Flake morphologies and patterns of core configuration at the Abric Romaní rock-shelter: A geometric morphometric approach

The current debate about Mousterian core technologies mainly focuses on the issues of flake predetermination and the morphological similarities of blanks in discoid and centripetal recurrent Levallois methods. To date, the arguments presented have either been based on qualitative analyses of the cores or on the use of ratios of linear measurements to infer the shape of the detached flakes. This paper presents the results of applying 2D geometric morphometric analysis to the flake assemblages in the archaeological collections from the O and M levels of the Abric Romaní rock-shelter and from materials produced by experimental knapping. The results reveal a pattern of core configuration in the Levallois artefacts from level O and a high level of morphological correspondence between the core-edge flake outlines in discoid and Levallois recurrent centripetal technologies. This evidence reinforces the hypothesis that the discoid and the Levallois recurrent centripetal methods share some techno-morphological features. The knappers' ability and the purposes of the reduction sequences play important roles in metrically differentiating between them, otherwise the differences between the two methods would be even smaller. The use of geometric morphometric analysis of flake assemblages can enhance discussions of flaking technologies in lithic studies and quantitatively improve our understanding of the patterns of core configuration and the skills of the prehistoric knappers.