Iberomaurusian
The Iberomaurusian culture is a backed bladelet lithic industry found throughout the Tamazgha. The industry was originally described in 1909 by the French scholar Pallary, other names for the industry have included Mechta-Afalou and Oranian. Recent fieldwork indicates that the Iberomaurusian culture existed in the region from around the timing of the Last Glacial Maximum, at 20,000 BP, the industry is succeeded by the Capsian culture, which was originally thought to have spread into the Maghreb from the Near East. However, studies suggest that the Iberomaurusian may have been the progenitors of the Capsian, despite suggestions that this minor element may be related to the Basques of southwestern Europe, there appear to be no vestiges of a Basque linguistic influence in the region. In 2013, Iberomaurusian skeletons from the sites of Taforalt. The ancient Taforalt individuals carried the mtDNA Haplogroup N subclades like U6, H, JT and V, which points to population continuity in the region dating from the Iberomaurusian period.
In 2016 it has been identified mtDNA haplogroups H or U, T2b, JT or H14b1, J, J1c3f, H1, R0a1a, R0a2c, H2a1e1a, H2a2a1, H6a1a8, H14b1, U4a2b, U4c1, U6d3. A2003 sequencing on the mitochondrial DNA of two Cro-Magnons identified the mtDNA as Haplogroup N. Aterian
Micoquien
The Micoquien is an early middle paleolithic industry, that is found in the Eemian and in an early episode of the Würm glaciation. The Micoquien is distinguished technologically by the appearance of distinctly asymmetrical bifaces and its discoverer and namer was the archeologist and art trader Otto Hauser. Hauser sold a number of so-called Micoque-wedges that he found in excavations in La Micoque to museums. The specially formed handaxes from La Micoque exhibited an often a rounded base, the problem with the term Micoquien is that excavations have revealed an older time placement for the La Micoque axes, which are now dated in the Riss glaciation. A wider artifact from the Micoquien is the Keilmesser, which has a clearer chronology in Central Europe, from this some archeologists have proposed substituting the term Keilmesser group for Micoquien. Micoquien artifacts are distributed all of Eastern Europe and Central Europe. In Germany they can be found at Balver Höhle and Lonetal, le gisement de La Micoque.
- in, Rigaud, J. -Ph. Informa-tions archéologiques, circonscription dAquitaine, Gallia Préhist, La Micoque. - Gallia Informations Préhistoire et Histoire, 1991-1, CNRS, Paris, 21-25. La Micoque, die Kultur einer neuen Diluvialrasse, leur signification. - Bulletin de la Société Pré-historique Française 35, Paris,121, 257-288. La Micoque und das Micoquien in den altsteinzeitlichen Sammlungen des Reiss-Museums Mannheim. - Mannh, geschichtsblätter N. F.6, Ubstadt-Weiher, 315-351. Media related to Micoquien at Wikimedia Commons Geröllgeräte-Industrien Rosendahl, G. Die oberen Schichten von La Micoque
Gravettian
The Gravettian was an archaeological industry of the European Upper Paleolithic that succeeded the Aurignacian c.31,000 BC. It is archaeologically the last unified European culture, and lasted until c.22,000 BC, at this point it developed into the Epigravettian in Italy, the Balkans, and Russia, and was replaced abruptly by the Solutrean in France and Spain. The origins of the Gravettian people are not clear, they seem to appear all over Europe. Like their Aurignacian predecessors, they are well-known for their Venus figurines, the culture was first identified at the site of La Gravette in Southwestern France. One typical artefact of the industry, once considered diagnostic, is a pointed blade with a straight blunt back. These were used to hunt big game including bison, reindeer, Gravettians used nets to hunt small game. Archaeologists usually describe two regional variants, the western Gravettian, known namely from cave sites in France and Britain, and the eastern Gravettian in Central Europe and Russia.
