Discussing the history and the efficacy of the chane opratoire approach to lithic analysis. M. Soressi1 J.-M.

Geneste2
1

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Dept. of Human Evolution, Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103Leipzig, Germany, soressi@eva.mpg.de, www.eva.mpg.de/evolution/staff/soressi, 2 Centre national de la Prhistoire, 38 rue du 26e Rgiment d'Infanterie, 24000 Prigueux, France, & UMR 5199 PACEA, Univ. Bordeaux I, Av. des facults, 33405 Talence France, jean-michel.geneste@culture.gouv.fr
Paper submitted to the Electronic Symposium Core Reduction, Chane Opratoire, and Other Methods: The Epistemologies of Different Approaches to Lithic Analysis at the 71st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Abstract: This paper starts with a short discussion of the Epistemology of the chane opratoire approach, which is the main tool that the supporters of the technological school in France use to study prehistoric stone-tools. This brief history of the elaboration and development of the concept of chane opratoire, as well as the details we provide afterwards on the theory of the technogical approach, illustrate the gradual sift in lithic analyses in France: from Natural Science, and the study of the progressive development of Prehistoric Man, to Anthropology, and the Techniques as societies revelators in an evolutionary perspective.

This paper focuses on the technological approach developed in France, and gives examples mainly taken from the Middle Paleolithic, which is our main area of research.

DISCUSSING THE HISTORY AND THE EFFICACY OF THE CHANE OPRATOIRE APPROACH TO LITHIC ANALYSIS.

M. Soressi, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Dpt. of Human Evolution, Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany, www.eva.mpg.de/evolution/staff/soressi, soressi@eva.mpg.de J.-M. Geneste, Centre national de la Prhistoire, 38 rue du 26e Rgiment d'Infanterie, 24000 Prigueux, France, & UMR 5199 PACEA, Univ. Bordeaux I, Av. des facults, 33405 Talence France, jean-michel.geneste@culture.gouv.fr 1. A brief history of the elaboration and development of the concept of the chane opratoire approach in France............................................................................................ 3 1.1. Before the chane opratoire....................................................................................... 3
a. b. c. The Positive history of Prehistoric Man .................................................................................... 3 Prehistoric Men through their Stone-tools ................................................................................ 4 From Stone-tools to Prehistoric Life ......................................................................................... 5

1.2. The chane opratoire: an Anthropological approach to prehistoric societies through their Techniques.......................................................................................................................... 5 2. Theory of the technogical approach to lithic industries........................................ 7 2.1. Methodological foundations....................................................................................... 7 2.2. The chane opratoire tool .................................................................................... 8
a. b. Frame of references................................................................................................................... 8 Protocol of study ....................................................................................................................... 8

3.

Limits, advantages, and future directions for the technological approach ....... 10 3.1. Contextual limits ...................................................................................................... 10
a. b. Quantifications and input grid ................................................................................................ 10 The Technical tradition effect............................................................................................ 11

3.2. Structural/Internal limits........................................................................................... 12

a. b. c. The problem of co-occurrence................................................................................................. 12 The problem of the anecdotal .................................................................................................. 12 The problem of non-exhaustiveness......................................................................................... 12

3.3. Advantages: an explicit methodology ...................................................................... 13

a. Understanding the volumetric puzzle to get the original intentions in terms of stone-tools morphology and economy ......................................................................................................................................... 13 b. A posteriori attributes definition ............................................................................................. 14

3.4. Future direction for the technogical approach .......................................................... 15

a. b. c. d. Cognitive archaeology............................................................................................................. 15 Context and understanding function........................................................................................ 16 Context and understanding economy....................................................................................... 16 Artifact phylogeny and theory on the genesis of artifacts........................................................ 17

4.

Conclusion............................................................................................................... 18 2

This paper starts with a short discussion of the Epistemology of the chane opratoire approach, which is the main tool that the supporters of the technological school in France use to study prehistoric stone-tools. This brief history of the elaboration and development of the concept of chane opratoire, as well as the details we provide afterwards on the theory of the technogical approach, illustrate the gradual sift in lithic analyses in France: from Natural Science, and the study of the progressive development of Prehistoric Man, to Anthropology, and the Techniques as societies revelators in an evolutionary perspective.

This paper focuses on the technological approach developed in France, and gives examples mainly taken from the Middle Paleolithic, which is our main area of research. Hopefully, the symposium will help to discuss how much this approach is different or similar from the one used by other researchers, with different experience or from different school of taught.

1.

A brief history of the elaboration and development of the concept of the chane opratoire approach in France.

The following thoughts about the epistemology of the chane opratoire approach had been developed in two oral papers (Geneste and Soressi, 2004b; Geneste and Soressi, 2004a).

1.1. a.

