Lithic Raw Material Provisioning in the Acheulean Rodafnidia, Lesvos, Greece

Abstract This study investigates Acheulean industrial variability through the lens of lithic raw material provisioning. It harnesses macroscopic and microscopic analysis, X-ray diffraction, and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry to identify and characterize the raw materials used to knap artefacts excavated from Rodafnidia, a Lower Palaeolithic site on central-south Lesvos Island, Greece, and surface artefacts collected from Rodafnidia and two adjacent findspots, Glyfias and Bi Tsesme in the southeast rim of the Kalloni Gulf. The study employs geological surveying to map primary and secondary local sources of the knappable rocks present in the assemblages under investigation, and examines patterns of procurement, use and management. Two types of fine-grained sedimentary chert, fossiliferous sinter and silicified limestone, as well as igneous rocks such as hydrothermal silica rock, andesitic tuff and basalt were employed to make stone tools. The Rodafnidia industry shows technological affinities with the Large Flake Acheulean of Africa and the Levant, yet differs in its preferential use of fine-grained chert (fossiliferous sinter), the presence of which appears to be one of the many attractions of this locality to Middle Pleistocene hominins in this part of the northeast Aegean.