FINAL PIECE(S) OF THE PUZZLE: THE REMAINING ARTEFACTS AT PENHILL FARM, SOUTH AFRICA, AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE FOR UNDERSTANDING LITHIC PRODUCTION

Penhill Farm is one of three newly reported Sundays River Valley Acheulean sites and collectively, with sites Atmar and Bernol Farms, is pushing back our understanding of Earlier Stone Age tool production strategies for this near-coastal region. Over the last few years, a series of papers have described important but minor components of the Penhill Farm assemblage through which several key trends have been identified in the way that formal tools were produced, and how cores were reduced to provide suitable tool blanks. The aim of this paper is to complete the description of the remaining artefacts at Penhill Farm, the majority of which consist of debris and debitage but also include samples of atypical artefacts as well as non-lithic materials. By applying a techno-typological and morphometric-based approach, this paper provides clarity on raw material preferences and variability, lithic reduction schemes and economisation, and on-versus off-site task variation.