Before the chane opratoire The Positive history of Prehistoric Man

During the second half of the nineteen century, scholars were mainly focused on the defense of the evolutionist theory versus the creationist one. Within this context, ancient societies were viewed mainly as testimonies to the different steps that human beings went through. Analysis was based on the personal ability of scholar to encompass the prehistoric stone-tools variability, and then to synthesize the differences across time to unravel the positive or progressive steps toward humanity (for example the journal funded in 1864 by G. de Mortillet was entitled Matriaux pour lhistoire positive et philosophique de lhomme **; see also the book published by Mortillet in 1883 Mortillet, 1883). ** Materials for positive and philosophical history of humans beings (my translation) In the nineteen twenties, D. Peyrony suggested that there is a synchronic variability within the Mousterian, grounding his theory in his own observation of the Mousterian tools variability within the Perigord Peyrony, 1920; Peyrony, 1930. Also, H. Breuil Breuil, 1932a; Breuil, 1932b formulates his theory of several parallel trajectories within the Lower and the Middle Paleolithic, owing to his own knowledge of industries from France, Great-Britanny, and North-Africa. However, because there was no precise explicit typology, the same tool could be named in two different ways by two different scholars, and sometime in different ways across the scholars own life. For example, Peyrony speaks first about couteau-racloir or knife-scaper for scrapers (Peyrony, 1914: 37-38), and later he will only use couteau-racloir for what we call today backed knives or cortical backed knives (Peyrony, 1942, see n6 on figure 3 ; or Peyrony, 1943, figure 3, n4 & 9). But he was also distinguishing a sub-type of backed knives, named pointe triangulaire (couteaux) du type de labri Audit (eg. Peyrony, 1932; 1948). Yet, it is not clear if what H. Breuil calls couteaux dos 3

de type Audit are the same sub-type as the one used by Peyrony, or if it actually encompasses some of Peyronys couteau-racloirs. The lack of emphasis on methodology was likely a consequence of the management of prehistoric archaeology by a few scholars, who were able to ground their interpretations on their own extensive experience. The only exception to this rule could be the emphasis on the explication of the techniques of intentional chipping (Breuil and Lantier, 1959; 1965), which interestingly, might have been driven by the need to provide arguments to less experienced archaeologists (including amateur archaeologists whom by then constituted the bulk of the archaeologists) to distinguish artifacts from geofacts.
b. Prehistoric Men through their Stone-tools

It was not before the fifties that French scholars really emphasized the need to explicitly describe their methodology (Bordes, 1950; Bourgon, 1957; Bordes and Bourgon, 1951). This is evidenced, for example, by F. Bordes book on the typology of Lower and Middle Paleolithic tools (Bordes, 1961), D. de Sonneville-Bordes and J. Perrots typology of the Upper Paleolithic (Bordes and Perrot, 1954; 1955; 1956a; 1956b), and G. Laplaces own analytical typology (Laplace, 1966). This new approach was guided by new questions about the fine-tune variability of the large chrono-cultural entities such as the Mousterian Bordes, 1953. Using these newly defined typologies, and also quantifying for the first time their observations, F. Bordes subsequently subdivided the Mousterian into four different sub-types, which surprisingly to him, did seem to correspond to different group traditions of the same territories, more or less at the same time (Bordes, 1953 : 465). These new tools, a clearly defined typology and the use of quantification, shed new light on the synchronic variability of Mousterian industries. Clearly, there was a shift in the scholars perspectives, expressed within the title they gave to their book, which changed from the Prehistoric Man (Mortillet, 1883) to the Men of the Old Stone Age (Breuil and Lantier, 1951) to the Old Stone Age (Bordes, 1968) (Figure 1). The focus changed from a general understanding of diachronic changes, within a positive, i.e. the linear and progressive framework of Man, to the understanding of prehistoric Men, whom became plural, multiple, variable, to the stone-tools which would allow by themselves to understand prehistoric men.

Figure 1. From the Prehistoric Man (Mortillet, 1883) to the Men of the Old Stone Age (Breuil and Lantier, 1951) to the Old Stone Age (Bordes, 1968)

Bordes innovative and rigorous classificatory approach had been a success in the sixties and in the seventies, and was exported all over Europe and Asia (thats how Quina Mousterian had been 4

described in the Caucasus or in the Siberian plains, some 6000 kms away from the eponym site (!). Yet, by focusing mainly on Paleolithic stone tools, F. Bordes and his followers ran the risk of cutting themselves off from scholars in other disciplines, especially ethnography (not to mention Philosophy of science and technique). The New Archaeology school quickly refused the cultural interpretation of Mousterian variability: contemporaneous and neighboring groups can not live without influencing each others( Binford, 1973). The Parisian school, led by A. Leroi-Gourhan, advocated a more heuristic approach focusing on more short depth of time, especially within the Upper Paleolithic, taking into account habitat structures and spatial distribution of remains on living floors (Leroi-Gourhan and Brezillon, 1983).
c. From Stone-tools to Prehistoric Life

Yet Bordes capacity to reformulate his questions as a function of new input is clear in a paper published in 1972, in collaboration with J.-Ph. Rigaud and D. de Sonneville-Bordes (Bordes et al., 1972). This paper was entitled About goals, problems and limits of Palaeolithic archaeology (Figure 2). F. Bordes and his co-authors questioned how to better understand Palaeolithic life, and they spoke about a return to ones roots after 10 or 15 years spent focusing on the variability of Mousterian stone-tools thought the typology magnifying glass. In fact, they promoted an integrated study of synchronic sites, occupied by prehistoric nomadic groups at different periods of the year and for different purposes. One key to reconstructing Paleolithic life would be integrating the results of lithic analysis, fauna analysis, and spatial distribution of remains. They even mentioned the influence of raw material availability of site function.

