Analyse fonctionnelle de l’industrie lithique capsienne de Kef Zoura D: premiers résultats

Abstract

Use wear studies on prehistoric lithic industries, in particular of the North African Holocene, are still very scarce. The renewal of research in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, has allowed us to obtain new data on the function of the lithic tools of the last groups of hunters from the Epipalaeolithic, especially the Capsian, and the first groups considered as Neolithic. This chapter is devoted to the functional analysis of a set of knapped lithic tools from the Typical Capsian and the Upper Capsian deposits at Kef Zoura D (KZD). This work was done as a part of the project led by Thomas Perrin (TRACES, Toulouse), MeNeMOIA: from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic in the Western Mediterranean: the African impact, in collaboration with the directors of the excavation, David Lubell and Mary Jackes (University of Waterloo, Canada). This study aimed to provide information on the function of some tools characteristic of this period and to evaluate the role of these tools in the subsistence and artisanal activities of the groups who occupied the site. The preliminary results we present are based on a limited sample of the lithic industry, but these will provide a framework for our continued study in 2016 and 2017, which is possible thanks to the good condition of the material. The geometrics and backed bladelets of the Typical Capsian and Upper Capsian were used as projectiles, either as points or lateral barbs, while the backed blades of the Upper Capsian were used as knives and not as projectiles. Burins show very little use wear in either the Typical Capsian or the Upper Capsian, which strengthens the hypothesis of their use as cores, but some of them were used to scrape various materials on the side of the burin. The Typical Capsian scrapers were used to work skin. The Upper Capsian notched bladelets were intentionally retouched; the notches are not a result of use and each notch is an independent active zone. They were used to scrape hard materials or organic semi-hard ones such as wood or animal bone. Some other functions and cases of recycling were also observed. Beyond the technical characterization of these categories of tools, our study paves the way for a renewed approach to interpret the socio-economic strategies of Capsian groups.