Quina Procurement and Tool Production

Quina Mousterian lithic variability is explicated as a consequence of interactions between the flexible Quina technology and the economic context in which it was employed. Quina technology was expressed somewhat differently in each assemblage as the needs of people in specific contexts led them to emphasize different possibilities of Quina flake and core forms. Variation in Quina tools was linked to blanks produced by the distinctive core reduction strategy as well as the intensity with which tools were maintained and transported. However, despite variation that exists in Quina assemblages, it is still clear that this expresses a common technological and economic theme. Quina strategies represent particular solutions to the problems of provisioning Neanderthal foragers in the Dordogne during the Middle Paleolithic. Transporting highly extendable packages of stone, usually in the form of thick flakes from which knapper's could remove large numbers of flakes for prolonged periods, either to maintain/create working edges and/or to produce the flakes themselves, formed the central strategy of Quina behavior. The nature of core reduction and flake retouching appears to have been efficient and appropriate for producing these packages, and the pattern and directionality of material transfers indicates the structure of economic needs rather than the intellectual capacity of Neanderthals. Nevertheless, the existence of a "Quina system" which integrated a variety of procurement and technological practices to create an economic structure that was suited to a specific environmental/economic context may indicate the presence of planning in Neanderthal foragers who developed and employed it.