Figure 2. Front cover of Bordes, Rigaud, and de Sonneville-Bordes 1972

Even if F. Bordes encouraged, in Bordeaux, the development of new approaches like use-wear analysis (Kantman, 1971; Anderson-Gerfaud, 1981), raw-material analyses (Demars, 1982), the true formulation and development of the chane opratoire approach occurred in Paris by the late seventies.

1.2.

The chane opratoire: an Anthropological approach to prehistoric societies through their Techniques

Between the late seventies and the early nineties, J. Tixier, M.-L. Inizan, H. Roche and colleagues defended a new approach to prehistoric societies through stone artifacts, which they qualified as a 5

technological approach, i.e. not only a typological one designed to classify, but an approach aiming to go deeper into the understanding of the social significance of the techniques used in the past (Tixier, 1978; Tixier et al., 1980; 1979). It took them about 15 years to clearly explicit their approach, as testifies by the changes between the two major versions of their text-book Prhistoire de la Pierre taille (Tixier et al., 1980; Inizan et al., 1992; 1995), and through the papers published by theirs students and colleagues (e.g. Geneste, 1985; Boda, 1986; 1994; Pelegrin, 1986; 1995a; Perls, 1987). This approach shifted focus from Prehistoric men through stone-tools to prehistoric societies through their techniques. The technique was then understood as a social product, as well as a founder element of the society which constitutes the technique, conditions it, reproduces it and shapes it Schlanger, 1991: 2). In consequence, the technique study - or Technology - can help to understand the society in which the technique originates. The concept of technology as the science of mens activities, was then eventually used in prehistoric archaeology after having being put forward in France by A. Leroi-Gourhan, (when he was still focusing on Ethnology, see Leroi-Gourhan, 1943: lHomme et la matire, first volume of Evolution et Techniques), and by A.-G. Haudricourt later on in the sixties (Haudricourt, 1964; 1987). Both were former students of M. Mauss who earlier conceptualized the benefits to understand a society from its techniques (Mauss, 1927; 1947; 2006; Schlanger, 1991). Additionally, the technique as a testimony of the society which produced it became a topic shared by prehistoric archaeology and cultural anthropology (see for example Latour and Lemonnier, 1994) (Figure 3). Through time, Tixier and colleagues introduced the concepts of technical system, production processes and technical intention, which had been recently formulated by French ethnographers studying material culture (see Cresswell, 1983; Balfet, 1975; Lemonnier, 1976; also, at about the same time, R. Cresswel and his team funded the journal Techniques et cultures). They debated how these concepts are useful to describe and interpret the variability seen within Paleolithic industries in cultural terms. This is how their text-book explicating the French technological approach Inizan et al., 1995 starts with a citation from A.-G. Haudricourt, saying, there are several ways to study artifacts, but it is sure that one is more important than all the other ones: this one is the one which is going to give insights into the rules of apparition and transformation of artifacts (Haudricourt, 1964 in Haudricourt, 1987 : 38). With this introduction, J. Tixier and his colleagues make clear that they single out one approach: the chane opratoire. The term chane opratoire was first used by A. Leroi-Gourhan (1964: 164, 1993), who did not formalize it (Schlanger, 2004; Desrosiers, 1991), but certainly opened the path for its future use in Ethnology and Archaeology by his publications, his teaching at la Sorbonne and his leadership of the Ethnologie prhistorique team.

Figure 3. Front cover of Haudricourt 1987, Tixier, Inizan, and Roche 1980, Latour and Lemonnier 1994

2.

Theory of the technological approach to lithic industries

Proponents of the technological approach in France have been more concerned in providing an analytical tool that in making a theoretical statement (Sellet, 1993). Still, several papers and books address the theoretical background of the technological approach.

2.1.

Methodological foundations

The claim for a technology of knapped stone, through a chane opratoire approach, had, in effect, to incorporate the stone-tool studies within the general framework of Paleolithic societys life. In consequence, it had been acknowledged that the context in which the stone-tool was produced is as important as the process of manufacture and use itself. The stone-tool is a product of the technical system of the society, and more precisely, a product of the lithic sub-system (Inizan et al., 1995) that is interacting with the bone-tool sub-system, or with the wood-tool sub-system for instance, within the larger technical system of the group. From a cognitive point of view, it was acknowledged that lithic production is managed first by a cognitive project, translated into a conceptual schema which would be made concrete through an operational scheme (Inizan et al., 1995:15). Each of these steps are dependent on several natural and human parameters (Pigeot, 1991; Pelegrin, 1991; 1995a; Inizan et al., 1995), which are summarized within the figure below (Figure 4).

