Abstract

The Acheulian tradition of East Affica comprises the second of two widely distributed and long lasting Early Stone Age industries appearing around 1,6 million years ago and lasting until approximately 0,2 million years ago. Being the second empirically distinct stone tool culture, the Acheulian industry maybe studied in reférence to technological precursors as well as technological descendants. Contrary to the common belief that the Acheulian is set apart from its precursors by it being a bifacial technology, it has been suggested that the diagnostic bifacial hand axes have been fashioned from large flake blanks and that it is the ability to produce large flake blanks of consistent size and shape that is the diagnostic character of the Acheulian. The large flake blank may represent a considerable advancement of technology over the preceding Oldowan industry, which was characterized by a quasi-opportunistic flaking of stone and tool types whose shape was more dependent on raw material constraints than on functional or stylistic considerations. The large flake blank also may foreshadow the technological regularity of the Middle Stone Age, which was characterized by the intentional use of prepared cores to produce maximally regularized flakes as blanks for tools. The status of the Acheulian between the Oldowan and MSA traditions of East Africa is explored through experimental manufacture of large flake blanks. Questions of the cognitive ability, behaviour and cultural evolution of the Acheulian hominids are addressed in light of these experiments.