Most of Dibble's archaeological research examined
Neanderthals and
early modern humans in Western Eurasia, with an emphasis on the
stone tools central to their
material culture. He wrote his dissertation on the stone tool technology of
Tabun Cave in
Israel. He then concentrated on assemblages in France and the
Zagros industries before launching projects in Egypt in 2001 and Morocco in 2006. He published skeptical assessments of Middle Paleolithic symbolism and promoted quantitative approaches to archaeology. He pioneered the use of
GIS and
total stations in excavations and pursued experimental replication to clarify stone tool manufacture. As a graduate student, Dibble produced the stone tools used in the film
The Clan of the Cave Bear.
Scraper reduction Dibble's most-cited contribution to archaeological thought is known as
scraper reduction, which drew on ideas first developed by Jelinek and
George Carr Frison. He argued that
Middle Paleolithic scrapers change form in predictable ways as they are retouched and that the numerous scraper types in the
Bordian typology mark successive stages from fresh blanks to exhausted transverse scrapers. He linked the intensity of reduction, measured through the proportion of heavily resharpened tools, to the availability of raw material. He often compared the process to sharpening a pencil. The pencil begins long with a full eraser and becomes short with a worn eraser, which is how it would appear if recovered from discarded refuse. Ample supplies encourage earlier discard, whereas scarcity leads to repeated sharpening and much smaller remnants. Dibble used that analogy to explain the forms archaeologists recover from Middle Paleolithic sites. When he introduced the argument it challenged prevailing assumptions that typological categories represented discrete desired forms. The model reframed the earlier
Bordes-Binford Debate, in which Bordes attributed
Mousterian facies to distinct
cultures and
Lewis R. Binford emphasized function. By describing excavated tools as artifacts at varied points in long use lives, Dibble encouraged archaeologists to reconsider that debate.
Campagne,
Dordogne, France from 2004 to 2010. He co-directed excavations at the Grotte des Contrabandiers (Smugglers' Cave) in
Témara,
Morocco in 2006. He also oversaw the Abydos Survey for Paleolithic Sites in the high desert surrounding
Abydos,
Egypt from 2000 to 2007. In 2011 he began directing excavations at La Ferassie in the
Dordogne region, where six Neandertal skeletons were found in 1913 and one in 1972. He directed or co-directed projects in France continuously from 1987 onward, beginning at
Combe-Capelle Bas in the Valley, Dordogne, from 1987 to 1990. He and his former Ph.D. student
Shannon J.P. McPherron then worked at Cagny-l'Epinette in the
Somme from 1991 to 1994 and at
Fontéchevade in
Charente-Maritime from 1994 to 1998. Before returning to Roc de Marsal, Dibble and McPherron reexcavated Pech de l'Azé IV, where Dibble had worked with Bordes in the 1970s, between 1999 and 2002. A major focus of Dibble's research program was to reexcavate known sites using modern methodology. He paired that fieldwork with reanalysis of earlier lithic collections so that the old and new assemblages could be compared. The comparison highlighted what previous excavators had kept or discarded, adding new interpretive value to legacy collections.
Computer applications in archaeology Dibble and McPherron developed several
freeware computer applications for
Windows to support archaeological fieldwork. Their suite included NewPlot, an archaeology-specific GIS program, EDM-CE and EDM Windows for
total station data collection on
Windows Mobile and Windows 95/98, and E4 for artifact analysis. Their system was adopted by excavators across North America, Europe, and Africa, and they published extensively on these methods. == Personal life and death ==