NATURAL PARAMETERS:

PROJECT

HUMAN PARAMETERS:
FONCTIONNAL NEEDS (needs

CONCEPTUAL SCHEMA Location, accessibility, quantity, quality

OF THE RAW MATERIAL

of certain tool-types, of certain blanks, site specialization...),

INDIVIDUAL KNOW-HOW

(ability, age...),

OPERATIVE SCHEMA

TECHNICAL TRADITION (group knowledge, forced technical options, free technical options...), OTHER (symbolic constraints, biological constraints...)

Figure 4. Relationship between project, conceptual schema and operative schema (after Inizan et al. 1995, Pigeot, 1991; see a French version of this figure in Soressi, 1997: 35)

The theory is as follows: the constant elements of the operative schema allow determination of the conceptual schema driving the operative schema. The definition of the goals of the conceptual schema allows definition of the initial project. Consequently, it is because a gesture is constant or recurrent that it would be interpreted as intentional (yet, with each of human and natural factors still influencing it (!). The natural factors and their influence on the process would be understood by comparing the nature and the origin of the archaeological raw materials with the current raw material location, accessibility, quantity and quality. The human factors would be inferred from, for example, the identified goals of the process (cf. functional needs), from the analyses of current flintknappers individual know-how (cf. prehistoric individual know-how), or from the inferred methods and techniques used during the process (cf. technical tradition). 7

2.2.

The chane opratoire tool

The chane opratoire approach relies on a time order arrangement of the different steps used to produce an artifact (Geneste, 1991b:10). Each artifact can be located within the process because of the stigma of the previous operation it preserves Pelegrin et al., 1988. Also, the chane opratoire approach allows understanding of the geographical organization of the technical process, as the location of each stage of the process would be identified by the presence or the absence of its byproducts at a particular site (Geneste, 1985; 1991a; 1991b). In consequence, a differential management of the raw materials and/or of the blanks can be observed, and allows us to define economical management of raw-material and/or of blanks through the territory (Inizan, 1976; Perls, 1980; 1987).
a. Frame of references

The chane opratoire tool is effective due to the physical experimentation previously performed with raw material used by the prehistoric groups to produce stone-tools, and also to the growing number of analyses of archaeological assemblages with this methodology. The physical stress that occurs during the fracturing of rocks had been explored (e.g.* from Speth, 1972 to Pelcin, 1998). The gesture and nature of the hammer that could have been used to fracture rocks, and their effects on the raw material had also been studied (e.g.* from Crabtree, 1972 to Pelegrin, 2000), and uncontrolled knapping accidents (breakages, plunging, hinge-fractures, and others) had been explored (Crabtree, 1972; Callahan, 1979; Johnson, 1979; Roche and Tixier, 1982; Inizan et al., 1995: 34-38). Stigma characteristics of the temporal situation of each piece in many different processes, deduced and hypothesed from the study of archaeological material had been verified by refitting of archaeological material, as well as by experimental reproduction** of these processes (e.g.* from Newcomer, 1971 to Mora et al., 1991; Locht, 2002). And, of course, the archaeological database about the method used during the Paleolithic of western Europe (for example) has grown a great deal within the last 20 years (e.g.*Dibble and Bar-Yosef, 1995; Peresani, 2003). * For more exhaustive citation of the appropriate references, see Soressi, 2002: 47 ** Experiments do not provide analogous data and should not be interpreted as analogies of prehistoric behaviors. They only provide data to aid in understanding of the physical laws of the raw material and of its breakage. It is the understanding of these physical laws, and how they affect the knapping process, represented by several variables that are then transferred to the archaeological context, as we assume that the raw materials would have had the same physical properties during Prehistoric times as they do now. This then necessitates refined analyses of the expression of these variables within the archaeological material to understand the choices done by the prehistoric knapper. Usually, it is necessary to go back and forth between the archaeological material and experiments, and continuous verification/falsification of the hypothesis built from the archaeological material through experiments (Pelegrin, 1991) (see infra).
b. Protocol of study

We provide as an example the protocol used in Soressi, 2002(: 48-50). We do not present here a protocol of analyses of the taphonomy of the lithic assemblages which can be found elsewhere (e.g. Villa and Soressi, 2000 an reference therein). Analyzing the taphonomy of the lithic industry is of 8

course preliminary to the underlying protocol, as it allows us to define the reliability of the lithic assemblage to answer behavioral questions. 1. The first step is to separate the artifacts from the raw-material they have been made with, based on criteria that could have influenced the knapping process, such as its petrographic nature and cortex alteration, which indicates: the geological bed from which the raw material was collected, the primary or derived context of the outcrop.

