One thing leads to another? Exploring potentials for technical overlap, skills transfer and secrecy in the management and processing of resources in the later Palaeolithic.”

Professor Davies shall explore the management of resources in the later Palaeolithic (~200-11.5 ka) from the perspective of knowledge exchange and transferability of skills/technical knowledge. Some techniques present greater opportunities for secret knowledge than others, typically ones that require the homogenisation of a material (e.g. by pulverising) and then admixture according to “recipes”.  Such materials can include food, pigments, mastics and ceramic.  Processing of other materials (typically those already available in a form that is ready to work/reduce) is argued to be harder to keep secret from other group members, unless controlled access to space is possible. This approach will be used to evaluate the complex question of inequality versus egalitarianism in the Palaeolithic