The Levallois as a Marker

A technological analysis of stone knapping process gives rise to a revision of the traditional in archaeology thesis by F. Bordes: "The Levallois is a technology; the Mousterian is a culture "."The phenomenon of Levallois" is interpreted in this article as a sacral, nonutilitarian process of stone knapping, which stands out among various technologies employed in the Middle Paleolithic. The Levallois can be considered a phenomenon that marks the beginning of a new stage in our history, when a sacred status was attributed to an act rather than to an object. The artefacts found suggest the subject of the activity was no longer an ape, but a human.

Keywords: archaeology, the Levallois, technology, experiment, the essence of man

The Levallois as a Marker