Lithic analysis of the Middle and Late Upper Palaeolithic in Hungary

This paper presents lithic technology studies on the Middle and Late period of the Upper Palaeolithic in Hungary between 26 and 13 ka BP. The studies aimed at describing and then comparing the technological processes from lithic raw material procurement to the formal tool making. An attempt was made to find correlations between technological features and chronological positions of the assemblages to see if lithic technology operated traditionally or opportunistically. The study found that technology was rather shaped toward efficiency with an adaptive behavior. Therefore, in most cases, the way how tools were made is useless to differentiate archaeological cultures, while the tools themselves, especially the armatures, can be markers of cultures as was shown earlier. This study found that the formation of the archaeological record and its variability most likely depended upon the dynamism of human ecology.