Mousterian Technology as Adaptive Response: A Case Study

Research on Mousterian assemblages from west‐central Italy reveals one way that variation in patterns of stone tool manufacture and use may reflect changes in hominid foraging behavior, land use, and mobility. In these cases, frequent movement and wide‐ranging foraging, associated with evidence for scavenging of large game, appears to be linked to the production and extensive resharpening of relatively large tool blanks and possibly to greater evidence for artifact transport. More intensive and prolonged occupations, marked by the introduction of entire carcasses of hunted animals into cave sites, are associated with less intensive reduction of tools and greater reliance on immediately available raw materials.