Levallois Core Technology: An Alternative Way of Making Stone Tools

In this video, Dr. James Dilley explores the Mousterian (Mode 3) style of flintknapping known as “prepared core technology” or the “Levallois technique”. The Levallois technique requires a high level of skill and cognition to plan several steps ahead during the flintknapping process (Schlanger 1996) as the shape and preparation of the core determines the shape of the flakes that are removed. By creating a prepared core, successfully removed flakes are detached which have a size and shape determined to some extent by the maker. This allows a flintknapper to detach large flakes with razor sharp edges that would make suitable cutting tools, or triangular flakes suitable for spear points.
FFilmed Edited & Produced by Emma Jones of ELWJ Media - www.elwjmedia.co.uk
Featuring: Beaver Bushcraft Flintknapping Leather Leg Guard: www.beaverbush...
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References:
Brantingham, P. J., and Kuhn, S. L. (2001). Constraints on Levallois core technology: A mathematical
model. Journal of Archaeological Science 28: 747-761.
Chazan, M. (2000). Flake production at the Lower Paleolithic site of Holon (Israel): Implications for
the origin of the Levallois method. Antiquity 74: 495-499.
Dibble, H. L., and Bar-Yosef, O. (1995). The Definition and Interpretation of Levallois Technology,
Prehistory Press, Madison, WI
the urban prehistorian. 2021. Levallois. [online] Available at: theurbanprehis... Accessed 12 March 2021.
Rolland, N. (1995). Levallois technique emergence: Single or multiple? A review of the Euro-African
record. In Dibble, H. L., and Bar-Yosef, O. (eds.), The Definition and Interpretation of Levallois
Technology, Prehistory Press, Madison, WI, pp. 333-359.
Tryon, C.A., McBrearty, S. and Texier, P.J., 2005. Levallois lithic technology from the Kapthurin formation, Kenya: Acheulian origin and Middle Stone Age diversity. African Archaeological Review, 22(4), pp.199-229.
White, M. J., and Pettitt, P. B. (1995). Technology of Early Paleolithic Western Europe: Innovation,
variability and a unified framework. Lithics 16: 27-40
Moncel, M.H. and Combier, J., 1992. L'industrie lithique du site pléistocène moyen d'Orgnac 3 (Ardèche). Gallia préhistoire, 34(1), pp.1-55.
Orgnac 3 aven image - Manuae 2012
Levallois point image (adapted) - José-Manuel Benito Álvarez 2007
Scott, B. (2011). Becoming Neanderthals: Becoming Neanderthals. Oxford; Oakville: Oxbow Books. Retrieved March 31, 2021, from www.jstor.org/s...
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To find out more about my flintknapping and experimental archaeology visit my website or follow me on social media!
Website: www.ancientcraf...
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Patreon: / ancientcraftuk

[@Raphael_.-]

I was convinced this video had a million views just by judging the quality of it, it's safe to say I was shocked that both the subscriber count and views were in the quintuple digits. Props to you and the team because this video was amazingly well done, the explanations were clear and concise, and it was entertaining to watch as well, especially when you made that big flake at the end.

[@ancientcraftUK]

Thanks Raphael, that really means a lot to our little team of Em (camera, sound, lighting and editing) and I (talking, walking and whacking rock)

[@sjinfinity]

The flakes coming out elegantly is very satisfying to watch

[@senkuu_ishigamii]

They look so nice to cut with

[@Ateesh6782]

I appreciate how well and clearly written your explanations are and also how clearly they are delivered.

[@jouisič]

Thank you! Great explanation. It was great to see the segment in the end gave me a fair bit idea of the practical side.

[@postictal7846]

Dr. Dilley that was an immense amount of information but, I was struck how well the filming and editing side came off. Kudos to you and your crew.

[@MrHuNTeR_exe]

I second this.

[@grantgardson]

7 months strong and ZERO dislikes. I thought this video was superb, you've earned another sub.

[@seeharvester]

They don't show the dislikes.

[@IIrandhandleII]

This channel is so rad.... love the narration and immense depth of knowledge.

[@gavinhill4121]

I really enjoyed this post. I'm sure you've already considered this, but I'll say it anyway: Another advantage to a hunter gatherer society of production of a 'core' may also be ease of transport. Knapping a predetermined flake without waste bi product must be an advantage, if you have to carry your stone from camp to camp.

[@bobidos123]

Funny story related... I was stood in a ploughed field with my father...found what looked like a large flint/chert arrow head. Joked that it was many thousands of years old! Took it to a local museum whos FLO officer took it for several weeks and came back with a report saying levallois core!

[@hiddenwoodsben]

nice!

