Excavations at Tel Qishron - The lithic assemblage

The lithic assemblage of Tel Qishron can be divided into two components discovered in the same layers, but which belong to different periods: the Middle Paleolithic and the 3rd millennium BCE, respectively. The first group, recognized during the excavation but not analyzed in detail, is composed of patinated flakes and blades produced using the Levallois technology. These items, clearly intrusive in the Intermediate Bronze Age strata, show strong analogies with the lithic assemblage of the Middle Paleolithic quarry site found few meters away.1 The second group, identified during the excavation by virtue of the flint not being patinated, is comprised of ten Canaanean blades, the only diagnostic items studied in detail and the subject of this analysis.