Within each raw material category, it is useful to separate the negative artifacts, on which the last removals are negative; from the positive ones, on which the last blow produced the ventral face of the artifact (retouch is not taken into account at this stage)****. Then, within those categories, one separates the artifacts with and without cortex and within these, one ordinates the artifacts according to their dimensions. This ordering can give a preliminary idea about the order of production of each artifact, as cortex rate should diminish, as should artifact size, through the knapping process (e.g. Newcomer, 1971; Geneste, 1985; Ahler, 1989; Dibble et al., 2005), if all the negative artifacts were not abandoned at the same stage, and if positive artifacts, cortical and non-cortical, were present. **** At this stage, we prefer to use the terms positive and negative artifacts and not flake versus core, as a core can be proper core or can be a biface (which was most of the time a core and a tool altogether ; for example see Soressi, 2004a; 2004b). 2. The second step is aimed at understanding the techniques and methods *** used to produce the assemblage. Within the above categories, artifacts can be separated according to the technique used to produce them, knowing that it can be impossible most of the time to determine the technique used to produced each artifact (see Soressi, 2002 : 53-54 for a synthesis of some of the criteria that can be used to recognize techniques). Then, by observing the organization of removals on each piece (see Soressi, 2002: 55 for a description of the criteria used to reconstruct the direction and chronology of removal of each piece), including on its platform, it should be possible to reconstruct short sequence on each piece, and from putting them in sequential order to reconstruct the global operational chain(s), or method(s) used to produce the assemblage. Of course, some artifacts are more useful than others, as the short sequence that they illustrate, may be or may not be characteristic of a step in the process. Also, some links are essential to the process, and their presence or absence is always meaningful. For insistence, if the method used consists in the maintaining of a debitage surface and a platform surface on the core, then 2 types of flakes are essential to the process: flakes which maintain the surfaces by creating concavities, and flakes that use these concavities and destroy them by creating flat areas or convexities. In consequence, the first type of flake will have an asymmetrical transversal or/and a longitudinal section, whereas the second type will have symmetrical sections. For example, the Levallois method depends on the alternatively production of clat dbordant as well as other types of maintaining flakes, and on production of proper clat Levallois (cf. Boda and Pelegrin, 1979; Boda et al., 1990). So, the direction of the operational chain, as well as its internal hierarchy, is reconstructed based on: the diminution of cortex, the diminution of proper and relative to each other size of the artifacts,

and, based on the physical necessity of maintaining convexities flakes and destroying convexities flakes through each stage.

*** Techniques (Tixier, 1967) refers here to the physical mode of execution of flakes removals, e.g. percussion with or without an anvil, the shape and raw material of the tool(s) employed, how the piece being worked is held and other aspects of the body position (Pelegrin, 2005:24). Methods refers to the intellectual steps followed through the knapping process, expressed by the volumetric and sequential organization of the blows on the core (i.e. the reduction process) (cf. Tixier 1967; Pelegrin, 2000; 2005). 3. The third step is aimed at reconstructing the morphological characteristics of the products of the operational chain, morphological characteristics which are controlled by the techniques and methods used to produce them. 4. The last step consists of determining if each step of the operational chain is present for each raw material within the assemblage. Observations and attributes combinations judged relevant during the physical classification of the artifacts would be then quantified to allow the use of descriptive and comparative statistics tests.

3.

Limits, advantages, and future directions for the technological approach

3.1. a.

Contextual limits Quantifications and input grid

A revolt against the use of the Bordian typology as a goal in itself (when the interpretation would not go deeper than assigning an assemblage to a Mousterian facis) is contemporaneous with the birth to the technological approach. This likely had some methodological consequences, which are by themselves not justified by the theoretical grounds of the new approach. These consequences were: The rejection of formal quantification, which was sometimes a goal in and of itself for researchers who used the Bordian typology. Also, and more importantly, the first technological studies were aimed at the recognition of different methods used by prehistoric groups as indicators of cultural entities, an approach which, by itself, does not need quantification (see, for instance, the text book written by Inizan et al. 1995 in which drawing is mentioned as a demonstrative tool, but in which quantification is not mentioned). The rejection of the study piece by piece of the assemblage (probably as a consequence of the relationships that must be established between each piece, as each piece is part of a puzzle. Each is not meaningful by itself, but only within its context in the assemblage), The rejection of a pre-established input grid, which might be a consequence of the two first phenomena.

10

Still, quantification and predefined input grid has been used in some technological research, especially those studies focusing on the economy of the knapping process (e.g. Geneste, 1985; 1988). One brake on growth of quantification has been the lack of quantified experiments that could be used as referential to interpret the quantified data. For insistence, the only referential we have about the quantity of Levallois flakes of each type produced during a Levallois debitage (which is very useful to interpret how many artifacts were exported or imported at the site) is the one published by J-M. Geneste in his dissertation in 1985 (one, however, is currently in preparation by L. Bourguignon, M. Brenet, M. Soressi and colleagues). Also, a grid can not be pre-established before the initial global observation of the assemblage, which is usually organized on tables in the manner mentioned above within the protocol section. The input grid, which allows quantification by recording attributes on each piece, is defined after this first visual and superficial analysis of the assemblage. In this way, only the pertinent attributes, i.e. the ones which we are able to interpret, are chosen. The use of a pre-established input grid was developed especially for the analyses of experimental work (e.g. Bourguignon, 1997; 2001. Meanwhile, some recent technological analyses demonstrated that the statistical analyses of quantified data greatly aids in understanding and interpreting the results of technological analyses of assemblages, as well as for any other types of analysis (e.g. Soressi, 2002).

b.