[@larryparis925]

Great that you include references. Many thanks for doing so, and your video.

[@ancientcraftUK]

Glad you enjoyed it and found them useful.

[@jimajello1028]

Very informative. Core & blade technologies. When I studied with Dr Callahan in Virginia it was amazing how sharp these tools were. If done correctly we could shave with the obsidian blades. We used load up pressure, indirect & direct percussion. Thank you. This is a very clear insight to great knowledge that could be life saving if using the many stone materials found in nature everywhere. Currently I am researching Paleo bifacial flake cores and their relationship to the first people who made Clovis tools in North America. Thank you!

[@CultureTripGuide-HilmarHWerner]

a big wish: explain all the important stone-age-'styles' from oldowan to late neolithic by showing the typical stone-tools from all angles and explaining their distinctive traits and usages, preferably by demonstration, and may be even show the techniques how to make them, and how they changed the corresponding cultures! and please mention the corresponding type of "homo ..."! such a series would be a great and lasting contribution to the study of paleology and human origins in general! thanx a lot in advance! eagerly waiting for the first overview-video, followed by detailed ones! ;-)

[@csluau5913]

I have to say I really enjoy your presentation method and especially the fact that not only do you talk about lithics but you actually make them as well. They chop pits down in lower Essex yield some pretty good flint nodules. Are used to live there a few years back. I am back in the US now but I took a few pieces of flint with me :-) all the artifacts and other things that I found while I was field walking and living there I turned over to the county council. Who knows if they ever did anything with them. I found things from Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, and perhaps bronze age just from feel walking. It really is amazing how much history and prehistory evidence is there. It really makes you think. You’re absolutely right about traditional classically trained archaeologists. They are so caught up in methodology and technique that they forget about one very simple truth… Tools were made by individual people. So just because one person made it to a one-way didn’t mean that the guy sitting next to him was going to make it the same way unless he found it to be beneficial. Everyone does things a little bit differently and puts their own unique twist on them. I found flakes and broken tools and so on that were beautiful and I found other ones shit looks like the people had no idea what they were doing and probably just threw them away in frustration. Sort of like I do when I can’t get something right when I’m trying to make a tool. I live in a part of the United States now where the Native American Indians made tools out of much more coarse types of stone such as quartzite. It is really a challenge to work quartzite. It’s a learning process. It’s a good thing though because now I’m remembering the Palio lithic techniques such as bipolar percussion and Clactonian. That really used to stump them.

[@davidianhowe]

This is excellent, man.

[@OpheliaMonarch]

This was excellent, thank you. 🙏

[@chucklearnslithics3751]

When you say, "it continued after neanderthal was gone", that could certainly be an indication of how blended they were with sapien sapiens. We tend to pass down traditions and this is just how great grandpappy Grog (who happened to be neanderthal) did it. It would easily pass on, through mixing, as if it had always been their own tradition.

[@NeanderthalJoe]

Exactly

[@lone8398]

@@NeanderthalJoe hello Neanderthal Joe

[@multiverse6989]

This was really really helpful thanku so much

[@pzuliomaccavellion9711]

The Orlando Bloom of flint knapping! hahaha! I mean that in the nicest way!

[@daviddonachie5333]

Informative and fascinating as ever, can't believe I missed this video until now. Also, extremely polished presentation, though I'm surprised we didn't see you strike each sort of flake as example alongside the drawings :)

[@ancientcraftUK]

Happy to hear! Perhaps we could do it as a future theme for a #KnapTime video 💭

[@williammeyer214]

Craftsmanship and precision, a deep appreciation of the properties of the material and conservation of a resource were there from the beginning. Such an essential artisan would be highly esteemed in any group perhaps on a par with the “medicine woman” being able to conjure something useful with their personal expertise?Perhaps such individuals were the objects of the burials of special interest? Thank you for such a thought provoking presentation

[@alexhudson-]

I have a Mousterian spearhead with a Levalloisian style tip. I found it in a high altitude glacial lake in WA State. I contacted Graham Hancock about this earlier this week. I made the discovery on Monday. Is anyone here reading comments? I'm trying to get my discovery out to the public. I'm the only person that knows about the spot where I found it!

[@AnnBurgess-nc7hs]

Thanks!

[@MS-ij8ud]

thank you, helped me pass my physical anth exam. also you look like Orlando bloom 🤨

[@NeanderthalJoe]

Great video!

[@faramund9865]

Hey I remember you from a video someone else did on prehistory.

[@hansenator5000]

Great video

[@ThomasSmith-os4zc]

I started studying American Lithics in 1993 and have found Lavallios points and a Lavallios Prepared Core. Our Lithics are coming across the Atlantic Ocean from Iberia and North Africa. We do not have Asian lithics.