The eastern Gravettians — they include the Pavlovian culture — were specialized mammoth hunters, whose remains are found not in caves. The Aurignacian and Gravettian cultures are featured in Earths children, a series of set in prehistory. In this piece of fiction, the Venus figurines play an important role at the center of a fertility rite
Mousterian
Mousterian is a name given by archaeologists to a style of predominantly flint tools associated primarily with Neanderthals. They date to the Middle Paleolithic, the part of the European Old Stone Age. The culture was named after the site of Le Moustier. Similar flintwork has been all over unglaciated Europe and the Near East. Handaxes and points constitute the industry, sometimes a Levallois technique or another prepared-core technique was employed in making the flint flakes, Mousterian tools that have been found in Europe were made by Neanderthals and date from around 160,000 BP and 40,000 BP. In North Africa and the Near East, Mouseterian tools were produced by anatomically modern humans. In the Levant, for example, assemblages produced by Neanderthals are indistinguishable from those made by Qafzeh type modern humans, possible variants are Denticulate, Charentian named after the Charente region and the Acheulean Tradition - Type-A and Type-B. The industry continued alongside the new Châtelperronian industry during the 45, Mousterian artifacts have been found in Haua Fteah in Cyrenaica and other sites in Northwest Africa.
Contained within a cave in the Syria region, along with a Neanderthaloid skeleton, located in the Haibak valley of Afghanistan. Zagros and Central Iran The archaeological site of Atapuerca, gorhams Cave in Gibraltar contains Mousterian objects. Uzbekistan has sites of Mousterian culture, including Teshik-Tash, siberia has many sites with Mousterian style implements, eg Denisova Cave. Neanderthal extinction hypotheses Synoptic table of the old world prehistoric cultures Levallois technique Neanderthals’ Last Stand Is Traced — New York Times article
Upper Paleolithic
The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity, modern humans are believed to have emerged about 195,000 years ago in Africa. Although these humans were modern in anatomy, their lifestyle changed very little from their contemporaries, such as Homo erectus, about 50,000 years ago, there was a marked increase in the diversity of artifacts. In Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archeological record, between 45,000 and 43,000 years ago, this new tool technology spread with human migration to Europe. The new technology generated an explosion of modern humans which is believed to have contributed to the extinction of the Neanderthals. The Upper Paleolithic has the earliest known evidence of organized settlements, in the form of campsites, artistic work blossomed, with cave painting, petroglyphs and engravings on bone or ivory.
The first evidence of fishing is noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa. More complex social groupings emerged, supported by more varied and reliable food sources and this probably contributed to increasing group identification or ethnicity. By 50, 000–40,000 BP, the first humans set foot in Australia, by 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61° north latitude in Europe. By 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia above the Arctic Circle, at the end of the Upper Paleolithic, a group of humans crossed the Bering land bridge and quickly expanded throughout North and South America. Both Homo erectus and Neanderthals used the same crude stone tools, archaeologist Richard G. Klein, who has worked extensively on ancient stone tools, describes the stone tool kit of archaic hominids as impossible to categorize. It was as if the Neanderthals made stone tools, and were not much concerned about their final forms and he argues that almost everywhere, whether Asia, Africa or Europe, before 50,000 years ago all the stone tools are much alike and unsophisticated.
These new stone-tool types have been described as being distinctly differentiated from each other, the invaders, commonly referred to as the Cro-Magnons, left many sophisticated stone tools and engraved pieces on bone and antler, cave paintings and Venus figurines. The Neanderthals continued to use Mousterian stone tool technology and possibly Chatelperronian technology and these tools disappeared from the archeological record at around the same time the Neanderthals themselves disappeared from the fossil record, about 40,000 years ago. Settlements were often located in valley bottoms, possibly associated with hunting of passing herds of animals. Hunting was important, and caribou/wild reindeer may well be the species of single greatest importance in the anthropological literature on hunting. Technological advances included significant developments in flint tool manufacturing, with industries based on fine blades rather than simpler and shorter flakes and racloirs were used to work bone and hides.
