Not Only Flint: Levallois on Quartzite and Limestone at Abrigo de la Quebrada (Valencia, Spain): Implications for Neandertal Behavior

摘要

This paper investigates the application of the Levallois technique to the knapping of nonflint raw materials (limestone and quartzite) in the upper levels of the Abrigo de la Quebrada rockshelter (Chelva, Valencia, Spain). Besides highlighting the significant flexibility that characterized Neandertal behavior, such an application is of singular interest because good-quality flint-lacking fissures and impurities and presenting a compact and homogeneous texture-is abundant in the site's immediate vicinity. In other assemblages, the scarcity or poor quality of flint often suffices to explain the recourse to alternatives, but in these Quebrada levels raw material choice must be primarily determined by other factors. Based on the dimensions of the different blank types, the percentage of Levallois blanks that were retouched into formal tools, and the presence of use-wear damage, combined with inferences derived from the study of the faunal remains, the hearths, and the spatial distribution of finds, it is proposed that such factors concern the length and function of the occupations and the wider systems of settlement, subsistence, and mobility of which such occupations were a part.