The Emergence of Pressure Blade Making From Origin to Modern Experimentation

About this book

The evolution of humanity has been a long and steady process in which stone tool technology played a prominent role for the bulk of human history. Through advancements in lithic technology, humans were able to adapt to different climates, colonize new territories, and produce new inventions. One important breakthrough occurred with the adoption of pressure blade production, which in some places was closely followed by the beginning of the Neolithic way of life and the development of state societies. It may prove to have been a significant step towards the emergence of more complex societies. It was also a valuable acquisition in hunter-gatherer societies, some of which then proceeded to subsist in previously uninhabited environments such as the High Arctic. The advent of pressure blade production undoubtedly constituted a considerable improvement in stone tool technology, and as such formed a major step in the evolution of human kind.

Research on pressure blade making has intensified to the point where we are now able to compile a global overview on the use of this technique, presented for the first time in The Emergence of Pressure Blade Making. The research assembled here covers the origins, development and eventual abandonment of this technology within a variety of geographical and temporal contexts. This seminal effort presents research into past cultures from around the globe, resulting in a comprehensive portrait of pressure blade production.

The Emergence of Pressure Blade Making will be an important reference for anyone studying lithic technology and experimental archaeology, or those interested in the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic periods, as well as the colonization of the New World. More generally, it is of interest to anyone who wants to garner an understanding of the mechanisms of cultural transmission through time and space.

Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction: Breaking Stones Without Striking Them Pierre M. Desrosiers
Chapter 2. Pressure Debitage in the Old World. Forerunners, Researchers, Geopolitics: Handing On the Baton Marie-Louise Inizan
Chapter 3. Stoneworkers' Approaches to Replicating Prismatic Blades John E. Clark
Chapter 4. Early Holocene Climate Change and the Adoption of Pressure Technique in the Maghreb: the Capsian Sequence at Kef Zoura D (Eastern Algeria) Noura Rahmani and David Lubell
Chapter 5. Pressure Blade Production with a Lever in the Early and Late Neolithic of the Near East Ciler Altinbilek-Algul, Laurence Astruc, Didier Binder and Jacques Pelegrin
Chapter 6. Two examples of Pressure Blade Production with a Lever: Recent Research from the Southern Caucasus (Armenia) and Northern Mesopotamia (Syria, Iraq) Jacques Chabot and Jacques Pelegrin
Chapter 7. Pressure Knapping Blade Production in the North-Western Mediterranean Region during the 7th millennium cal B.C. Didier Binder, Carmine Collina, Raphaelle Guilbert, Thomas Perrin and with the collaboration of Oreto Garcia-Puchol
Chapter 8. Origin And Development Of Pressure Blade Production In The Southern Iberian Peninsula (6th-3rd Millennium B.C.) Antonio Morgado and Jacques Pelegrin
Chapter 9. The Arrival and Development of Pressure Blade Technology in Southern Scandinavia Mikkel Sorensen
Chapter 10. Surface Pressure Flaking in Eurasia: Mapping the innovation, diffusion and evolution of a technological element in the production of projectile points Kim Darmark
Chapter 11. Emergence and Development of the Pressure Microblade Production: A View from the Upper Paleolithic of Northern Japan Jun Takakura
Chapter 12. The Technique of Pressure Knapping in Central Asia: Innovation or Diffusion? Frederique Brunet
Chapter 13. Blades and Microblades, Percussion and Pressure: Towards the Evolution of Lithic Technologies of the Stone Age Period, Russian Far East Andrei V. Tabarev
Chapter 14. Pressure Microblade Industries in Pleistocene-Holocene Interior Alaska: Current Data and Discussions Yan Axel Gomez Coutouly
Chapter 15. Eastern Arctic under Pressure: from Paleoeskimo to Inuit Culture (Canada and Greenland) Pierre M. Desrosiers and Mikkel Sorensen
Chapter 16. The Organizational Structures of Mesoamerican Obsidian Prismatic Blade Technology Kenneth G. Hirth
Chapter 17. Development of Pressure Blade Technology in North-Central and West Mexico Veronique Darras
Chapter 18. New Experimental Observations for the Characterization of Pressure Blade Production Techniques Jacques Pelegrin
Chapter 19. Measurable Flintknapping for Long Pressure Blades P. Kelterborn

Customer Reviews