Discoid Lithic Technology

Abstract

During the last decade, many scholars have progressively produced new data concerning the various methods employed in production of lithic implements. The corpus has allowed to detail the different flaking concepts and at same time to describe their specific singularities as well as their variability. In most of the studies focused on lithic technology, variability of methods implicit in the discoid concept has been storically negletted. Very frequently, an attribution to this flaking method has been produced in accordance to its classical meaning, in denying its diversity and impoverishing its interpretation. With the aim to disentangle this situation, we have tried to consider over many Middle Palaeolihic cases in Western Europe where discoid technology has been documented, by taking into account data in literature as well as new results provided from the study of archaeological sites in North-Eastern Iberian Peninsule (Cave 120, Roca dels Bous rockshelter, open-air site of Mediona I). We have tried to integrate information of this lithic assemblages within a unique flaking concept, seeking its identification features and precising its idiosyncrasy. This concept is materialized by a unique structure with a strong stability in its volumetric conception, nothwistanding a certain flexibility of its rules, that allow to develop different modalities of core management, always oriented towards the same technological conception. The preference of one method rather than others maybe explained in quantitative terms (production intensification) and by reference to the constrictive circumstances due to the original core shape. In spite of this diversity of applicable methods, a great uniformity exists in the predetermination criteria that manage the technical aims to be satisfied. These criteria are very homogeneous, at least by comparison with the criteria developed for other flaking methods.