On the industrial attributions of the Aterian and Mousterian of the Maghreb

Dibble, Harold L.; Aldeias, Vera; Jacobs, Zenobia; Olszewski, Deborah I.; Režek, Željko; Lin, Sam C.; Álvarez-Fernández, Esteban; Barshay‐Szmidt, Carolyn; Hallett-Desguez, Emily; Reed, Denné; Reed, Kaye E.; Richter, Daniel; Steele, Teresa E.; Skinner, Anne R.; Blackwell, Bonnie A.B.; Doronicheva, Ekaterina V.; Hajraoui, Mohamed Abdeljalil El

doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2012.10.010

Cited by 98 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…If stone tips were used on arrows (which can be inferred for part of the Upper Palaeolithic), then their maximum permissible width would be ca 10 mm, constrained by the shaft diameter of 8-10 mm [43,57], and length of the stone point would be several times this. The skill of making a tang on an artefact allows the tip of an arrow to be broader than the shaft, and this too occurs, for example in the Aterian in north Africa [58,59]. In the Aterian, similar principles were applied to the making of elongate tips for probably slightly heavier javelins launched by spear-throwers.…”

Section: Elongation In Early Human Artefactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elongation as a factor in artefacts of humans and other animals: an Acheulean example in comparative context

Gowlett

2013

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Elongation is a commonly found feature in artefacts made and used by humans and other animals and can be analysed in comparative study. Whether made for use in hand or beak, the artefacts have some common properties of length, breadth, thickness and balance point, and elongation can be studied as a factor relating to construction or use of a long axis. In human artefacts, elongation can be traced through the archaeological record, for example in stone blades of the Upper Palaeolithic (traditionally regarded as more sophisticated than earlier artefacts), and in earlier blades of the Middle Palaeolithic. It is now recognized that elongation extends to earlier Palaeolithic artefacts, being found in the repertoire of both Neanderthals and more archaic humans. Artefacts used by non-human animals, including chimpanzees, capuchin monkeys and New Caledonian crows show selection for diameter and length, and consistent interventions of modification. Both chimpanzees and capuchins trim side branches from stems, and appropriate lengths of stave are selected or cut. In human artefacts, occasional organic finds show elongation back to about 0.5 million years. A record of elongation achieved in stone tools survives to at least 1.75 Ma (million years ago) in the Acheulean tradition. Throughout this tradition, some Acheulean handaxes are highly elongated, usually found with others that are less elongated. Finds from the million-year-old site of Kilombe and Kenya are given as an example. These findings argue that the elongation need not be integral to a design, but that artefacts may be the outcome of adjustments to individual variables. Such individual adjustments are seen in animal artefacts. In the case of a handaxe, the maker must balance the adjustments to achieve a satisfactory outcome in the artefact as a whole. It is argued that the need to make decisions about individual variables within multivariate objects provides an essential continuity across artefacts made by different species.

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Section: Elongation In Early Human Artefactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elongation as a factor in artefacts of humans and other animals: an Acheulean example in comparative context

Gowlett

2013

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…The Aterian is characterized by the occurrence of both surface (Levallois) and volumetric knapping methods, as well as an intermediate form of production (Taramsa method) Spinapolice and Garcea, 2013). Although it has been claimed that, apart from tanged tools, the Aterian is indistinguishable from the "Mousterian" in Morocco Dibble et al 2013), we think that this combination of knapping methods is a clear cultural trait of the Aterian complexes from the Jebel Gharbi, which significantly differs from "Mousterian" or early MSA methods. We also argue that the Aterian should be considered as one of the regional variants of the MSA and not as a proxy of the European Mousterian (Kleindienst, 1998;McBrearty and Brooks, 2000;Garcea, 2012).…”

Section: Knapping Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aterian lithic technology and settlement system in the Jebel Gharbi, North-Western Libya

Spinapolice

Garcea

2014

Quaternary International

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“…This population then subsequently spread across Africa, but there were likely still pockets of archaic populations and through hybridization some introgression of genetic material occurred (~2%, Hammer et al, 2011). The location of this progenitor population has been argued to be North Africa (Smith et al, 2007;Dibble et al, 2013), East Africa (Lahr and Foley, 1998), southern Africa (Marean, 2010b;Henn et al, 2011), or Central/West Africa (Cruciani et al, 2011;Mendez et al, 2013;Rito et al, 2013). Alternatively, the "Fragmentation model" explains the Middle Pleistocene bottleneck as multiple, much smaller populations that became fragmented into isolated refugia with little to no gene flow (Sjödin et al, 2012).…”

Section: Figure 1 Evolutionary Relationships and Technological Innovmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape variability in tool-use and edge damage formation in South African Middle Stone Age lithic assemblages

Schoville

2016

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa

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This study explores how early modern humans used stone tool technology to adapt to changing climates and coastlines in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa. The MSA is associated with the earliest fossil evidence for modern humans and complex cultural behaviors during a time period of dramatic climate change. Human culture allows for the creation, use, and transmission of technological knowledge that can evolve with changing environmental conditions. Understanding the interactions between technology and the environment is essential to illuminating the role of culture during the origin of our species. This study is focused on understanding ancient tool use from the study of lithic edge damage patterns at archaeological assemblages in southern Africa by using image-based quantitative methods for analyzing stone tools. An extensive experimental program using replicated stone tools provides the comparative linkages between the archaeological artifacts and the tasks for which they were used. MSA foragers structured their tool use and discard behaviors on the landscape in several ways -by using and discarding hunting tools more frequently in the field rather than in caves/rockshelters, but similarly in coastal and interior contexts. This study provides evidence that during a significant microlithic technological shift seen in southern Africa at ~75,000 years ago, new technologies were developed alongside rather than replacing existing technologies. These results are compared with aspects of the European archaeological record at this time to identify features of early human technological behavior that may be unique to the evolutionary history of our species.ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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On the industrial attributions of the Aterian and Mousterian of the Maghreb

Cited by 98 publications

References 71 publications

Elongation as a factor in artefacts of humans and other animals: an Acheulean example in comparative context

Elongation as a factor in artefacts of humans and other animals: an Acheulean example in comparative context

Aterian lithic technology and settlement system in the Jebel Gharbi, North-Western Libya

Landscape variability in tool-use and edge damage formation in South African Middle Stone Age lithic assemblages

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