It is the purpose of this paper to take a broad view of the use of flint in prehistory. The cumulative and progressive nature of man's tool-making technology will be discussed against the background of a roughly geometrically progressing time scale so that the reasons for tool-making and subsequent technological progress can be treated. Finally it will be postulated that not only did man make tools, but also that tools made man. To this end, we will demonstrate a close interdependence between the breadth of the technology and the richness of the industry and that the degree of typological specialization and diversification parallels and is dependent upon the increasing breadth of the flint technology. Furthermore, we will demonstrate that this development did not proceed at a steady rate, but was strongly influenced by man's physical development.

, , , , ,
Grondboor & Hamer

CC BY 3.0 NL ("Naamsvermelding")

Nederlandse Geologische Vereniging

R.R. Newell. (1971). De functionele rol van de vuursteen technologie in de ontwikkeling van de préhistorische beschaving. Grondboor & Hamer, 25(3), 108–119.