The Technical tradition effect

In the assessment of 25 years of technological studies published in 1991 by a French team (Collectif, 1991) (Figure 5), it was noted (Perls, 1991) that the major accomplishment of the technological approach was: the accumulation of data concerning the prehistoric technical knowledge, testimonies of the technical traditions of the groups (the major method and techniques of debitage had probably been recognized), and also the relatively numerous analyses of the economy of the flintknapping process through the selection of the blanks and the selection of the raw-material, which provides inferences about the organization of the knapping activity across the territory. the evaluation of the cognitive capacities necessary to carry out the different operational schema, the definition of the social and economic context in which the flintknapping activity was carried out, or in other words, the relationship between the social and the economic context and the dynamic of technical changes.

Meanwhile, other aspects had been less thoroughly explored, including:

This is what one might call the technical tradition effect, as most of the first efforts of the pioneers of the technological approach focused on the definition of potential technical traditions, as shown through the techniques and methods used by the prehistoric groups.

11

Figure 5. Front cover of 25 ans dEtudes technologiques, Bilan et Perspectives, 1991 (Collectif, 1991)

3.2. a.

Structural/Internal limits The problem of co-occurrence

When several different and unrelated (from a technical or a spatial point of view) processes are observed within one assemblage, it is not possible to determine if this is related to the use of different processes at the same time by the group, or to the successive occupation of the site by groups using different processes. The same limit was encountered with the previous method used in France to study lithic industries.
b. The problem of the anecdotal

The only links of the operational chain which are susceptible to recognition are the ones represented within the assemblage by numerous artifacts, or which were not represented by numerous artifacts, but which had been precisely described and characterized elsewhere. This problem had been generally debated by A. Gallay (1986), and is not specific to the technological approach. Yet it has potential for greater consequences within this approach, as the methodology is not built on a piece-by-piece recognition, but on the establishment of the chronological and hierarchical relationship between several pieces. Of course, when one process is represented by an small number of pieces, it would be impossible to determine whether this process was anecdotic for the prehistoric group or if it is only anecdotic as a consequence of the non-representatives of the assemblage studied (Soressi, 1997; 1999).
c. The problem of non-exhaustiveness

As a consequence of the problem of the anecdotal, the reconstructed operational schemas are allencompassing in essence, and can not be considered as exhaustive. In other words, other operational schemes could have been used, but they are not represented by a sufficient number of pieces to be recognized (Soressi, 1999) . In this case, the technological analyses would be more precise if the number of pieces was large, whereas to solve the problem of co-occurrence, the analysis would benefit from an assemblage representing the smallest time depth. These questions should be addressed when excavating the lithic assemblage. 12

3.3.

Advantages: an explicit methodology

The technological approach, grounded on the chane opratoire, is an explicit methodology with the capacity to guide the analyst through each step of the analysis and the interpretation.
a. Understanding the volumetric puzzle to get the original intentions in terms of stone-tools morphology and economy

One of the advantages of the chane opratoire (see above) is to provide a definition of temporality as well as the geography of each artifact, within the space and the time of the flintknapping activity. Taking into account each object in its process context is possible due to several attributes that are known to be meaningful in understanding the volumetric puzzle, as they have been tested through experimental replication. The dynamic reading of each artifact is performed at two scales: The scale of the object itself: the chronology of the removals on a core allows us, for example, to determine if there was a hierarchy between two surfaces within the debitage of this core. If there was one, one surface had to be used after the other, and this first surface, the platform surface is the surface from which the last and often larger removals were removed. The scale of the chronological relationship between objects within the assemblage: this analysis allows for the understanding of the stage of abandonment of the artifacts - for example, abandonment at an initial, an advanced, or an exhausted stage for a core.

Chronological and spatial relationship of: Each removal with each other Each artifact with each other

Temporality (when) Geography (where) of the artifacts

It is because we know from experimental replication and experimental fracture of flint that some variables determine the morphology and the economy (how many flakes produced per kilograms) of the end-product that we can search for the expression of these variables within the archaeological record, to eventually define the prehistoric intentionality (see Soressi, 2005b).

13

Experimental fracture of rock

Ancient artifacts Variables driving the morphology & number of endproducts

Ancient intentionality for morphology & economy

The technological approach is not a morphometric analysis but a dynamic, volumetric and geographic analysis grounded in transfer* of variables chosen through an actualistic referential. This interpretative background allows us to provide a global interpretation, and not only a descriptive listing of the archaeological remains. * and not grounded on analogies (see Whallon, 1989:452) between the actual and the ancient processes.

b.

