Raw materials and evolution of lithic technology in Upper Pleistocene Korea

A growing body of archaeological evidence suggests that the major change in lithic technology and raw material use occurred during the late Upper Pleistocene, toward the last full-glacial, in Korea. Challenging the common assumption based on impressionistic observation of quartzite industries as crude and unchanging technology, I attempt to present an alternative explanation for the shift.;The two material types, quartzite and siliceous shale, have very contrastive properties: the former is almost ubiquitous and the latter is not distributed locally in most regions, especially in the central Korean Peninsula. Though being coarse and tough, quartzites have various advantages and could serve effective lithic manufacture of not only large tools but also small flake tools with sharp and durable edges.;An analysis of the newly excavated Pyeongchang-ri collections and reexaminations of Chongokni and other Imjin Basin artifacts reveal significant amounts of small tools that can not simply be characterized by 'crudeness.' New small tool types are recognized showing that quartzite lithic technology reached significant technological achievements before the blade and microlithic tradition prevailed. The development of core reduction technology is also suggested by pseudo-prismatic cores, which are not only similar in shape to cores of the later Paleolithic period, but also indicate the production of regular-shaped and elongated flakes. Most of them were made of higher quality quartzites, suggesting a good use of properties and advantages of locally available materials, and, thus, revealing the inadequacy of traditional impressionistic assumptions.;The development of raw material use in lithic technology eventually met the turning point when the cost of manufacturing more sophisticated and formalized tool types, i.e., blades, exceeded the cost of obtaining superior quality non-local materials, siliceous shale and obsidian. While quartzite could have been used for making blades, the selective advantage would have been on the strategy of acquiring better quality materials from distant sources.