Préface | Jacques Jaubert, Michel Barbaza & Michel Vaginay Avant-propos | Jean Clottes, Jean-Pierre Giraud & Pierre Chalard Historique des recherches : la découverte, la fouille et l’étude | Jean Clottes & Jean-Pierre Giraud Le cadre naturel | Guy Astruc & Laurent Bruxelles Lithostratigraphie, dynamique sédimentaire et implications | Bertrand Kervazo & Stéphane Konik Les micromammifères | Emmanuel Desclaux Le cadre chronologique : datations 14C | Christine Oberlin & Hélène Valladas Les industries lithiques du Solutréen Pierre Chalard, André Morala & Alain Turq, Pétroarchéologie du silex Christian Servelle, Les autres roches Caroline Renard, L’organisation des productions en silex, implications techno-économiques Les industries lithiques du Badegoulien Pierre Chalard, André Morala & Alain Turq, Pétroarchéologie du silex Christian Servelle, Les autres roches Jean Clottes, Carole Fritz, Jean-Pierre Giraud & Christian Servelle, Les galets portant des traces d’utilisation Sylvain Ducasse & Laure-Amélie Lelouvier, Techno-économie des équipements en silex, une première approche diachronique L’art mobilier : le galet gravé badegoulien | Jean Clottes, Carole Fritz, Jean-Pierre Giraud, Christian Servelle Les colorants | Marie-Pierre Pomiès & Colette Vignaud Archéozoologie | Jean-Christophe Castel Analyse cémentochronologique | Hélène Martin & Olivier Le Gall, avec la collaboration de Bernard Martin Premier regard sur la matière dure animale ouvragée | Yanik Le Guillou Les coquillages | Yvette Taborin Le travail du bois de renne dans les couches badegouliennes | Jean-Marc Pétillon & Aline Averbouh Les vestiges humains : deux exemples de traitement du cadavre | Dominique Henri-Gambier & Sébastien Villotte Structures d’habitat et organisation de l’espace | Nathalie Fourment & Jean-Pierre Giraud De 20 000 à 18 000 BP en Quercy : Apports de la séquence du Cuzoul de Vers à la compréhension de l’évolution des comportements socio-économiques entre Solutréen et Badegoulien | Sylvain Ducasse & Caroline Renard

avec la collaboration de Guy Astruc, Aline Averbouh, Laurent Bruxelles, Jean-Christophe Castel, Pierre Chalard, Jean Clottes, Emmanuel Desclaux, Nathalie Fourment, Carole Fritz, Jean-Pierre Giraud, Dominique Henri-Gambier, Bertrand Kervazo, Stéphane Konik, Olivier Le Gall, Yanik Le Guillou, Laure-Amélie Lelouvier, Bertrand Martin, Hélène Martin, André Morala, Christine Oberlin, Jean-Marc Pétillon, Marie-Pierre Pomiès, Christian Servelle, Yvette Taborin, Alain Turq, Hélène Valladas, Colette Vignaud, Sébastien Villotte

This book envisages an analysis of the lithic collections from several sites Mary Leakey excavated between 1960 and 1963 in Bed I and II at Olduvai (Tanzania), currently stored at the National Museum of Nairobi (Kenya) and previously published in a classic monograph (Leakey 1971). Nonetheless, we have conceived this study from a standpoint that relates more to aspects concerning technical production than to the typological issues that governed Leakey’s approximation. Furthermore, the Olduvai collections will be contemplated from a contextual prism, bearing in mind a constant concern in reconstructing the processes that formed the archaeological record, aiming to understand the differences or similarities that appear between the different assemblages. This monograph focuses on the analysis of lithic materials. We assume blood cannot be squeezed from stones, paraphrasing the title of one of the articles by Isaac (1977b). Yet, we can reconstruct part of the puzzle concerning human evolution by understanding the technological guidelines and technical patterns in use during the transformation processes, which are, in short, telling of the hominids´ behaviour. A meticulous analysis of the lithic objects can provide valuable information to comprehend their technical abilities, cognitive skills and economic concerns. Therefore, each lithic object will be studied analytically, attempting to integrate them in the corresponding stage of the chaîne opératoire. It is essential to keep a distance from the last works that examined the Olduvai sequence (Ludwig 1999; Kimura 1997, 1999, 2002). Therein, artefact categories stand their own ground (in a classically typological conception), and are compared in isolation throughout a chronological sequence. In contrast, we consider that it is essential to analyse each lithic element in connection with others, and each site as a whole, since each assemblage is subjected to specific, exceptional circumstances. Only upon understanding each collection after comparing the different categories it comprises, it is possible to elaborate conclusions that can subsequently be extrapolated and compared to the facts documented in other sites. This work contains constant references to the terms Oldowan and Acheulean. The Oldowan was defined precisely in Olduvai, therefore this location is the perfect setting for the justification of the term. In fact, the term Oldowan has well-defined chronological and cultural connotations, whilst Mode 1 defined by Grahame Clark (1969) has, over recent years, been used without enough precision. The same occurs with the Acheulean, which will predominate herein over the term Mode 2, and which also presents specific technological, chronological and cultural features. One of the key goals this work establishes is precisely to define the attributes that characterise the Oldowan and the Acheulean, and to attempt to understand the technological and cultural connotations this differentiation entails. Therefore it is essential that this dichotomy exists explicitly in our discourse. In the first chapter we will expound some general notions on the historiography of the Olduvai expeditions, the stratigraphy, the radiometric and paleo-ecological framework, the archaeological sequence Leakey defined, and the methodology employed in our re-examination. By doing so, we aim to create a suitable contextual framework in which to develop the technological study. As regards all other matters, the index of this work respects a diachronic structure, starting with the oldest sites in Bed I and moving through the archaeological sequence to the top of Bed II, the chronological limit for our research. After presenting a systematic description of each site in its corresponding chapter, general conclusions that summarise and present a global interpretation of the Olduvai sequence appear at the end of the monograph. Our goal is to combine a systematic study of the lithic reduction methods and chaînes opératoires, with a vaster vision that integrates these technical systems in the general framework of the land-use by hominids. We assume that the manufacturing of any stone tool is the result of a series of technical, economic, social and symbolic options that can be encompassed under the term strategies (Perlès 1992:225). From this general perspective, in this work we will attempt to understand the technological strategies used by the humans that lived in Olduvai during the Lower Pleistocene. (The authors).