I have written several posts on Levallois tools, and today want to share a very interesting text I came across:
Capps A Levallois-Like Flaked Stone Technology in North America
Chapter 3 in Early Human Life on the Southeastern Coastal Plain by Blaine Ensor, ed. by Albert Goodyear and Christopher Moore, 2018
It describes the Capps site in Henry County, southeastern Alabama, USA where many tools manufactured using Levallois techniques have been found. This technique is old (300 Kya) and was used -and developed- by Neanderthals, it replaced the more primitive Acheulean lithic industry used by Homo erectus. And it was very successful, because it survived until some 40 kya.
The author mentions other sites in the US:
Map showing other sites, from Ensor's book.
They are indeed old, the author states that "The uniform heavy patination and staining of the Capps-Shelley artifacts certainly suggest some antiquity, but they cannot be used to date theartifacts... [making it unlikely] that Capps technology is related to Clovis or later Holocene cultures."
It should be pointed out that Levallois tools from the Old World originated some 350,000 years ago, and were used by Neanderthals.
So who made these Capps, Alabama tools? (modern humans or Neanderthals?) When were they made? (within the last 15,000 years? or long before that date?
Further reading: The Capps and Shelley Sites: Capps technology and implications for New World Prehistory by H. Blaine Ensor
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