The Lower Palaeolithic assemblage of Layers 15–18 (Unit G) at Hummal. An exemplary case addressing the problems placing undated,archaic-looking stone tool assemblages in the Early and Lower Palaeolithic record by techno-typological classification

The site of Hummal is situated in the region of El Kowm in central Syria. The site comprises an archaeological sequence covering the entire Pleistocene epoch, and encompasses all major Palaeolithic complexes currently known in the Middle East. At the base of the site, 14 m below today's ground level, several layers with a lithic assemblage attributed to the Lower Palaeolithic have been excavated over the past years. At present, the collection recovered from this lowest succession at Hummal contains more than 700 stone artefacts and more than 3000 bone fragments. The lithic assemblage is characterized by a simple flaking technique and the presence of different pebble tools, such as choppers, hammerstones and sphaeroids. Additionally four handaxes were recovered, which have a symmetric shape, are clearly bifacial and rather flat. The lithic assemblage from the lowermost layers of the Hummal excavation largely resembles an Archaic, Lower Palaeolithic assemblage, belonging to the so-called Oldowan or Mode 1 stage. However, the presence of well-shaped and symmetric handaxes sheds doubt on the validity of this attribution to a Mode 1, Oldowan or the Early Acheulean Stage. It can, therefore, be debated, whether the common classifications of lithic industries are adequate for describing the archaeological record from the period in question in the Middle East.     

The Oldowan site Aïn al Fil (El Kowm,Syria) and the first humans of the Syrian Desert

At present, the oldest traces of human cultures are found in Eastern Africa. New discoveries set anew the questions about human and animal dispersal into Eurasia. For over 1.8 million years, humans have been present in the Levant. An extensive program of surveys and excavations in the Syrian Desert showed that this part of the world was a very ancient land of settlement. In Central Syria, the oldest site, Aïn al Fil in the region of El Kowm, was excavated in 2008 and 2010. The lithic industry in the lowest layer can be characterized by numerous unretouched flakes, pebble-tools and core-like artefacts. This assemblage is typical in a broad sense of archaic Palaeolithic the debitage of which corresponds to mode 1. From a techno-typological point of view, this industry tallies quite well with the so-called Oldowan stage. It shows remarkable similarities with the oldest African assemblages. From a chronologic point of view, these levels occur before three positive events in the Matuyama paleomagnetic sequence. It seems consistent to place the Oldowan sequence around 1.8 Ma BP within the Olduvai subchron or just before Olduvai/Matuyama reversal limit. Together with those of the neighbouring site Hummal, these levels would be the oldest traces of human presence ever found in Syria. In the Levant, the first humans not only occupied favourable zones but regularly ventured deep into less welcoming environments suggesting an astonishing flexibility in their behavioural and survival skills.     

Les industries archaïques au Proche-Orient

The Middle East (from the Mediterranean coast to Iran and from the Red Sea to the Black Sea) is located at the crossroads of African, Asian and European continents. It is a compulsory route well-trodden during the dispersal of the first humans out of Africa. Recent discoveries, mainly in Syria, Jordan and Israel, show that the first settlements in this area date back to over 2 million years (Ma). The location of the deposits containing archaic industries of the Oldowan type in the broad sense, often called “Core and Flake Industries”, indicates that several roads have been repeatedly used to connect Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula with the Euphrates and the Tiger basins. From south to north, if the coastal road and the tectonic depression of the Dead Sea, the Jordan Valley and the Beqaa were privileged places of very old settlements, the desert roads through Jordan and Syria were also readily used even before 2 Ma. We can observe at least three successive stages of archaic industries. During the oldest one, from about 2.5 to 1.8 Ma, choppers, chopping-tools, cores and flakes are prevailing without traces of intentional retouching (Sites of Aïn Al Fil in Syria, of the Zarqa Valley in Jordan in particular). This period might be named Pre-Oldowan or Lower Oldowan. From approximately 1.8 to 1.3 Ma, a similar culture developed with the additional presence of regular polyhedrons and sometimes a rough bifacial shaping as well as the beginning of rare intentional retouching other than that of use-wear; we will call it Upper Oldowan (Lower G-Hummal in Syria, Bizat Ruhama and Lower Ubeidiya in Israel). Starting around 1.3 Ma, coarse bifaces begin to appear, always knapped with a stone hammer. This technology points to the transition towards Acheulean industries. The first bifaces appeared within a very Oldowan technological background (Hummal, Ubeidiya). However, in the Levant, sites often considered as “pre-Acheulean” because they lacked bifaces, though they belonged to more recent periods, younger than 1.3 Ma, have been termed “Tayacian” in order to underline their difference from Acheulean properly speaking. They seem contemporary with the first Acheulean phases and could correspond to a final Oldowan. The question remains, however, whether these are non-Acheulean cultures or “Acheuleans without bifaces”.     

