe during the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition
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Year of publication | 2011 |
Type | Chapter of a book |
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Description | Lithic artefacts are typically the only cultural remains recovered from Central European open-air Middle and Early Upper Palaeolithic sites. Analysis of these lithic assemblages therefore assumes a very important role in understanding the lifeways of the people who manufactured them. Lithic remains from sites in Moravia (Czech Republic) dating to this period have been a valuable source of information for examining questions of mobility levels, size of home range, site function, lithic provisioning strategies and even relative sizes of social groups in relation to both Neanderthal and early modern human populations. Factors such as intensity of retouch, assemblage diversity, ratio of unretouched to retouched flakes, ratio of flakes to cores, patterns of bifacial retouch, flake breakage patterns, intensity of core reduction and proportions of imported raw materials have provided evidence for interpreting land-use patterns. |