Paper short abstract:

My attempt to reconstruct the lives of Acheulians in the Levant was based on limited material: remains of plants and molluscs, and large numbers of flint handaxes. To complement the picture I imaginatively transposed the reality of contemporary gatherer peoples into this distant past.

Paper long abstract:

The Gesher Benot Ya'acov site in the Northern Jordan Valley (occupied between 0.85 and 0.75 Ma) yielded remains of numerous plants and mollusks, as well as large numbers of sophisticated Acheulian flint hand axes. These materials indicated that the hominids who occupied the site were mainly gatherers, and that they possessed advanced mental capacities.

This basic information led me to reconstruct the Acheulians' natural and social environment and to imaginatively transpose into it aspects of the lives of contemporary hunter gatherers. I tentatively conclude that among the Acheulians small corporate groups gathered food and engaged in other tasks , that they lived in bands in order to achieve food and social security, that men and women established temporary bonds to bear children who were then raised by the band, and that they invested three to four daily hours in the search for food and much more time in sociability.

In the paper I pose the question whether the methodology used is reliable and testable. I also ask why anthropologists have produced few imaginative reconstructions of prehistoric societies.