[@peterwaksman9179]

Consider that once the first flake was detached from the first core (possibly by accident) the core and the flake evolved separately as lithic technologies.

[@exsashank2]

It seems that the traditional Biface method of knapping most of us learned knapping with is superior. Not only does the core itself become a usable product but the leftover flakes can themselves be made into smaller points. Far less waste

[@limoucheu8522]

Interesting. And it appears to be so complicate because we have classified levallois as a technique like Boeda says. Today levallois is recognise as a technique but is more largely understand as technofunctionnal complex. In certain sites we have pure levallois but on others we see coexistence of different ways to do debitage and sometimes on the same core! Example frequently see a volumetric debitage goes to a quina exploitation and goes to an opportunity to do levallois than the flintknapper do it (example from Sclayn cave for example), in other case you have full levallois techniques like in Omal and Neuville (I talk about belgium because I am a belgian archaeologist) where we have tendency to go to levallois blades. It seems that levallois was sometimes a finality and sometimes not and use if they have an opportunity to do so. It is the pure plasticity of human behaviour. The extreme is in Yemen were sapiens do so much levallois points that it was mass and industrial production. In reality these points could have been produced by full levallois techniques (preferentially unidirectional but sometimes bidirectional), but the experiment I do (I have made more than 45 of them to appreciate their cutting power), I have obtain it on full levallois cores, but also on discoid, on volumetric or sometimes opportunistic cores. As you say the technique subsist after and the reason why is simply because it is not levallois but an universal technique to obtain optimised volumes, convexity, good striking platforms etc, it is particularly the case for the livres de beurre looks like enormous levallois cores and are in fact surfacial exploitation of blocks. For the sharp edge of levallois of course the edges are sharp but every flake have sharp edges and blades have also as sharp edges. It is more a question of angulation of the edges, if the angle is low the cutting power is high and penetrating in a skin also, but if the angle is high it shows less cutting power and less penetration in skin. This is the reason why a lot of flakes where rejected or used for other purposes but not cutting. All the best.

[@critterjon4061]

Anyone know if this technology existed in the americas as I have found several examples of spalls that look identical to levallois cores

[@francismarcoux8944]

Its a core technology where the core is bifacial not conical. The flakes was what was produced

[@kaizen5023]

Thank you, Dr. Dilley! Are there any recognizable "signatures" or "styles" that would indicate some cores have been prepared and worked by the same individual or same small group/tribe? I'm researching the origins and intersections of teamwork, collaboration, technology, and the transmission of knowledge.

[@tnriverbanks]

Sir ,,,,,,we see the same technology in the artifacts found in south east .Tn.. Is it just the progression of learned technology? Or was it possibly passed on?

[@ThomasSmith-os4zc]

The fluting of Clovis and Folsom evolved from Moustrean Prepared Cores.

[@Irshah07]

Grt sir.....

[@Coreyseyes11]

Yes!!!

[@davidprentice5442]

Would a more uniform tool form a basis for trade?

[@JimBagby74]

I've seen core technology in Tennessee. If it developed independently elsewhere, I suppose it could here in North America.

[@georgepretnick4460]

Doc Dilley, you're thinkin' way too hard. If you're attempting to understand technological advancement and progress in the early paleolithic, you shouldn't think like a 21st century academic lecturer. You must think like a homo erectus, which is much, much shallower. Here's how it happened. Erectus had already been stone shaping (knapping) for millennia. Eventually, one individual's skill exceeded that of his contemporaries. He NOTICED certain types of 'strikes' resulted in desirable effects. So he tried to duplicate that strike. Eventually, he got the 'knack'. Others noticed his success. That's how technology and culture advance.

[@Dr._Spamy]

But, not to be more confused than necessary: The purpose is not to make cores but to make flakes ?

[@ancientcraftUK]

Yep, flakes are the product

[@rajugoborvas8964]

How is it made video

[@pawankuamr6565]

Heloo sir

[@johnhaug1747]

Hmmmmm. Is it possible the Clovis and Folsom style points are extensions of the Levallois process? Is it also possible that North American indigenous peoples developed the Clovis/Folsom style independently of Afro-Euro peoples?

[@christophersnedeker2065]

That's a bifacial technology.

[@generalputnam2990]

People throughout history & irrespective of geography invent & evolve whatever technologies are expediently needed, with whatever raw materials are available.

[@SandyRiverBlue]

1.25

[@rajugoborvas8964]

Wasye of talk

[@sudhanshu4442]

i found batman

[@francismarcoux8944]

I have seen this technology and wonder if its not just a type of occasional blade.