Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards: Evaluating the Roe Handaxe Methodology in the Twenty-first Century and the Introduction of a New ‘Roe-type’ Index
Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards: Evaluating the Roe Handaxe Methodology in the Twenty-first Century and the Introduction of a New ‘Roe-type’ Index
The methodology developed by Derek Roe in the 1960s to describe the outline shape of handaxes has become an industry standard amongst scholars of the Acheulean. It was applied to the UK and in a modified form in East and Southern Africa. It is being used by a new generation of archaeologists to understand successive Acheulean occupations of the UK in the Middle Pleistocene. There has been a relatively little critique of the method. This paper explores some of the issues that the method raises and suggests and that while it may not fairly represent specific outlines shapes, in every case, it does fairly represent a basic bauplan. A new Roe-style index is suggested, the tip elongation index which helps structure the methodology when used with modern statistical and graphic software packages
Acheulean, Handaxe, Homo heidelbergensis, Middle Pleistocene, Roe, stone tool
1-20
Mcnabb, mac
59e818b1-3196-4991-93eb-75ed9c898e71
Mcnabb, mac
59e818b1-3196-4991-93eb-75ed9c898e71
Mcnabb, mac
(2021)
Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards: Evaluating the Roe Handaxe Methodology in the Twenty-first Century and the Introduction of a New ‘Roe-type’ Index.
Lithic Technology, .
(doi:10.1080/01977261.2021.2002548).
Abstract
The methodology developed by Derek Roe in the 1960s to describe the outline shape of handaxes has become an industry standard amongst scholars of the Acheulean. It was applied to the UK and in a modified form in East and Southern Africa. It is being used by a new generation of archaeologists to understand successive Acheulean occupations of the UK in the Middle Pleistocene. There has been a relatively little critique of the method. This paper explores some of the issues that the method raises and suggests and that while it may not fairly represent specific outlines shapes, in every case, it does fairly represent a basic bauplan. A new Roe-style index is suggested, the tip elongation index which helps structure the methodology when used with modern statistical and graphic software packages
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Accepted/In Press date: 18 November 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 18 November 2021
Keywords:
Acheulean, Handaxe, Homo heidelbergensis, Middle Pleistocene, Roe, stone tool
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Local EPrints ID: 452824
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/452824
PURE UUID: fce35a7e-6fea-4341-8630-5fa47ca6098e
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Date deposited: 21 Dec 2021 17:50
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 02:51
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