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Acheulean

In Africa, there is a distinct difference in the tools made before and after 600,000 years ago with the older group being thicker and less symmetric and the younger being more extensively trimmed.

Locations

Africa

Levallois prepared core techniques, important aspects of MSA technology, are shown to be >380 ka in the Kapthurin Formation, ~100 kyr older than previously estimated in East Africa.

http://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/937/

PALEOANTHROPOLOGY SOCIETY MEETING ABSTRACTS, VANCOUVER, BC, CANADA, 28–29 MARCH 2017

Through a Volcanic Glass Darkly: Viewing Modern Human Origins with the Lens of Raw Material Transport

Nick Blegen, Anthropology, Harvard University, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Frank Brown, Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

New analyses of obsidian artifacts (149 analyses on 31 artifacts) from two Middle Pleistocene sites, Kapthurin site ‘A’ and Rorop Lingop, recently dated >380 ka, demonstrate seven obsidian compositions from at least three sources ranging distances between ~60–140km from these sites.

http://www.paleoanthro.org/media/journal/content/PAS2017A.pdf

Europe

Early evidence of the use of Levallois technology in association with the production of handaxes is attested in Europe during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 12 at Cagny Cemetery, MIS 12–11 at Cagny la Garenne and Saint- Acheul (France) (Antoine et al., 2007; Bahain et al., 2007), and MIS 11 at Rickson’s Pit, Swanscombe (UK) (White et al., 2011), and at Guado San Nicola (Italy) (Peretto et al., 2016). Except for the record of the last site, where an increase in the Levallois method throughout the sequence is evidenced, the other lithic assemblages document the presence of few Levallois artefacts (Tuffreau, 1995; White et al., 2011), thus postponing the introduction of this technological innovation to the transition between MIS 9 and MIS 8 (Moncel et al.,2011; Scott and Ashton, 2011). In this chronological period, the emergence of Levallois technology was nearly contemporaneous in Eurasia, Africa and India (Tryon et al., 2006; James and Petraglia, 2009; Picin et al., 2013; Adler et al., 2014). The main hypotheses proposed to explain this archaeological conundrum are the independent development rooted in the previous Acheulian tradition (Tuffreau, 1995; White et al., 2011) or that resulting from fast dispersal out of Africa from an archaic form of Homo sapiens bearing this new technology (Foley and Lahr, 1997). This latter hypothesis has been put back in the spotlight by the recent analysis of the ancient DNA of two human remains of Sima de los Huesos (SH) showing a close ancestry with Neanderthals at approximately 430 ka (Meyer et al., 2016).

Italy: Monte delle Gioie and Sedia del Diavolo both near the city of Rome, have yielded Levallois material from 295-290 ka.