Prehistoric Blades: Why Paleolithic Hunters Adopted Them So Widely

Supports that became ubiquitous

Among the many stone tool productions that mark prehistory, blades hold a unique place. They are flakes that are clearly longer than they are wide, with the two longest edges generally bearing a cutting edge. Their success was such that they are found in very varied contexts, in different periods and across vast territories.

In the Upper Paleolithic industries of Eurasia, the blade becomes an almost constant reference. Researchers therefore seek to understand two things: why this type of blank attracted hunter-gatherers, and what this preference reveals on technical and cultural levels.

A notion inherited from the 19th century

The blade was identified and described as early as the 19th century, but its meaning remains debated. The lecture revisits the notion of the "blade object" developed by prehistorian Nicole Pigeot, which leads to seeing this blank as much more than a simple tool.

The definitions examined during the meeting draw on the pioneering work of André Leroi-Gourhan and Jacques Tixier, two major names in the study of stone tool industries.

Technical studies and operational sequences

To understand these productions, archaeologists combine several approaches. Descriptive analyses detail the morphology of the blanks. The examination of operational sequences, which follows step by step the course of the gesture from the selection of the block to the abandonment of the object, makes it possible to reconstruct how blades were obtained.

Economic approaches complete this picture by questioning the yield of these knapping methods, whose modalities vary across sites and periods.

Blades and bladelets as markers of behavior

Blades and bladelets are mobile objects, carried and reused as people moved. They belong both to daily life, through domestic tools, and to hunting, through the armatures that equipped projectiles. They thus make it possible to trace practices from the living site to the areas traversed and the animals pursued.

According to the lecture's organizers, these artifacts constitute valuable techno-cultural evidence. Their study also informs about the territories frequented, notably through the origin of the raw materials used.

From stone blades to polished blades

The subject does not stop at the end of the Paleolithic. Blades with polished surfaces, made from tough rocks, appear later among the first agro-pastoral communities of the Neolithic. The meeting therefore offers a journey through Paleolithic times, prior to the emergence of these other blades.

For visitors to the Dordogne, this theme extends naturally to the sites of Les Eyzies, where traces of late Paleolithic hunters lie close to the surface.

Seeing these remains on site

The village of Les Eyzies brings together several major sites for understanding Upper Paleolithic industries. The Cro-Magnon rock shelter, where the skeletons that gave their name to the Cro-Magnon man were unearthed in 1868, associates tools and ornaments with human remains. The Abri Pataud, for its part, offers a stratigraphic section covering Aurignacian, Gravettian and Solutrean levels, each with its own tool kit.

The lecture is free of charge, but booking is recommended through the contact details provided by the National Museum of Prehistory.