A posteriori attributes definition

The definition of attributes recorded on each piece after the first examination of the assemblage, once it had been organized on a table, offers a major advantage. It allows use of attributes that are more precise and more relevant, because they are more specific to the actual operative schema used. This procedure avoids a-priori averaging of the recorded attributes to make sure theyll fit every single situation. Of course, the final interpretation of the expression of the attributes will be grounded on the next step: the quantitative analysis. For example, biface shaping flakes within Mousterian of Acheulian tradition context were classified, for some of them, as Levallois flakes (it is clear for the Pech-de-lAz I collection for example, which had been kept in the museum in the way it was classified by F. Bordes) (Figure 6). This is because the definition of Levallois flakes is not precise enough, but also because the classification of the flakes as Levallois occurred independent from the rest of the assemblage, and they were classified as they would have been without context. However, there is a context showing that most of the negative artifacts within these assemblages are bifaces, that these bifaces were shaped with several dozen of removals that leave a complicated pattern on them (a shared character with Levallois cores), that the angle between the platform and the distal extremities of the removal were specific and different from the one you would observe on Levallois flakes (not to mention the thinness of the platform relatively to the length of the flake and to the length of the platform, which is another specific feature useful to distinguish biface shaping flakes from Levallois flakes). So, it is the use of the context that allows one to define the attributes that are useful to reconstruct the dynamic puzzle of knapping stone-tools.

14

In any case, we interpret only what we are able to understand. Consequently, this a posteriori definition of attributes is not less objective than an a priori-attribute definition: in an a-priori definition, attribute choice is driven by previous experience, so the only difference with aposteriori definition is that, within the last approach, the attribute definition is grounded on the first understanding of the assemblage also. Therefore, an a-posteriori definition of attributes is more efficient because its more precise and saves time. * One of us (MS) experience with scholars who do not follow the French technological approach gave us the feeling that a-posteriori definition attributes is one of the main practical differences between approaches. The symposium would help to clarify this point.

3.4.

Future direction for the technogical approach

Future direction for the technological approach might be toward the evolutionary and historical significance of stone-tool production and dynamics of their changes trough time. Scholars would then focus more on cognitive archaeology, on the understanding of artifacts functions and economy, as well as on exploring more artifacts phylogeny.

Figure 6. Pechde-lAz I biface shaping flakes (the first one had been classified as Levallois flake by F. Bordes). After Soressi, 2002:89 / drawings J.-G. Marcillaud

Experimental fracture of rock

Ancient artifacts Variables driving the morphology & number of endproducts

Cognitive Functionnal Economical

Ancient intentionality for morphology & economy

reasons. ??

a.

Cognitive archaeology

Supporters of the technological approach probably still did not sufficiently explore the evolutionary significance of the use of one manufacture process versus another one. The implications of the number of operations, the hierarchy between them, referring to the cognitive skill (including language ability), as well as to the manual skill, has probably been under-estimated until now. This topic had been addressed especially by J. Pelegrin (1985; 1993; 1995b; 2005). Individual ability and questions related to craft specialization in recent periods of Prehistory (see for insistence, Ploux, 1984; Karlin et al., 1993; Pigeot, 2004: 260-266) had perhaps been addressed more thoroughly than the questions of the cognitive and motor skills of the different human species and sub-species across human evolution (but see Roche and Texier, 1996; Roche et al., 1999). 15

Yet this is currently developing, as illustrated by the recent volume edited by V. Roux & B. Bril (Roux and Bril, 2005; see also Roux, 2000), a book that gathers archaeologists and researchers specializing in science of movement, neuroscience and psychology. It also worth noting the recent attempt to revitalize Piagets work with new data to discuss the emergence of language and the evolution of knapping activities (Airvaux, submitted). Once again, Prehistoric archaeology would likely benefit from more contact and collaboration with developmental, comparative or cognitive psychology as well as the neurosciences.
b. Context and understanding function

Greater knowledge of the context in which stone tool manufacture occurred would help us to understand the processes of invention of artifacts (see for example the theory developed by Simondon, 1958; Simondon and Chateau, 2005). Additionally the connection with the other technical subsystems (food collection/hunting, food processing, social cooperation for each task) should be established because they potentially influence each other. For instance, some recent research has focused on the functional significance of the morphology of stone-tools, postulating that function is driven at least in part by morphology, which in turns is driven by the processes used to manufacture the stone-tools (Plisson, 1988; Boda, 1991; Geneste, 1991b; Lepot, 1993; Plisson, 1993; Geneste and Plisson, 1996; Bourguignon, 1997; Soriano, 2000; Soressi, 2002). This approach focuses on determining the potential range of use of stone-tools from their morphology. It complements the micro-wear analyses usually focusing on the last use(s) of stonetools. A knife is conceived to be used as a cutting tool (en coupant cf. Sigaut, 1991), but it can also occasionally be used as a screw driver (!). Still, its range of use defined by its manufacture process is for cutting, as it is better adapted to this specific use, and it is the analyses of its morphology which can be used to determine so. For instance, this type of analysis applied to the Mousterian of Acheulian bifaces showed that these bifaces were made in a way which allowed their use as multifunctional tools, which may explain (added to the fact that they were tools and core at the same time thanks to the special process of manufacture used to make them) why they were preferentially chosen by this group as traveling tools (Soressi, 2002: 136-158, Soressi, 2004a). Also, E. Boda (2005) recently tried to formalize the influence of changes within the gestures used to make use of an object on the dynamic of technological changes (the old M. Mauss idea about the Techniques du corps (1936) and how important they are in human societies is explored once again).
c. Context and understanding economy

