An Analysis of the Levallois
Reduction Strategy Using a Design Theory Framework
The Levallois reduction strategy was selected from among a number of different
lithic strategies available in the Middle Palaeolithic and was employed
over a wide geographic area of the Old World for well over 200,000 years.
This research attempts to examine the potential advantages of this reduction
strategy that led to this long history of use. This requires the development
of a model of Middle Palaeolithic lifeways from which can be identified those
factors that would have influenced and constrained the design of Middle Palaeolithic
stone technology and tool kits. From an understanding of these constraints
on stone tool production and use several hypotheses are developed which would
explain the advantages that Levallois reduction would present and under what
conditions we would expect it to be employed. These hypotheses are then tested
through the analysis of both the morphology of the products of different reduction
strategies and of tool blank selection patterns at four Middle Palaeolithic
sites in SW and SE France. This analysis indicates that Levallois reduction
would present notable advantages under conditions of restricted access
to raw material, which may be due to circumstances of increased group mobility
or distance from raw material sources. It is also apparent that classic Levallois
reduction cannot be defined in isolation from other single-surface core strategies,
and that much of the advantage of classic Levallois reduction is inherent
in all such strategies.