Harold L. Dibble
Encyclopedia
Harold Lewis Dibble is an American
Paleolithic
archaeologist
best known for his theory of lithic reduction
and his methodological advancements in archaeological fieldwork in France
, Egypt
, and Morocco
. He is currently Professor of Anthropology
at the University of Pennsylvania
and Curator
-in-Charge of the Europe
an Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
.
, Florida
, and Sierra Vista, Arizona
before attending college at the University of Arizona. In addition to managing a Shakey's Pizza
while living in California, he also drummed for a short-lived band in Sierra Vista named Joy, who once performed as the opening act for Alice Cooper
.
He is married to Lee Dibble with two sons. He enjoys cooking (his favorite food is boudin
) and has published a volume, The Human Evolution
Cookbook, that married evolutionary humor with recipes like "Habilis
Hash" and "Laetoli
Trail Mix".
. He wrote his dissertation under the direction of Professor (now Emeritus
) Arthur J. Jelinek, an American archaeologist who had been trained in North American prehistoric archaeology by Leslie A. White
and who worked on both the Paleolithic of Western Eurasia
and the Mimbres culture in New Mexico
. While a graduate student in the late 1970s, Dibble excavated with the French prehistorian François Bordes
at the site of Pech de l'Azé IV in Carsac-Aillac
, France, with whom he developed a strong mentoring relationship.
. He wrote his dissertation on the stone tool technology of Tabun
Cave in Israel
and then focused primarily on France, with other research on the Zagros stone tool industries until beginning work in Egypt and Morocco in 2001 and 2006 respectively. In addition to his excavation work, he has maintained a quintessentially skeptical view of symbolism in the Middle Paleolithic, on which he has published several articles, and he has strongly advocated quantitative methods in archaeology. To that end, he pioneered the use of GIS and total station
s in excavations and has worked to quantify the understanding of stone tool manufacture via reproductive experiments.
reduction, built off of ideas first developed by Jelinek and George Carr Frison
. Dibble’s hypothesis, with testability typical of American archaeology and borne out by extensive material study, is that as Middle Paleolithic
scrapers are subject to retouching, their forms change in a predictable manner, and the many scraper types of the Bordian typology represent different stages in the continuum of reduction from fresh blank to exhausted transverse scraper. Moreover, the intensity of reduction, as measured by quantity of more reduced versus less reduced scrapers, strongly correlates to availability of raw material.
An analogy used repeatedly by Dibble is that of a pencil. Its initial form is long, with a full eraser and blunt writing end, which is then sharpened and used repeatedly until discarded in a much shorter form with a worn eraser. This is the form in which the pencil would be found by someone digging through the trash, though it bears little resemblance to the initially produced form of the pencil. If pencils are more plentiful, then they may be more readily discarded earlier in their use life; if they are more scarce, then they will be resharpened far more and discarded in a far smaller state. This parallels the forms in which archaeologists find the used and discarded forms of Middle Paleolithic scrapers.
At the time of its proposition, this was a relatively radical idea, as prior to then it was generally assumed that the typological categories were both discrete and desired forms. This idea was the basis to an earlier feud, the Bordes-Binford Debate, between Bordes and Lewis R. Binford. While Bordes posited that various facies of the Mousterian
, defined typologically, were the result of different cultures, Binford maintained that each of the facies was functionally defined. Dibble's theory, by implying that stone tools as discovered by archaeologists are the result of a constant process of use and reuse and that what is excavated is often at the end of a long and complicated use-life, forced a reexamination of the entire debate.
, Dordogne
, France since 2004; excavations at the Grotte des Contrabandiers (Smugglers' Cave)http://www.oldstoneage.com/smugglers/ in Témara
, Morocco
since 2006; and the Abydos Survey for Paleolithic Sites http://www.oldstoneage.com/abydos/ in the high desert surrounding Abydos
, Egypt
since 2001.
Additionally, he has directed or co-directed projects in France continuously since 1987, beginning at Combe-Capelle Bas http://www.oldstoneage.com/cc/ in the Couze Valley, Dordogne, France from 1987 to 1990. This was followed by work with his former Ph.D. student Shannon J.P. McPherron at Cagny-l'Epinette http://www.oldstoneage.com/cagny/, Somme
, France from 1991 to 1994 and Fontéchevade http://www.oldstoneage.com/fonte/, Charente-Maritimes, France from 1994-1998. Just prior to excavating Roc de Marsal, Dibble and McPherron reexcavated Pech de l'Azé IV http://www.oldstoneage.com/pechiv/, where Dibble had worked with Bordes in the 1970s, from 1999 to 2002.
