周口店第15地点石器原料开发方略与经济形态研究

本文是对周口店第 15地点石器文化系列研究的第 3部分。对石制品原料种类和各种原料的用途、利用率统计及其分布、可用量和质量分析揭示该地点的原料资源具有高含量和低质量的特点 ,对文化面貌和石器技术的发挥有着重要的制约作用。采用加工长度指数和加工深度指数等手段计算石料的消耗率的结果表明该地点石器在从毛坯到成型工具转换的过程中材料的消耗很少 ,这与原料条件息息相关。该文将若干理论和实验模式引入研究之中 ,以期对石器工业特点的成因和原料利用的经济形态、人类适应生存方式做出合理的诠释。     

黑龙江十八站遗址的新材料与年代

黑龙江省十八站遗址经过再次调查发掘,地层中出土石制品38件,地表采集20件。石核具有修理台面和对向剥片的技术,石片中石叶技术特征明显,石叶技术与水洞沟遗址相近,石器以轻型为主,主要类型为刮削器。采集的两面器和端刮削器则在华北地区、俄罗斯远东地区南部的几个遗址中有相似标本发现。采用光释光的方法对遗址的绝对年代进行测定,结果为距今2.5—1万年。     

延边地区和龙石人沟发现的旧石器

2004年5月初,在对延边和龙石人沟旧石器遗址的调查中,在山坡台地的黄色亚黏土和含黄色砂质土的角砾层内获得40件黑曜岩石制品,包括石核、石片、细石叶和使用石片、刮削器、雕刻器、琢背小刀等工具。遗址可能属于晚更新世的晚期,即旧石器时代晚期。     

Nouvelles données sur la chronologie des sites paléolithiques en contexte lœssique du Nord-Est et du Sud-Est de la Roumanie (Périphérie orientale des Carpates)

In the present study, the chronology of several intraloessic Upper and Middle Palaeolithic sites, located in Moldova, Dobrogea and the eastern Danube Plain, is re-examined and better defined on the basis of new chronological data (IRSL ages on loess, ESR/U-Th ages on teeth) and also biostratigraphic and pedostratigraphic evidence. Middle Palaeolithic occupations have been identified in the MIS 6 loess L2 (interstadial episode), the MIS 7 pedocomplex S2 and the red soils S3 presumably assigned to MIS 9. These results are questioning the chronological extension of the Middle Palaeolithic in Romania which until early 2000 (Păunescu, 1999 a, b; Cârciumaru, 1999) was restricted to the Upper Pleistocene (short chronology: 130–35 ka; MIS 5-MIS 3). Hence, we demonstrate herein that Humans were already present during the Middle Pleistocene at the eastern periphery of the Carpathian Mountains, along the Danube valley and its tributary, the Prut River.     

L’Observatoire hommes–milieux international Tessékéré (OHMi) : un outil de recherche pour étudier la complexité des écosystèmes arides du Sahel

In the Sahelian zone, the drought phenomenon, combined with anthropic factors (monoculture, bush fires, defect or deficit of manure, overgrazing, etc.), has seriously affected ecological great balances, involving a degradation of the natural resources as well as a fall in agricultural productions, pointing to a process of desertification. To face these challenges, in the course of the 8th ordinary session of the conference of the Heads of States of the African Union held in January 2007 in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), 11 countries adopted the Panafrican project called the Green Great Wall (GGW). The total objective of the GGW is to contribute i) to the fight against the desert's advance, ii) to the development of the Saharan-Sahelian zones toward a durable management of the natural resources, and iii) to the fight against poverty. It deals with the construction of a set of zones of afforestation crossing the whole African continent in the long term (7000 km of which are in the west). Even if some decisions in the launching phase the GGW must be taken quickly, one cannot do without investment in interdisciplinary research. In particular, associating fundamental research and applied research will allow us to ensure the success in the medium and long term of such a large-scale reforestation project. Research segmented in compartmentalized knowledge fields needed to get adequate tools, among which OHMi Tessékéré, initiated by INNEE (Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS]), in partnership with UCAD, constitutes an example. This suitable scientific tool, capable of action flexibility, of self-financing capacity, anchored in civil society, ready to implement a pragmatic and local interdisciplinarity founded currently on the concept of socio-ecological system (SES), is the one we chose to conduct our studies on the Ferlo arid ecosystems.     

Boucher de Perthes (1788–1868). Des rêves métaphysiques à l’invention de la préhistoire

The director of customs in Abbeville (Somme), Jacques Boucher de Perthes (1788-1868) had the project of renewing Christianity with metempsychosis. He had no scientific training but, as president of the Société d’émulation d’Abbeville, he was aware of what was being debated in the sciences. He integrated the scientific problem of fossil man into his religious faith. He thus discovered the Palaeolithic. His flagship book, the three volumes of Celtic and Antediluvian Antiquities (1849, 1857, 1864), one of the founder works of Prehistory, succeeded in combining science and religion and this is what makes his study so interesting.     

