Blade technology (Mode 4)
Tecnología laminar (hojas prismáticas y buriles, Modo 4)
- Date
- c. 50 ka · confidence high
- Place
- Boker Tachtit, Negev, Israel
- Credited to
- Homo sapiens
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Systematic production of long, standardised blades from prismatic cores, turned into burins, scrapers and points. It marks the transition to the Upper Palaeolithic.
Blades already appear at Kapthurin (Kenya, c. 500 ka) and in the Middle Palaeolithic, but their widespread use dates to the early Upper Palaeolithic (c. 50–40 ka).
What it led to
- Burins for working bone, antler and ivory: an explosion of bone tools
- Multiplication of specialised tool types
- The technological basis for Homo sapiens' expansion across Eurasia
Built on
- Levallois prepared-core techniquec. 300 ka
- Levallois prepared-core technique
Made possible
- Eyed bone needlec. 50 ka
- Ivory boomerangc. 40-42 ka
- Bone and ivory flutec. 42 ka
- Figurative ivory sculpturec. 40 ka
- Underground chert miningc. 33 ka
- Spear-thrower (atlatl)c. 20 ka
- Eyed bone needle
- Bone and ivory flute
- Figurative ivory sculpture
- Spear-thrower (atlatl)