Levalloisian Technique

Levalloisian Technique 

in archaeology, a method of working stone that was characteristic of the Lower Paleolithic. The technique has been named after the Lower Paleolithic site of Levallois-Perret near Paris. It consists in the careful primary flaking of the core, as a result of which the core acquires a tortoise-like shape (tortoise cores). Such flaking determined the correct form of the oval, rectangular, or triangular flakes and blades that were struck from the core and then used to make various tools.

The Levalloisian technique appeared in the middle Acheulean period and was widespread throughout the late Acheulean and the Mousterian periods among individual groups of people on all territories settled in the Lower Paleolithic. It existed in conjunction with other stone-working techniques.

REFERENCES

Liubin, V. P. “K voprosu o metodike izucheniia nizhnepaleoliticheskikh kamennykh orudii.” In the collection Materialy i issledovaniia po arkheologii SSSR, no. 131. Moscow-Leningrad, 1965.
Grigor’ev, G. P. “Problemy levuallua.” In the collection Materialy i issledovaniia po arkheologii SSSR, no. 185. Leningrad, 1972.

P. I. BORISKOVSKII