%0 Conference Paper
%B 71st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology
%D 2006
%T Approaches for understanding flake production in the African Acheulian
%A Tryon, Christian A.
%A Potts, Rick
%C San Juan, Puerto Rico
%K chaine operatoire
%K stone tools
%U http://www.saa.org/meetings/esymposium/197/10.pdf
%X We outline our comparisons of Acheulian lithic artifacts fromOlorgesailie Formation of Kenya, focusing on assemblages from Member 11 that dateto ~662-625 ka and which lack typical Acheulian tools such as handaxes or cleavers.These assemblages provide us the opportunity to explore the utility of some of thevaried analytical approaches currently in practice for understanding flake-and-corebased assemblages, and to highlight the importance of a comparative approach. Ourpreliminary assessment indicates that many of the flakes and cores found at Member 11Acheulian sites can be readily accommodated by existing typologies for older Oldowansites. However, comparison of the Member 11 artifacts with handaxe-bearingassemblages from Member 1 of the Olorgesailie Formation (~990 ka) shows importantinter-member differences in raw material economy that may relate topaleoenvironmental contrasts. These results demonstrate the behavioral potential inAcheulian flakes and cores, an aspect of hominin behavior frequently overshadowed bystudies of handaxes alone.