Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards: Evaluating the Roe Handaxe Methodology in the Twenty-first Century and the Introduction of a New 'Roe-type' Index

The methodology developed by Derek Roe in the 1960s to describe the outline shape of handaxes has become an industry standard amongst scholars of the Acheulean. It was applied to the UK and in a modified form in East and Southern Africa. It is being used by a new generation of archaeologists to unde...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Lithic technology 2022-07, Vol.47 (3), p.183-202
Main Author: McNabb, John
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acheulean
Handaxe
Homo heidelbergensis
Middle Pleistocene
Roe
stone tool
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Summary:The methodology developed by Derek Roe in the 1960s to describe the outline shape of handaxes has become an industry standard amongst scholars of the Acheulean. It was applied to the UK and in a modified form in East and Southern Africa. It is being used by a new generation of archaeologists to understand successive Acheulean occupations of the UK in the Middle Pleistocene. There has been a relatively little critique of the method. This paper explores some of the issues that the method raises and suggests and that while it may not fairly represent specific outlines shapes, in every case, it does fairly represent a basic bauplan. A new Roe-style index is suggested, the tip elongation index which helps structure the methodology when used with modern statistical and graphic software packages.
ISSN:0197-7261
2051-6185
DOI:10.1080/01977261.2021.2002548