Advanced darts and harpoons appear in period, along with the fish hook, the oil lamp, rope
Aterian
The Aterian is a Middle Stone Age stone tool industry centered in the Maghreb, but found in Oman and the Thar Desert. The earliest Aterian dates to c.145,000 years ago, most of the early dates cluster around the beginning of the Last Interglacial, around 130,000 years ago, when the environment of North Africa began to ameliorate. The Aterian disappeared around 30,000 years ago and it is not thought to have influenced subsequent archaeological cultures in the region. The Aterian is primarily distinguished through the presence of tanged or pedunculated tools, bifacially-worked, leaf-shaped tools are a common artefact type, and so are racloirs and Levallois flakes and cores. Items of personal adornment are known from at least one Aterian site, the appropriateness of the term Mousterian is contested in a North African context, however. The technological character of the Aterian has been debated for almost a century, Levallois reduction is widespread across the whole of North Africa throughout the Middle Stone Age, and scrapers and denticulates are ubiquitous.
Bifacial foliates moreover represent a huge taxonomic category and the form, there is a significant variation of tanged tools themselves, with various forms representing both different tool types and the degree tool resharpening. For example, bifacial leaf points are found widely across North Africa in assemblages that lack tanged tools and this notwithstanding, the term still usefully denotes the presence of tanged tools in North African Middle Stone Age assemblages. Tanged tools persisted in North Africa until around 30,000 years ago, by this time, the Aterian lithic industry had long ceased to exist in the rest of North Africa due to the onset of the Ice Age, which in North Africa, resulted in hyperarid conditions. Assemblages with tanged tools, the Aterian, therefore have a significant temporal and spatial range, they have not yet been found east of the Nile and no Aterian sites are known from the Nile Valley. The Aterian is associated with early Homo sapiens at a number of sites in Morocco, the Aterian fossils display similarities to the earliest modern humans found out of Africa at Skhul and Qafzeh in the Levant, and they are broadly contemporary to them.
Such examples of shell beads have been found far inland, suggesting the presence of long distance social networks, such a subdivided population structure has been inferred from the pattern of variation observed in early African fossils of Homo sapiens. Associated faunal studies suggest that the making the Aterian exploited coastal resources as well as engaging in hunting. It has so far been difficult to estimate whether Aterian populations further inland were exploiting freshwater resources as well, studies have suggested that hafting was widespread, perhaps to maintain flexibility in the face of strongly seasonal environment with a pronounced dry season. Scrapers and points all seem to have been hafted and it is probably that plant resources were exploited. Although there is no evidence from the Aterian yet, plant processing is evidenced in North Africa from as much as 182,000 years ago. Aterian lithic tools have discovered in Middle Paleolithic deposits in Oman. Ifri nAmmar Contrebandiers Taforalt Rhafas Dar es Soltan I El Mnasra Kharga Oasis Uan Tabu Oued el Akarit Adrar Bous Oman Thar Desert Synoptic table of the old world prehistoric cultures
Clactonian
Clactonian tools were made by Homo erectus rather than modern humans. The term is applied to early, crude flint tools from other regions that were made using similar methods. It is named after 400, 000-year-old finds made by Hazzledine Warren in a palaeochannel at Clacton-on-Sea in the English county of Essex in 1911. The artefacts found there included flint chopping tools, flint flakes, the Clactonian industry involved striking thick, irregular flakes from a core of flint, which was employed as a chopper. The flakes would have used as crude knives or scrapers. Unlike the Oldowan tools from which Clactonian ones derived, some were notched implying that they were attached to a handle or shaft, retouch is uncommon and the prominent bulb of percussion on the flakes indicates use of a hammerstone. Within the banks of the Nile River, at the 100 foot terrace, the Clactonian industry may have co-existed with the Acheulean industry, which used identical basic techniques but which had handaxe technology, tools made by bifacially working a flint core.
In the 1990s it was argued that the difference between Clactonian and Acheulean may be a false distinction, the 2004 excavation of a butchered Pleistocene elephant at the Southfleet Road site of High Speed 1 in Kent recovered numerous Clactonian flint tools but no handaxes. As a handaxe would have been more useful than a chopper in dismembering an elephant carcass it is considered evidence of the Clactonian being a separate industry. Flint of sufficient quality was available in the area and it is likely that the people who carved up the elephant did not possess the knowledge to make the more advanced bifacial handaxe. Proponents of the Clactonian as an independent industry point to the lack of evidence in favour of it being an anomalous Acheulean industry. The precise provenance of the few attributed bifacial Clactonian tools is in dispute, the traditional chronology of Clactonian being followed by Acheulean is being increasingly challenged since finds of Acheulean tools were made at Boxgrove in Sussex and High Lodge in Suffolk.
