Experts Also Fail: a New Methodological Approach to Skills Analysis in Lithic Industries

More and more contributions to the field of lithics are taking into consideration skill levels and learning processes in prehistory, with the aim of clarifying not only how individuals acted when they produced their tools but also of addressing the processes of change or continuity in the technocultural traditions of past societies and the participation of different social groups in the collective production. For this purpose, the demarcation of realistic categories of “experts” and “novices” in knapping, as well as a determination of what attributes differentiate each one, are essential. Nowadays, knapping experiments offer a more realistic approach for a comparative study in which skill technotypes can indicate the existence of different skill levels inside a particular assemblage. Through the typologies of these experimental technical entities and their comparison with the archeological record, we can deduce the presence of particular models of social production and learning processes during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic.