Élaboration d’un protocole d’expérimentation lithique pour la compréhension des comportements techniques et techno-économiques au Paléolithique moyen

While experimentation constitutes a useful actualistic resource for analysis and comparison, it is often underestimated and underused in techno-economic approaches to lithic industries. One early experimental reference base covering the entire Levallois production sequence qualitatively and quantitatively defined four operational phases (Geneste 1985, 1988). This division of the production sequence, however, has not been described for the other debitage methods or modalities. In addition to enriching existing reference bases, the experimental procedure proposed here extends the range of experiments to all lithic knapping concepts (flaking and shaping) while qualitatively and quantitatively evaluating the methods, modalities, techniques, material constraints and exploited volumes implied. The resulting reference bases are both comparative and have the capacity to evolve. This experimental procedure describes the conditions of the progression of the experiments adapted to each research problem (techno-economic, spatial and taphonomic), recording methods and data treatment. Finally, a few examples of its application to archaeological industries illustrate the potential of such a procedure for contributing to our understanding of the economic behaviours of Middle Palaeolithic groups.