Rethinking the Hummalian industry

Recent research reveals that the production of elongated blanks using different flaking techniques is an important part of the Early Middle Palaeolithic (EMP) industries in Near Eastern sites dated between 250 and 160 ka ago. The excavation at Hummal located in the arid steppe of Central Syria produced blade industries located in the stratigraphy between the Yabrudian and Levalloiso-Mousterian and this sequence is dated to about 200 ky. This paper presents data on the Hummalian culture from its discovery in 1980 to the systematic excavation of in situ archaeological layers between 1997 and 2010. Today the Hummalian industry is seen as a single, but very complex reduction strategy related to both the Laminar and the Levallois-like system of debitage. It is a unique reduction system containing diverse types of core volume management within which blanks of different morphologies have been produced from a single core using a direct, hammer percussion. Though, the Hummalian still shares many techno-typological similarities with the others laminar, lithic assemblages found on the Early Middle Palaeolithic sites in Levant, the same chronological and stratigraphical position and similar land-use strategies. As the EMP blade industries in Levant are preceded by the Acheulo-Yabrudian techno-complexes, the shift between both these lithic complexes, already seen in their chronological boundary, may also imply a technological discontinuity and possibly differing human populations.     

Mousterian technology and settlement dynamics in the site of Hummal (Syria)

The site of Hummal is one of several artesian springs in the El Kowm area (Central Syria) that became the focus of archaeological research at the beginning of the 1980s. The archaeological sequence spans the whole Paleolithic period and the spring is therefore a reference site for the Paleolithic in the interior part of the Levant. Archaeological remains are found in a more than 15 m thick succession of deposits that contain Lower, Middle and Upper Paleolithic assemblages. The present paper addresses archaeological and geological data, which were recovered during recent years’ excavations of Mousterian deposits. With a compiled stratigraphy of over 6 m and more than 30 archaeological levels, the Hummal Mousterian sequence is especially apt for the reconstruction of changing site-use patterns through time. Lithic analysis helps to elucidate technological traditions as well as organization and the changing ways in which mobile foragers used a site in the context of an arid steppe. Results contribute further to existing models of Levantine Middle Paleolithic land-use strategies and demography in the time span of between 130,000 and 50,000 BP, and partly contradict existing interpretations. Two different lithic industries were defined, which correspond to a C- and B-type Levantine Mousterian according to the three-stage Tabun model. The discovery of a C-type Mousterian in the lower deposits further extends the geographical range of this cultural facies into the interior arid part of the Levant. An increasing importance and standardization of Levallois points is observable and thereby supports models that postulate a growing specialization of hunting techniques at the end of the Middle Paleolithic.     

El Kowm Oasis,human settlement in the Syrian Desert during the Pleistocene

The area of the El Kowm oasis in the centre of today's Syria is a unique showcase of Middle Eastern prehistory not only for its geographic position within the Arabian Desert, but also for the depth of its history. In fact the core area, about a dozen kilometres across, with the numerous natural springs were an important attractor for game and humans, visiting regularly this region since more than 1.8 million years. All over the periods, from the Lower Palaeolithic to the arrival of farmers, definitely arid conditions prevailed, perfectly showing human adaption to this particular environment, as has been clearly demonstrated by several extensive excavations of exceptionally rich Palaeolithic sites. Exceptional preservation conditions due to a particular geological setting in the context of active or dry springs offer an extraordinary resolution of human behaviour within a limited landscape during the complete period of the Pleistocene, illustrating cognitive capacities of early man to cope readily with arid environments, challenge the migration routes proposed by Out of Africa diffusion models, typically considered to be corridors with a superior environmental potential.     

Oldowayen archaïque et Oldowayen classique de l’Afrique à l’Europe méditerranéenne

Analyzing lithic industries of Lower Pleistocene and beginning of Middle Pleistocene times allows to define three groups not clearly chronological but which reflect the cognitive evolution of prehistoric Men who knapped them and the constraints of the environment: - “Archaic Oldowan” industries in which raw flakes are dominant and no small tools retouched on flakes or debris are present; - “Classical Oldowan” industries in which raw flakes are dominant and small tools retouched on flakes and debris – especially scrapers – are present; - “Acheulean industries”, in which bifaces are present – generally in small proportions – and small retouched tools are increasingly standardized.     

Barogali et l’Oued Doure. Deux gisements représentatifs du Paléolithique ancien en République de Djibouti

In the Republic of Djibouti, surveys and excavations, carried out from 1985 to 1992, confirmed the presence of the pre-Acheulean (Oldowan) and Acheulean sites in the country. Three seasons of excavations (1985-1987 in the Gobaad Basin, have unearthed in a hardened compact clay strata of an ancient marshland dating to the Lower Pleistocene, the fossilized skeletal remains of an Elephas recki ileretensis. Numerous stone tools have been gathered with the bones. The E.S.R. dating the elephant’s lower third molar gave a date between 1,.6 and 1,.3 MY that would confirm its paleontological grouping and the membership of this butchery site to the Oldowan period. The animal appeared to have been lying on its left side. The cranial roof had been separated from the calvarium, perhaps to get at the brain; but the skull remains in anatomic connection with the tusks. The jaw (mandible) seems to have been broken to extract the tongue. Hominids, perhaps Homo ergaster, knapped tools from a nearly outcrop of poor quality lava. The tools were specifically adapted to their needs, such as scraping, chopping and scattering the bones. The site has yielded 569 artifacts: utilized material and hammerstones (121); pebble tools (32); cores (14); “debitage” products (366); retouched flakes (36). Artifacts are rarely retouched and often broken. Five different types of choppers have been classified. The polyedrons and one bola make up 22% of the pebble tools. The cores are divided into unipolar, centripetal and polyhedrical types. In another site, Haïdalo, an almost complete skeleton of an Elephas recki recki in anatomical connection and without any sign of predation, has been found at eight kilometers from Barogali. During surveys in the Ali Sabîh region (1990-1992) seven sectors have been discovered and prospected in the Oued Doure Basin. On the surface area and also in situ into some little pits, 345 rhiolitic Acheulean artifacts have been found, near rhyolitic outcrop. These artifacts are generally large. The choppers (18) can be dividended into 2 sets : side choppers (55%) and end choppers (27%), often with a bifacial cutting edge. There is only one polyedron, but we have found eight heavy scrapers. The Acheulean group is important (43 tools). The bifaces are varied and there are also a few cleavers and picks. Cores are numerous (92) and Levallois cores are preponderant (45%). We find also centripetal cores (27%) and so unipolar, bipolar and polyhedral cores. Tools made of flakes (118) are numerous: scrapers are typologically diversified. Some of them have a double utilization. Notch tools, denticulate tools are presents but also end scrapers, burin, borer, back knifes and scantily retouched flakes. The characters of this lithic material, large cores and big flakes, large bifaces of various types, cleavers and retouched flakes, indicates that they are Acheulean products. So, the Doure Site can be placed in the Middle / Upper Acheulean transition.     

Le gisement acheuléen de plein air de La Garde (Loire). Remarques sur une série lithique acheuléenne entre Rhône et Loire

The lithic assemblage of La Garde offers the opportunity to observe a Final Acheulean series located in the Loire department (south-east France). The site was probably a multi-activity place asking large tools and flakes, according to the strategies used by humans. Three main categories of large bifacial tools mainly made of flint can be described, with a triangular or oval shape and with a transversal cutting edge. These tools are more bifacial-tools than bifaces through the kind of shaping and the retouches on the cutting edges. The Levallois flaking is associated to various other types of knapping. The site, located along a small valley, suggests a human circulating between the Saône-Rhône corridor and the interior basins of the Massif Central Mountains. The Rhodanian corridor yielded little evidence of Acheulean settlements while in the Centre of France, they are numerous. La Garde proves that systematic prospecting in this area will permit in future to complete the map of the Acheulean occupations in south-east France.     

Un débitage lamellaire au Proche-Orient vers 40 000 ans cal BP. Le site d’Umm el Tlel,Syrie centrale

Across the Near-East and particularly in Syria, a number of archaeological sites have delivered new industries which can be linked to the intermediate Palaeolithic, more commonly qualified as “Transition industry” Due to the apparition of several facies with new technical orientations, the term of intermediate Palaeolithic seems most appropriate. The bladelets production is one of those innovations. Among the four facies identified in the Palmyra and the El Kowm basins (central Syria), facies 3 and 4 are the most frequent and the best documented in terms of chrono-stratigraphical sequence. Here we present the facies 3 discovered in stratigraphy on the site of Umm el Tlel. This facies has been dated and the industries have been submitted to a micro use-wear analysis. The levels III2a’ and II base’, selected for analysis and dated around 36,000 ± 2500 years (T.L.), are characterized by different modes of production and by various predetermined removals. Among these productions, the bladelets represent more than a third of the predetermined removals. These bladelets have various morphologies and dimensions and result from two modes of production. The first mode consists in alternating Levallois products and bladelets and the second mode utilizes specifics cores. The presence, on all types of bladelets, of micro use-wear corroborates the intentionality of these productions. The use-wear show that the bladelets have been used for various actions in and on different materials worked and that they were maintained according to different modes of prehension. Across the Levant, a technical continuity clearly appears between the facies of the intermediate Palaeolithic and the industries of the upper Palaeolithic: the Ahmarian and the Aurignacian. Nevertheless this technical innovation is integrated in a distinct way according to the considered period. During the intermediate Palaeolithic the lithics productions are different according to the facies and the use of the bladelets is varied. While during the upper Palaeolithic there is a technical normalization of the blanks but also functions of bladelets.     

An older origin for the Acheulean at Melka Kunture (Upper Awash,Ethiopia): Techno-economic behaviours at Garba IVD

In the 1970s and 1980s, the emergence of the Acheulean at Melka Kunture (Upper Awash, Ethiopia) was dated to 1 Ma (million years ago), based on the typo-metrical analysis of the lithic assemblage of Garba XIIJ. Older sites such as Gombore I, Karre I, and Garba IV (1.7–1.5 Ma) were classified as Oldowan/Developed Oldowan. Consequently, the Oldowan and the Acheulean at Melka Kunture were interpreted as two distinct technologies separated by a chronological gap of 0.5 Ma.     

Une vue d’ensemble sur Melka Kunture,grand complexe de sites pléistocènes dans la vallée supérieure de l’Awash (Éthiopie)

Melka Kunture is a cluster of Pleistocene sites, extending over ?100 km² between 2000 and 2200 m asl, in the upper Awash Valley of Ethiopia. Starting around 2 million-years ago, the archaeological sequence includes sites with lithic productions of the Oldowan, Early Acheulean, middle Acheulean, final Acheulean, Early Middle Stone Age, Middle Stone Age and Late Stone Age. All over the Pleistocene, the climate was rainy and cooler than at the lower elevations of the Rift Valley, allowing the development of Afromontane vegetation. Hippopotamuses are ubiquitous and dominant in terms of biomass, but Alcelaphini are well represented, notably with genus Connochaetes and genus Damaliscus. Hominin fossils have been discovered in association with the Oldowan, the Early Acheulean, the middle Acheulean and the Early Middle Stone Age. Animal tracks and hominin footprints have also been documented, the latter ones in layers dated between 1.2 and 0.7 million-years.     

Adaptive Flexibility of Oldowan Hominins: Secondary Use of Flakes at Bizat Ruhama,Israel

The lithic assemblage of the Early Pleistocene site of Bizat Ruhama, Israel demonstrates the earliest evidence for systematic secondary knapping of flakes. The site, dated to the Matuyama chron, is one of the earliest primary context Oldowan occurrences in Eurasia. According to the experimental replication of the stone-tool production sequence, the secondary knapping of flakes was a part of a multi-stage operational sequence targeted at the production of small (<2 cm) flakes. This sequence included four stages: acquisition of chert pebbles, production of flakes, deliberate selection of flakes of specific morphologies, and their secondary knapping by free-hand or bipolar methods. The results suggest that flakes with retouch-like scars that were produced during this sequence and which commonly are interpreted as shaped tools are unintentional waste products of the small flake production. The intentional manufacture of very small flakes at Bizat Ruhama was probably an economic response to the raw material constrains. Systematic secondary knapping of flakes has not yet been reported from other Early Pleistocene sites. Systematic secondary knapping for small flake production became increasingly important only in the lithic industries of the second half of the Middle Pleistocene, almost a million years later. The results from Bizat Ruhama indicate that Oldowan stone-tool production sequence was conceptually more complex than previously suggested and offer a new perspective on the capabilities for invention and the adaptive flexibility of the Oldowan hominins.     

The Unknown Oldowan: ~1.7-Million-Year-Old Standardized Obsidian Small Tools from Garba IV,Melka Kunture,Ethiopia

The Oldowan Industrial Complex has long been thought to have been static, with limited internal variability, embracing techno-complexes essentially focused on small-to-medium flake production. The flakes were rarely modified by retouch to produce small tools, which do not show any standardized pattern. Usually, the manufacture of small standardized tools has been interpreted as a more complex behavior emerging with the Acheulean technology. Here we report on the ~1.7 Ma Oldowan assemblages from Garba IVE-F at Melka Kunture in the Ethiopian highland. This industry is structured by technical criteria shared by the other East African Oldowan assemblages. However, there is also evidence of a specific technical process never recorded before, i.e. the systematic production of standardized small pointed tools strictly linked to the obsidian exploitation. Standardization and raw material selection in the manufacture of small tools disappear at Melka Kunture during the Lower Pleistocene Acheulean. This proves that 1) the emergence of a certain degree of standardization in tool-kits does not reflect in itself a major step in cultural evolution; and that 2) the Oldowan knappers, when driven by functional needs and supported by a highly suitable raw material, were occasionally able to develop specific technical solutions. The small tool production at ~1.7 Ma, at a time when the Acheulean was already emerging elsewhere in East Africa, adds to the growing amount of evidence of Oldowan techno-economic variability and flexibility, further challenging the view that early stone knapping was static over hundreds of thousands of years.     

Pleistocene camelids from the Syrian Desert: The diversity in El Kowm

The family Camelidae has been present in Eurasia since the latest Miocene, and several species are recognized, but their evolution is poorly known. The region of El Kowm, central Syria, includes several sites spanning the Early to Late Pleistocene and provides the only abundant fossil record of camelids in the Middle East. Our preliminary results show that several species are present over the sequence, revealing some surprising evolutionary trends.     

Les assemblages lithiques des niveaux du Paléolithique moyen de l’Abri des Pêcheurs (Ardèche, Sud-Est de la France): Des occupations néandertaliennes récurrentes dans un « fossé »

The Abri des Pêcheurs has yielded an extraordinary sequence with Middle and Upper Palaeolithic levels. Humans came and stayed in a ditch-cave that has been filled in along time. During Middle Palaeolithic occupations, they used first quartz, and this site is the only case in this area. Assemblages show similar technological behaviour along time. Flint is few employed and arrived as flakes from different areas if we consider its geological variety. Functions of the site are not well established. The base of the sequence has yielded sediments with a mixing of ibex, carnivore bones and artefacts. The study of the lithic assemblages brings information on the processing systems used on quartz and flint during occupations which left few evidence and used local stones while flint is available not far from the site. Hypothesis on short and specialized occupations is discussed.     

