The first lithic industry of mainland Southeast Asia: Evidence of the earliest hominin in a tropical context |
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Affiliation: | 9. Mission Préhistorique Franco-Cambodgienne (MPFC), Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires Étrangères (MEAE);1. Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, UMR 7194, Musée de l’Homme, 17, place du Trocadéro, 75116 Paris, France;2. Archaeological Institute for Yangtze Civilization, Wuhan University, 430072 Wuhan, China;3. Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts & Royal University of Fines-Arts, Phnom Penh, Phnom Penh, Cambodia;4. ArScAn-Équipe AnTET, UMR 7041, CNRS, Université Paris Nanterre, 21, Allée de l’Université, 92000 Nanterre, France;5. Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Archaeology, Silpakorn University, Na Phra road, 10220 Bangkok, Thailand;6. UMR 7207-CR2P- Cnrs-Mnhn-Sorbonne Université, Campus Jussieu 4, place Jussieu, 75 252 Paris Cedex 05, France;7. ArScAn-Équipe AnTET, UMR 7041, CNRS, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, 92000 Nanterre, France;8. Mission Paléolithique Franco-Thaïe (MPFT), Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires Étrangères (MEAE);9. Mission Préhistorique Franco-Cambodgienne (MPFC), Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires Étrangères (MEAE) |
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Abstract: | Recent discoveries of ancient sites in mainland Southeast Asia confirm the presence of old lithic industries as early as 0.8 Ma, i.e., at the transition between the Early to Middle Pleistocene. Although these open-air sites still require geochronological and biostratigraphic precisions, they allow us to understand the oldest vestiges of human presence in the tropics and the technical orientations chosen by these hominins. This article aims to present an objective and critical synthesis of the material discovered at the main sites. Some sites in Cambodia and Thailand have been the subject of archaeological field missions by the Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires Étrangères (MEAE). The diversity of lithic tool types and manufacture methods encountered from the Middle Pleistocene in peninsular Asia shows a technical variability that stands out as a counterexample to diffusionist hypotheses of a cultural fabrication inherited from the West. The diversity of production methods, tools, and raw material matrices remains incomparable to those encountered in the West, Africa, or South Asia. To date, only evidence from China has allowed us to put forward the hypothesis of a common technical basis that would have spread from its southern territories; however, this hypothesis is currently under debate. Researchers have proposed the idea of continuous technical progress and the shift from heavy industry to a lighter and polished stone in Southeast Asia. However, the omnipresence of the pebble prevents a clear conclusion because these technical objects from Southeast Asia are quite simply incommensurable; a chopper in these regions may not be comparable with another chopper from the terraces of the Garonne or the Roussillon in France, for example. In other words, these tools are above all ‘tropical’ tools, and they belong to a distant cognitive world(s) with specific use(s), gesture(s), and meaning(s), making it impossible for them to be compared or evaluated by our faculty of Western judgment. |
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Keywords: | Mainland Southeast Asia Middle Pleistocene Pebble tool Handaxe Lithic assemblage Asie du Sud-Est continentale Pléistocène moyen Outil sur galet Biface Assemblage lithique |
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