Dissertation Research: Blade Production in the Early Levantine Mousterian

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Marks/Monigal Under the direction of Dr. Anthony Marks, Ms. Katherine Monigal will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will study collections of lithic materials which have been excavated from Mousterian sites in Israel and are stored in museums in both the United States and Israel. The lithics are all attributable to an archaeological industry termed "Tabun-D"; are all older than 40,000 years and may span a period of up to 200,000 years. The sites themselves are located in a number of environmental regions. Ms. Monigal will describe and measure a large number of attributes on selected pieces and with these data will reconstruct the technology used to make stone tools. Archaeologists traditionally focus on the final products which are produced and not on the process used to reach this end. With the data collected, Ms. Monigal will then compare Tabun-D sites across time and environmental subzone, attempt to determine whether technological data support the incorporation of these sites into a single cultural tradition and try to explain the causes of variation which may be observed. Based on work in Europe, archaeologists have argued that the production of certain stone tool types, such as blades, is tightly associated with anatomically modern humans. In this region of the world, the emergence of blade producing industries dates to about 40,000 years ago. However, as Ms. Monigal and others have noted, blades appear much earlier in sites in the Near East and a number of assemblages support this conclusion. Using this single characteristic, archaeologists have grouped these occurrences under the heading "Tabun-D." However it is very unclear what this designation means in social terms and whether the makers of this industry belonged to the same group or tradition. Until this is done, it is not possible to ask whether this data is relevant to questions such as the emergence of anatomically modern humans. Through her study of technological process, Ms. Mo nigal will be able to address this question in an original way. This research is important for several reasons. It will produce data of interest to many archaeologists. It will providfe insight into the emergence of modern humans and help to train a promising young scientist.