Monthly Archives: September 2011

Early controlled Fire use in Africa and the Levant

Fire is important for warmth, protection, cooking, light, pest control, tool-making, social interaction and perhaps hunting. There are some early Stone Age sites in Africa, that can may seen as candidates for the documentation of early controlled fire use of … Continue reading

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A Handaxe from Kathu Pan and the chronology of the ESA /MSA in South Africa

Handaxe made of banded ironstone, Kathu Pan, McGregor Museum, Kimberley Photo © Michael Cope This Handaxe was found embedded in an exposed stratigraphic sequence in a sinkhole at Kathu Pan in the Northern Cape, South Africa, and dated by association … Continue reading

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A Quina scraper from the Somme

This is a flat cortical flake with “Quina” retouche coming from the Somme valley. Such tools in the North European Plain are rare. The artifact would much better fit into the Middle Paleolithic of the Aquitaine. We should ask for … Continue reading

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Provisioning Water during the Paleolithic and Neolithic

A reliable source of drinking clean water is the most basic requirement for human physical survival. Water makes up more than two thirds of human body weight. About 2/3 of body water is found in the intracellular and 1/3 in … Continue reading

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A flake Cleaver produced by the Tabelbala-Tachengit technique

This is a flake Cleaver produced by the Tabelbala-Tachengit technique, from the N/W-Sahara. The detachment of large flakes for biface manufacture is suggested to be one a significant technological advance of Homo erectus / ergaster. African cleavers are virtually without … Continue reading

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Ceraunia, Thunderbolts and Antiquarians: The early History of Prehistory

  Greek natural philosophers, where the first that proposed, that that humans, like any animal are part of nature and subject to natural laws. They were convinced that natural phenomena should be explained through natural causes and natural agents, and … Continue reading

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Frauds and Fogeries on the “Paleo-Market”: a strange “Font-Robert-Point”

In France large private collections of Paleolithic artifacts were built up during the late 19th and early 20th century. This can be explained by the wealth of extremely rich archaeological sites and due to legal aspects that allowed a land … Continue reading

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Lost and Found: Epigravettian Point from the Gargano peninsula

In Western Europe, between ca. 22 k.a. and 20 k.a cal BP, human groups responded to LGM environmental conditions by developing a suite of new technologies characterized by a variety of diagnostic projectile points produced by bifacial retouch, which define … Continue reading

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A Jadeite Axe found in Köln during the 1970ies

This thin butted jadeite axe of „western European type“was found in 1971 in Köln during building operations. Neolithic polished stone axes made of Alpine eclogites, jades and other high-pressure metaophiolites, are rare in Central Europe. The raw material was once … Continue reading

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How old are African Handaxes?

A cordiform Handaxe from the Mauritanian Sahara made of jasper. Normally this blog is not dedicated to “breaking news”, but this paper, published in “Nature” by Lepreet al. is really of interest for the understanding of the beginning of handaxe … Continue reading

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