A major push of Dibble's research program has been to reexcavate known and previously excavated sites using modern methodology. This has been done in conjunction with reanalysis of the old lithic collections, and, when combined, these allow comparison between the old and new collections. The comparison illuminates what was kept and what was discarded by the previous excavators, giving new life and interpretive value to the older and generally much more biased collections.
computer
applications for the Windows
OS to facilitate archaeological fieldwork, including NewPlot (an archaeologically specific GIS program), EDM-CE and EDM Windows (data collector programs for use with Total Stations for Windows Mobile
and Windows respectively), and E4 (data collection program for artifact analysis). Their system has been adopted by a number of other excavators throughout North America, Europe, and Africa, and they have published extensively on these methods.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Paleolithic
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
archaeologist
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
best known for his theory of lithic reduction
Lithic reduction
Lithic reduction involves the use of a hard hammer precursor, such as a hammerstone, a soft hammer fabricator , or a wood or antler punch to detach lithic flakes from a lump of tool stone called a lithic core . As flakes are detached in sequence, the original mass of stone is reduced; hence the...
and his methodological advancements in archaeological fieldwork in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, and Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
. He is currently Professor of Anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
and Curator
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
-in-Charge of the Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, commonly called The Penn Museum, is an archaeology and anthropology museum that is part of the University of Pennsylvania in the University City neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-History:An internationally renowned...
.
Personal life
Dibble spent his youth in CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, and Sierra Vista, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
before attending college at the University of Arizona. In addition to managing a Shakey's Pizza
Shakey's Pizza
Shakey's Pizza is a pizza restaurant chain based in the United States. The chain currently has about 500 stores globally, and about 60 in the United States.-History:...
while living in California, he also drummed for a short-lived band in Sierra Vista named Joy, who once performed as the opening act for Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades...
.
He is married to Lee Dibble with two sons. He enjoys cooking (his favorite food is boudin
Boudin
Boudin describes a number of different types of sausage used in French, Belgian, German, French Canadian, Creole and Cajun cuisine.-Types:*Boudin blanc: A white sausage made of pork without the blood. Pork liver and heart meat are typically included...
) and has published a volume, The Human Evolution
Human evolution
Human evolution refers to the evolutionary history of the genus Homo, including the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species and as a unique category of hominids and mammals...
Cookbook, that married evolutionary humor with recipes like "Habilis
Homo habilis
Homo habilis is a species of the genus Homo, which lived from approximately at the beginning of the Pleistocene period. The discovery and description of this species is credited to both Mary and Louis Leakey, who found fossils in Tanzania, East Africa, between 1962 and 1964. Homo habilis Homo...
Hash" and "Laetoli
Laetoli
Laetoli is a site in Tanzania, dated to the Plio-Pleistocene and famous for its hominin footprints, preserved in volcanic ash . The site of the Laetoli footprints is located 45 km south of Olduvai gorge.-Date:...
Trail Mix".
Education
Dibble received his B.A. in 1971 and Ph.D. in 1981, both from the University of ArizonaUniversity of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
. He wrote his dissertation under the direction of Professor (now Emeritus
Emeritus
Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...
) Arthur J. Jelinek, an American archaeologist who had been trained in North American prehistoric archaeology by Leslie A. White
Leslie White
Leslie Alvin White was an American anthropologist known for his advocacy of theories of cultural evolution, sociocultural evolution, and especially neoevolutionism, and for his role in creating the department of anthropology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor...
and who worked on both the Paleolithic of Western Eurasia
Eurasia
Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...
and the Mimbres culture in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
. While a graduate student in the late 1970s, Dibble excavated with the French prehistorian François Bordes
François Bordes
François Bordes , also known by the pen name of Francis Carsac, was a French scientist, geologist, and archaeologist. He was a professor of prehistory and quaternary geology at the Science Faculty of Bordeaux...
at the site of Pech de l'Azé IV in Carsac-Aillac
Carsac-Aillac
Carsac-Aillac is a commune in the Dordogne department in Aquitaine in southwestern France.-Population:-References:*...
, France, with whom he developed a strong mentoring relationship.
Archaeological Work
The majority of Dibble's archaeological work has been centered around Neandertals and early modern humans in Western Eurasia, and more particularly on the stone tools which are thought to have been the primary mode of their material cultureMaterial culture
In the social sciences, material culture is a term that refers to the relationship between artifacts and social relations. Studying a culture's relationship to materiality is a lens through which social and cultural attitudes can be discussed...
