Tag Archives: MSA

Symbolic Thinking

This is a symbol painted on a tree near the Willendorf site. Shurely an evidence of “Modern Symbolic Thinking” A symbol means something, whose meaning is determined by arbitrary relationship. This relationship is a socially construction, a convention which implied … Continue reading

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The MSA in Botswana and beyond

  There are 3 stratified MSA sites in Botswana: Rhino Cave and White paintings rock shelter are located at the World Heritage site of Tsodilo Hills, and the # Gi-site, in the Dobe Valley. Rhino cave, dated broadly to OIS4, … Continue reading

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Serrated Stone Artifacts

These items are a Late Paleo Dalton Point and serrated Dove Tail Point (Early Archaic) from Kentucky Serrated stone tools have some advantages compared to non-serrated ones: If used as an arrowhead, serrated projectiles are supposed to cause increased hemorrhage … Continue reading

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Sede Boker: Against the “behavioral modernity-paradigm”

A simple scraper and a borer-like biface . Two isolated findings from the Negev at Sede Boker. Were these artifacts produced by modern  or archaic humans? This seems to be a strange question, because both tools are within the range … Continue reading

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To Be or not to Be Aterian

Middle Paleolithic (Middle Stone Age) Ensembles of Northern Africa have been found over a vast area, reaching from the Mediterranean to the Southern Margins of the Sahara, and from the Maghreb to the Nile Valley. Nowadays there is a broad … Continue reading

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Obsidian during the Stone Age of East Africa and the Levant

This is a pyramidal Obsidian core from a late neolithic site in Turkey. Obsidian, a volcanic glass, is formed when volcanic lava is coming in contact with water. Iron and magnesium usually give the obsidian a dark green to black … Continue reading

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Lupemban bifacial tool

Quartzite Lupemban bifacial tool (24 cm long), found in the Southern Niger region. The Lupemban is an early MSA industry in Central Africa and on the fringes of the Congo basin first described by Breuil more than 60 years ago. … Continue reading

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Sangoan / Lupemban : Core axe from Katanga

The Sangoan and Lupemban of Central Africa and the Eastern Lowlands are MSA- technocomplexes dated roughly between 400-150 k.a BP. They can be identified on the basis of “heavy duty” core axes and picks (Sangoan) and smaller and parallel sided … Continue reading

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The Aterian: a Technocomplex created by H. Sapiens

Once thought to be an equivalent of the European Upper Paleolithic, the Aterian of the Maghreb, Libya and Egypt is now securely dated to OIS 5, 4 and 3 with the latest dates between 40 k.a. BP by TL, C-14,and ESR. The … Continue reading

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Hummalien at El-Kowm

These retouched blades, some of them 15-17 cm long, are from the Hummalien at El-Kowm and can be  seen in an rather improvized exhibition at the National Museum in Damascus, which I visited last week. In 1980, a first study … Continue reading

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