These finds came from deposits connected with the Anglian Stage, the glaciation that preceded the Hoxnian Stage, whether or not they are separate industries it would seem that the Clactonian and Acheulean stone tool makers would have had cultural contact with each other. Acheulean Synoptic table of the old world prehistoric cultures Butler, C, Prehistoric Flintwork, Tempus
Swiderian culture
Swiderian culture, published in English literature as Sviderian and Swederian, is the name of Final Palaeolithic cultural complexes in Poland and the surrounding areas. The type-site is Świdry Wielkie, in Otwock near the Swider River, the Swiderian is recognized as a distinctive culture that developed on the sand dunes left behind by the retreating glaciers. The crude flint blades of Early Swiderian are found in the area of Nowy Mlyn in the Holy Cross Mountains region, late Swiderian is characterized by blades with a blunted back. The Swiderian culture plays a role in the Palaeolithic-Mesolithic transition. It has been accepted that most of the Swiderian population emigrated at the very end of the Pleistocene to the northeast following the retreating tundra. Recent radiocarbon dates prove that some groups of the Svidero-Ahrensburgian Complex persisted into the Preboreal, unlike western Europe, the Mesolithic groups now inhabiting the Polish Plain were newcomers. This has been attested by a 300-year-long gap between the youngest Palaeolithic and the oldest Mesolithic occupation, the oldest Mesolithic site is Chwalim, located in western Silesia, Poland, it outdates the Mesolithic sites situated to the east in central and northeastern Poland by about 150 years.
Thus, the Mesolithic population progressed from the west after a 300-year-long settlement break, the Ukrainian archaeologist L. Zalizniak believes Kunda culture of Central Russia and the Baltic zone, and other so-called post-Swiderian cultures, derive from the Swiderian culture. The raw materials of the assemblage at Sujala originate in the Varanger Peninsula in northern Norway. Proposed parallels with the blade technology among the earliest Mesolithic finds in southern Norway would have placed the find closer or even before 10000 BP. However, a connection to early North Norwegian settlements is contradicted by the shape of the tanged points. There, counterparts of the Sujala cores can be found, the Sujala assemblage is currently considered unquestionably post-Swiderian and is dated by radiocarbon to 9265-8930 BP, the true age being approximately 8300-8200 CalBC. Such an Early Mesolithic influence from Russia or the Baltic might imply an adjustment to previous thoughts on the colonization of the Barents Sea coast
Epigravettian
The Epigravettian was one of the last archaeological industries of the European Upper Paleolithic. It arose after the last glacial maximum around 21,000 cal and it succeeded the Gravettian, of which it is considered a continuation by some scholars. Its known range extends from southeast France to the shores of the Volga River
Middle Paleolithic
The Middle Paleolithic is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleolithic in African archeology, the Middle Paleolithic broadly spanned from 300,000 to 30,000 years ago. There are considerable dating differences between regions, the Middle Paleolithic was succeeded by the Upper Paleolithic subdivision which first began between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago. Activities such as catching fish and hunting large game animals with specialized tools connote increased group-wide cooperation. Both Neandertal and modern human societies took care of the members of their societies during the Middle Paleolithic. Typically, it has assumed that women gathered plants and firewood. Anthropologists such as Tim D. Cannibalism in the Middle Paleolithic may have occurred because of food shortages, around 200,000 BP Middle Paleolithic Stone tool manufacturing spawned a tool-making technique known as the prepared-core technique, that was more elaborate than previous Acheulean techniques.
Wallace and Shea split the core artifacts into two different types, formal cores and expedient cores, formal cores are designed to extract the maximum amount from the raw material while expedient cores are more based on function need. This method increased efficiency by permitting the creation of more controlled and this method allowed Middle Paleolithic humans correspondingly to create stone-tipped spears, which were the earliest composite tools, by hafting sharp, pointy stone flakes onto wooden shafts. The use of fire became widespread for the first time in human prehistory during the Middle Paleolithic, some scientists have hypothesized that hominids began cooking food to defrost frozen meat which would help ensure their survival in cold regions
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