Harold L. Dibble
Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania
 

Title:
What We Don't Know About Paleolithic Stone Tools

Abstract
Although stone tools represent the primary source of information for human behavior over the past 2.5 million years, one of the major problems facing archaeologists is that it is largely an alien technology. The result is that while we sometimes think we know what's important and what isn't, there are still many surprises awaiting us. Recent excavations at the Middle Paleolithic site of Pech de l'Aze IV (France) have uncovered one such surprise, but its exact meaning is still far from understood.