Lithic Reduction and Hominid Behavior in the Middle Paleolithic of the Rhineland

Due to the increasing interest in studying the evolution of modern humans, much research over the last decade has been directed toward examining the organization of technology and its relationship to planning as it is documented in the archaeological record. In this article, we use high-resolution archaeological data from the recent excavation at the Middle Paleolithic locality of Wallertheim, Germany, to gain insight into the technological systems of late premodern hominids. We focus on the problem of demonstrating contemporaneity and documenting different patterns of lithic reduction at the site. The episodic data from Wallertheim provide contextual evidence for the curation of stone tools and a level of planning that surpasses that often attributed to premodern hominids. Data of this kind should ultimately prove useful in reconstructing Middle Paleolithic systems of settlement and land use. This work seeks to study Middle Paleolithic hominids in their own right and to move beyond the dichotomies between modern and nonmodern hominids that have characterized much contemporary research.