What Can Lithics Tell Us About Dispersals: North‐Eastern Africa as a Case Study

ABSTRACT Since the emergence of prehistory as a field of study, lithic artefacts have been invoked as markers of past human dispersals. However, the meaning of similarities between artefact types and lithic assemblages as a whole is complex, leading to recurring debates surrounding population dispersals and local innovations. Taking North‐Eastern Africa as a case study, this article reviews the history of ‘diffusion‐convergence’ debates in the region and the current challenges faced in trying to ‘trace’ dispersals based on lithic data, before proposing potential new avenues to tackle this old controversy.