Méthodes, objectifs and flexibilité d’un système de production Levallois dans le Nord de l’Italie

Flexibility of the Levallois method is directly expressed by all combinatorial variants that can occur as regards gesture, single intervention or sequence of interventions, and flaking modality, highlighting a behavioural variability at all the stages of the reduction strategy: raw material selection and beginning of exploitation; production and management; end-product use and shaping; discard. However, due to the still scarce knowledge of technical aims, we deal only partially with the nature of such variants and the controlling factors of the whole production system. In order to provide a new contribution in this sphere, the study of lithic industry of an open-air site is here proposed and discussed.