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Journal of Lithic Studies, 2017
The paper provides an assessment of the current state of the art of the origins diffusion and variations of bidirectional blade technology during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B in the western wing of the Fertile Crescent. Results confirm that its appearance ca. 8900-8800 cal. BC in the middle Euphrates valley constituted a marked change in local lithic traditions and a shift in projectile technology. Its wide diffusion in varied socioeconomic contexts using different raw materials and the growing regional and spatial variability observed throughout the Levant suggests that the bidirectional blade technology did not require the a priori existence of an economic infrastructure that supported craft specialization. It is, thus, crucial to rethink whether bidirectional technology could be considered, and under what circumstances, a specialized production. The debate of how bidirectional blade technology diffused (knowledge transfer or demographic ‘colonization’) is far from closed. From the point of view of the lithics, the successful and rapid expansion through different ecosystems and climate together with the rapid adoption by communities based on different modes of subsistence suggest that the diffusion of bidirectional blade technology was part of a major cultural diffusion rather than simply the successful expansion of a method of knapping. Finally, the abandonment of bidirectional blade technology happened in different circumstances and different chronologies throughout the Levant revealing a process of ‘disconnection’ between the northern and southern Levant and increasing divergences in the Neolithic cultural developments of the region beginning between 7200-6900 cal. BC.
Lithic production in the Late Neolithic workshop site ofHar Qeren XIV (western Negev, Israel) was focused solely on the manufacture of large cortical knives made on massive flint flakes. All stages of the reduction sequence are represented in the vicinity, from the removal of large flakes off massive flint nodules, through roughing out, to the final finishing stages (including unsuccessful efforts). This has provided a rare opportunity for reconstructing the chaine operatoire of knife production, with particular emphasis on differentiation between hard and soft hammer knapping. The wider implications of this study for identifying byproducts of hi facial reduction sequences in assemblages with more than a single reduction sequence are discussed.