. He wrote his dissertation on the stone tool technology of Tabun
Tabun
Tabun may refer to:* Tabun Cave, a cave near Tabun, Israel where remains of Neanderthal Man were found.* A tabun oven, a clay oven used to make tabun bread...
Cave in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and then focused primarily on France, with other research on the Zagros stone tool industries until beginning work in Egypt and Morocco in 2001 and 2006 respectively. In addition to his excavation work, he has maintained a quintessentially skeptical view of symbolism in the Middle Paleolithic, on which he has published several articles, and he has strongly advocated quantitative methods in archaeology. To that end, he pioneered the use of GIS and total station
Total station
A total station is an electronic/optical instrument used in modern surveying. The total station is an electronic theodolite integrated with an electronic distance meter to read slope distances from the instrument to a particular point....
s in excavations and has worked to quantify the understanding of stone tool manufacture via reproductive experiments.
Scraper Reduction
Dibble's most well-known contribution to archaeological thought is commonly known as scraperScraper (archaeology)
In archaeology, scrapers are unifacial tools that were used either for hideworking or woodworking purposes. Whereas this term is often used for any unifacially flaked stone tool that defies classification, most lithic analysts maintain that the only true scrapers are defined on the base of...
reduction, built off of ideas first developed by Jelinek and George Carr Frison
George Carr Frison
George Carr Frison is an internationally-recognized archaeologist and recipient of many prestigious awards including: American Archaeology Lifetime Achievement Award, Paleoarchaeologist of the Century Award, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences...
. Dibble’s hypothesis, with testability typical of American archaeology and borne out by extensive material study, is that as Middle Paleolithic
Middle Paleolithic
The Middle Paleolithic is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleolithic in African archeology. The Middle Paleolithic and the Middle Stone Age...
scrapers are subject to retouching, their forms change in a predictable manner, and the many scraper types of the Bordian typology represent different stages in the continuum of reduction from fresh blank to exhausted transverse scraper. Moreover, the intensity of reduction, as measured by quantity of more reduced versus less reduced scrapers, strongly correlates to availability of raw material.
An analogy used repeatedly by Dibble is that of a pencil. Its initial form is long, with a full eraser and blunt writing end, which is then sharpened and used repeatedly until discarded in a much shorter form with a worn eraser. This is the form in which the pencil would be found by someone digging through the trash, though it bears little resemblance to the initially produced form of the pencil. If pencils are more plentiful, then they may be more readily discarded earlier in their use life; if they are more scarce, then they will be resharpened far more and discarded in a far smaller state. This parallels the forms in which archaeologists find the used and discarded forms of Middle Paleolithic scrapers.
At the time of its proposition, this was a relatively radical idea, as prior to then it was generally assumed that the typological categories were both discrete and desired forms. This idea was the basis to an earlier feud, the Bordes-Binford Debate, between Bordes and Lewis R. Binford. While Bordes posited that various facies of the Mousterian
Mousterian
Mousterian is a name given by archaeologists to a style of predominantly flint tools associated primarily with Homo neanderthalensis and dating to the Middle Paleolithic, the middle part of the Old Stone Age.-Naming:...
, defined typologically, were the result of different cultures, Binford maintained that each of the facies was functionally defined. Dibble's theory, by implying that stone tools as discovered by archaeologists are the result of a constant process of use and reuse and that what is excavated is often at the end of a long and complicated use-life, forced a reexamination of the entire debate.
Fieldwork
As of 2007, Dibble is director or co-director of three ongoing projects: excavations at the cave of Roc de Marsalhttp://www.oldstoneage.com/rdm/, CampagneCampagne
Campagne is French for "rural area" or "countryside" and "campaign".Campagne is the name or part of the name of several communes in France:* Campagne, in the Dordogne department* Campagne, in the Hérault department* Campagne, in the Landes department...
, Dordogne
Dordogne
Dordogne is a départment in south-west France. The départment is located in the region of Aquitaine, between the Loire valley and the High Pyrénées named after the great river Dordogne that runs through it...
, France since 2004; excavations at the Grotte des Contrabandiers (Smugglers' Cave)http://www.oldstoneage.com/smugglers/ in Témara
Temara
Temara is a coastal city in Morocco. It is part of the Wilaya Rabat -Salé, and is located directly south of Rabat on the Atlantic coast, in the suburban area of the capital. The city has 250,000 inhabitants as of 2010. It is twinned with Saint Germain en Laye, France...
, Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
since 2006; and the Abydos Survey for Paleolithic Sites http://www.oldstoneage.com/abydos/ in the high desert surrounding Abydos
Abydos, Egypt
Abydos is one of the most ancient cities of Upper Egypt, and also of the eight Upper Nome, of which it was the capital city. It is located about 11 kilometres west of the Nile at latitude 26° 10' N, near the modern Egyptian towns of el-'Araba el Madfuna and al-Balyana...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
since 2001.
Additionally, he has directed or co-directed projects in France continuously since 1987, beginning at Combe-Capelle Bas http://www.oldstoneage.com/cc/ in the Couze Valley, Dordogne, France from 1987 to 1990. This was followed by work with his former Ph.D. student Shannon J.P. McPherron at Cagny-l'Epinette http://www.oldstoneage.com/cagny/, Somme
Somme
Somme is a department of France, located in the north of the country and named after the Somme river. It is part of the Picardy region of France....
, France from 1991 to 1994 and Fontéchevade http://www.oldstoneage.com/fonte/, Charente-Maritimes, France from 1994-1998. Just prior to excavating Roc de Marsal, Dibble and McPherron reexcavated Pech de l'Azé IV http://www.oldstoneage.com/pechiv/, where Dibble had worked with Bordes in the 1970s, from 1999 to 2002.
A major push of Dibble's research program has been to reexcavate known and previously excavated sites using modern methodology. This has been done in conjunction with reanalysis of the old lithic collections, and, when combined, these allow comparison between the old and new collections. The comparison illuminates what was kept and what was discarded by the previous excavators, giving new life and interpretive value to the older and generally much more biased collections.
Computer Applications in Archaeology
Dibble and McPherron have developed several freewareFreeware
Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...
computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
applications for the Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
OS to facilitate archaeological fieldwork, including NewPlot (an archaeologically specific GIS program), EDM-CE and EDM Windows (data collector programs for use with Total Stations for Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...
and Windows respectively), and E4 (data collection program for artifact analysis). Their system has been adopted by a number of other excavators throughout North America, Europe, and Africa, and they have published extensively on these methods.
External links
- Homepage - University of Pennsylvania Faculty
- Faculty Profile - University of Pennsylvania Department of Anthropology
- Old Stone Age - archaeological research group run by Dibble and McPherron
- OSA software - freeware for archaeological excavations and analysis developed by Dibble and McPherron
- Transcript - Nova's Neanderthals on Trial, in which Dibble is interviewed
- The Story of Pech IV - from the Penn Museum website
Books
- Dibble, H.L., D. Williamson, and B.M. Evans. 2003. The Human Evolution Cookbook. Philadelphia: University Museum Press. ISBN 1931707499
- McPherron, S. and H.L. Dibble. 2001. Using Computers in Archaeology: A Practical Guide. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing. ISBN 0767417356
- Debenath, A. and Dibble, H.L. 1994. Handbook of Paleolithic Typology: Lower and Middle Paleolithic of Europe. Philadelphia: University Museum Press. ISBN 0924171235
- H. Dibble and O.Bar-Yosef The Definition and Interpretation of Levallois Technology Prehistory Press, ISBN 188109412X
Articles
- Dibble, H.L., S.J.P. McPherron, P.G. Chase, W.R. Farrand, and A. Debénath. 2006. Taphonomy and the concept of Paleolithic cultures: The case of the Tayacian from Fontéchevade. PaleoAnthropology:1-21.
- Dibble, H.L., P. Goldberg, S.J.P. McPherron, A. Turq, and D. Sandgathe. 2006. "Humans, climate and fire at the Mousterian site of Roc de Marsal, France," in Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America. Philadelphia, PA: Geological Society of America.
- Dibble, H.L. 1991. "Local Raw Material Exploitation and its Effects on Lower and Middle Paleolithic Assemblage Variability," in Raw Material Economies among Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers, University of Kansas Publications in Anthropology. Edited by A. Montet-White and S. Holen, pp. 33–47. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas.
- Dibble, H.L. 1988. "The interpretation of Middle Paleolithic scraper reduction patterns," in L'Homme de Neandertal Volume 4: La Technique. Edited by L. R. Binford and J.-P. Rigaud. Liège: Etudes et Recherches Archéologiques de l'Université de Liège.