La technique de débitage au Paléolithique supérieur de l’archipel du Japon

The representative debitage technique is the one of the culture of knife-to-back in the name of the superior Paleolithic of Japan. She/it can be he divided in two, the one of the first half and the one of the second half. The first corresponds at the time of apparition, either to the stage of launching of the technique of debitage laminaire whose debitage didn’t provide elaborate blades being little successive. As for the stage of fortifying of the debitage laminaire, the industries lithic to knife-to-back of the Sugikubo type developed themselves in the oriental Honshû. With regard to the region of Kantô to the second half of the first where the knife-to-back of Moro type mingled equally with those while shaping on the blade. To the recent stage of development, one can note the industry lithic to knife-to-back of Moro type is based on the technical very blady in the western Japan. Succeeding in the second half of the superior Paleolithic that the technique of debitage of Sétoüchi developed itself in this part whose debitage is characterized by the strut oblong in wing, are the transverse blades These gotten supports used especially for making the knife-to-back of Koü type while spilling country-wide. To the second recent half, the technical blade of Sunagawa type took place in all regions of Japan except the inshore regions of the Interior Sea of Séto and the region of Kinki (Kyoto-Osaka).     

Pedogenic carbonate stable isotopic evidence for wooded habitat preference of early Pleistocene tool makers in the Turkana Basin

The origin and evolution of early Pleistocene hominin lithic technologies in Africa occurred within the context of savanna grassland ecosystems. The Nachukui Formation of the Turkana Basin in northern Kenya, containing Oldowan and Acheulean tool assemblages and fossil evidence for early members of Homo and Paranthropus, provides an extensive spatial and temporal paleosol record of early Pleistocene savanna flora. Here we present new carbon isotopic (δ¹³C_VPDB) values of pedogenic carbonates (68 nodules, 193 analyses) from the Nachukui Formation in order to characterize past vegetation structure and change through time. We compared three members (Kalochoro, Kaitio, and Natoo) at five locations spanning 2.4–1.4 Ma and sampled in proximity to hominin archaeological and paleontological sites. Our results indicate diverse habitats showing a mosaic pattern of vegetation cover at each location yet demonstrate grassland expansion through time influenced by paleogeography. Kalochoro floodplains occurred adjacent to large river systems, and paleosols show evidence of C₃ woodlands averaging 46–50% woody cover. Kaitio habitats were located along smaller rivers and lake margins. Paleosols yielded evidence for reduced portions of woody vegetation averaging 34–37% woody cover. Natoo environments had the highest percentage of grasslands averaging 21% woody cover near a diminishing Lake Turkana precursor. We also compared paleosol δ¹³C_VPDB values of lithic archaeological sites with paleosol δ¹³C_VPDB values of all environments available to hominins at 2.4–1.4 Ma in the Nachukui and Koobi Fora Formations. Grassy environments became more widespread during this interval; woody canopy cover mean percentages steadily decreased by 12%. However, significantly more wooded savanna habitats were present in the vicinity of lithic archaeological sites and did not mirror the basin-wide trend of grassland spread. Hominin lithic archaeological sites consistently demonstrated woody cover circa 40% throughout our study interval and were 4–12% more woody than coeval basin environs. We propose that Turkana Basin early tool makers may have preferred a more wooded portion of the savanna ecosystem to reduce heat stress and to gain differential access to potable water, raw materials, animal carcasses, and edible plants.     

The Paleolithic in the Nihewan Basin,China: Evolutionary history of an Early to Late Pleistocene record in Eastern Asia

The Nihewan Basin of China preserves one of the most important successions of Paleolithic archeological sites in Eurasia. Stratified archeological sites and mammalian fossils, first reported in the 1920s, continue to be recovered in large‐scale excavation projects. Here, we review key findings from archeological excavations in the Nihewan Basin ranging from ~1.66 Ma to 11.7 ka. We place particular emphasis on changes in stone tool technology over the long term. Though Pleistocene lithic industries from East Asia are often described as simple in character, re‐evaluation of the stone tool evidence from the Nihewan Basin demonstrates significant, though periodic, innovations and variability in manufacturing techniques through time, indicating adaptive and technological flexibility on the part of hominins. Synthesis of paleoenvironmental and archeological data indicate changes in hominin occupation frequency in the Nihewan Basin, with chronological gaps suggesting that continuous presence in high, seasonal latitudes was not possible prior to the Late Pleistocene.