In 1991, in a volume on the assessment of 25 years of technological studies, C. Perls (1991) put forward a model to interpret the changes within the economical strategy of prehistoric groups. She suggested that the dynamics of changes within the economical strategy (defined from the economy of raw material and the economy of debitage) might be related to two major factors: the intensity of the use of tools, and the amount of risk associated with manufacture defects of tools, the group mobility, changing between logistical and residential.

Of course, this model is especially useful if it is possible to compare different sites used by the same group across its seasonal movements within a territory. The uncertainties that come with radiometric aging methods currently available makes the radiometric ages often unreliable in terms of sorting out which site is contemporaneous with which other site. For example, for the Mousterian of Acheulian tradition in the south-west of France, most of the sites have the same mean age around 50kyrs, plus/minus 5000 years (at 65% of confidence; ie +-10 000 years at 95% of confidence; see for example Soressi, 2005a), which means that there is a strong possibility that the MTA (A+B) episode did last less than the 1 sigma confidence interval of the age measurement (i.e. less than 10 000 years). 16

Yet, to be sure of site contemporaneity, we should have a dating method with a 2 sigma uncertainties smaller than the total duration of the events (!) (which is true with C14 ages starting from the Neolithic, outside of the problem of calibration plateau). At this stage, if we follow certain rules, we believe it is reasonable to rely on technical processes to assume contemporaneity between sites sharing the same technical tradition, even for ancient periods of Prehistory such as the Middle Paleolithic. These rules would be to focus: on facies with a specific geographic repartition, on facies with a specific time depth (reasonably small compared to other contemporaneous facies), and on sites belonging to these facies that are located within a territory which is of reasonable size compared with ethnographic references, and compared with the territory from which most of the raw materials used come.

For instance, within the Middle Paleolithic, the Mousterian of Acheulian tradition (MTA) type A, as well as the MTA type B would be good candidates, as they have a geographic distribution much smaller than the one of the Middle Paleolithic in Europe, and as it lasted for a very short period of time compared to the total Middle Paleolithic and compared to the other preceding and contemporaneous facies. MTA (A) artifacts from one site could be compared to artifacts from other sites sharing the same technical tradition within the reasonable size territory of the Prigord area in south-west France, in order to define patterns of mobility organization through the year (see for insistence one attempt in Soressi, 2002:259-269, 2004). The behavioral hypotheses generated on the above grounds require testing by using other lines of evidence from archaeological remains belonging to other technical sub-systems, such as the faunal remains, which can provide information about the seasonality of site occupation (throughout the year or only during specific seasons) or the hunting strategies (see Rendu, in press about the MTA model), as well as climate or environment (for which information might be provided by geological analyses of site formation processes).

d.

Artifact phylogeny and theory on the genesis of artifacts

More integration of the research done in the Philosophy of Techniques might be useful to interpret the technology of knapped stone in terms of artifacts phylogeny, or convergence and invention processes. This approach has been recently put forward by E. Boda (1987; 2005). The technique is understood as the medium of a non genetic memory which is cumulative and transmitted (Stiegler, 1994). According to Simondon (Simondon, 1958; Simondon and Chateau, 2005) for example, within a technical lineage, tools would go through different stages from a syncretic one (when several functions would be assumed by the same tools but would be juxtaposed and in concurrence with each other while using the tool), to an analytical one (when functions would be linked together), to end up in a synthetic one (where several functions would be completely assumed within one structure). Within Simondons theory, the evolutionary processes of objects would go toward more and more integration of function within its structure (cf. for example the boiler came before the steam engine, which came before the transportable steam engine; another example is the history of the door latch which became eventually completely integrated within the door). This theoretical framework inherited from the Philosophy of Techniques would be helpful to distinguish between migration of population or convergence, or to explain the shift from one lineage such as the Levallois to another like the blade production (Boda, 2005).

17

4.

Conclusion

Lithic analyses in France have gone through several stages across its history. With time, it is enlarging its theoretical grounds, explicating its methodology, and shifting from a natural science approach of Prehistoric Man to a global Anthropology of prehistoric societies techniques. Following this path, lithic analyses are improved from the other disciplines which are part of Anthropology, as well as from the discipline studying human Biology. A complete Anthropology of Techniques (cf. Lemonnier, 1986) will rely on the study of not only the object but also the context of it, i.e. also the actions as well as the cognition accompanying it.

Acknowledgements: Many thanks to Ph. Soulier who kindly provided printed copies of his papers, and to A. Cleveland who polished the English.

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