Le Paléolithique ancien de l’Europe orientale et du Caucase

Currently, only Tréhougol’naya Cave has reliably dated evidence for human settlement in Eastern Europe and Caucasus, from the beginning through the middle of the Middle Pleistocene. In Eastern Europe, assemblages from Khriatchi and Mikhailovskoé, and possibly Darvagchai I, appear to be the only stratified locations that tentatively can be compared (despite problems with these materials) with Tréhougol’naya. In the eastern limits of Central Europe, layer VI in Korolevo I is the only stratified assemblage that may be compared with Tréhougol’naya. All these Lower Paleolithic occupations yielded the Pre-Mousterian small tool industries with some pebble tools, but without Acheulean bifaces and Levallois technique. These data suggest that Eastern Europe lies outside the distribution range of the Acheulean techno-complex demarcated with the “Movius Line”. In the Southern Caucasus, the Dmanissi hominine and lithic records document the fact that the earliest small-brained humans – probably later H. habilis-rudolfensis or earlier H. ergaster-erectus hominids bearing Pre-Oldowan technology – initially left Africa and appeared in Western Asia as early as 1.8 Ma ago. However, in the Southern Caucasus, the available chronological data indicate that the Acheulean complex has a later temporal appearance here compared to the Upper Acheulean or Acheulo-Yabrudian in Western Asia. Two main Upper Acheulean industrial variants currently can be recognized in the Southern Caucasus. The first, called the Kudarian by the author (from the caves of Kudaro I, Kudaro III, and Azyk), is characterized by lithics made from mostly siliceous rocks, rare Acheulean bifaces, and non-Levallois flaking technique. The second variant is characterized by lithics made from volcanic rocks, numerous Acheulean bifaces, and often more laminar or Levallois debitage. It can be suggested that there are independent origins for these Southern Caucasus Upper Acheulean industrial variants. Possible roots of the Acheulean assemblages of Kudarian variant might be in the local earlier Lower Paleolithic small tool assemblages with some pebble tools but without Acheulean bifaces. The other Caucasus variant of the Upper Acheulean appears to be related to the Levantine Upper Acheulean.     

Generativity,hierarchical action and recursion in the technology of the Acheulean to Middle Palaeolithic transition: A perspective from Patpara,the Son Valley,India

The Acheulean to Middle Palaeolithic transition is one of the most important technological changes that occurs over the course of human evolution. Here we examine stone artefact assemblages from Patpara and two other excavated sites in the Middle Son Valley, India, which show a mosaic of attributes associated with Acheulean and Middle Palaeolithic industries. The bifaces from these sites are very refined and generally small, but also highly variable in size. A strong relationship between flake scar density and biface size indicates extensive differential resharpening. There are relatively low proportions of bifaces at these sites, with more emphasis on small flake tools struck from recurrent Levallois cores. The eventual demise of large bifaces may be attributed to the curation of small prepared cores from which sharper, or more task-specific flakes were struck. Levallois technology appears to have arisen out of adapting aspects of handaxe knapping, including shaping of surfaces, the utilization of two inter-dependent surfaces, and the striking of invasive thinning flakes. The generativity, hierarchical organization of action, and recursion evident in recurrent Levallois technology may be attributed to improvements in working memory.     

Out of Africa and back again

If the genusHomo did indeed originate in Africa, then it must have spread by about 2 m.y. ago into Asia where it is represented at 1.8 m.y. ago byHomo erectus fossils. This latter species in turn eventually spread back into Africa, as indicated by the 1.4 m.y. old OH 9 calvaria from Olduvai, and into Europe, as indicated by the 800,000 year old Ceprano calvaria from Italy. These hominids are associated only with Oldowan style artefacts of cores, choppers and flakes and were apparently not conversant with Acheulean handaxe technology. It seems that they most probably evolved viaHomo heidelbergensis into the Neanderthals. Meanwhile, a completely separate development originating withHomo ergaster of about 1.7 m.y. ago in Africa and possessing Acheulean handaxe technology evolved via such forms as Ndutu and Steinheim intoHomo sapiens.     

丹江口库区贾湾1号地点发现的石制品

丹江口库区贾湾1号旧石器地点位于河南省淅川县盛湾镇贾湾村,埋藏于丹江右岸第三级基座阶地前缘的红色黏土层中。2011年4-5月对该地点进行抢救性发掘,揭露面积1000m2,共获得750件石制品(发掘527件,采集223件)。石制品组合包括石核类、修理类、废片类和石锤等,以废片类为主体。石制品以阶地底部砾石为原料,以小型和中型者居多;剥片主要采用硬锤锤击法;石器主要以石片为毛坯,采用锤击法多在石片远端或两侧进行单向加工,刮削器是主要类型。石器工业面貌属于以石核和石片为主体的技术类型(模式1)。地貌、地层及石制品组合特征显示该地点可能形成于晚更新世早期。