About the method of raw material units

This article briefly summarized the experience in application of method of raw material units or also referred to as method of raw material group as a part of Paleolithic complex study. This approach is aimed to divide the lithics, knapped from the separate raw material blocks, using the clustering of artifacts with identic patterns of macroscopically determined pethrographic attributes - the color, texture, specifics of flake surface and etc. - among the broad technological context of entire industry. The name of method comes from the English word combinations - «raw material unit» and «raw material group», which mean the lithic assemblage knapped from the one raw material joint. In scientific papers, there are the few directions in study of archaeological complexes, in the terms of which the method of raw material units finds the use. Primarily, it includes the study of the cultural deposit structure and their taphonomy; for that matter method of raw material units applies since 70-80th of XX century. In the terms of second direction, the chaоne opuatoire narrowly and generally reconstructs basing on the raw material unit study - raw material transportation from the outcrops to the site, schemes how raw material joints were transformed in the site area, blank evacuation from the site. It is commonly supposed that W. Weissmüller, the German researcher was the founder of the second direction - so-called transformational analysis in European historiographic tradition. He applied this approach to materials from Sesselfelsgrotte site of the Southern Germany in the middle of 1990th.