All,
Here are a few points I feel should be made in response to Anthrostudies & al. ongoing discussion. Since It could have been much longer, confusing and boring, I won’t apologize for the length.
Anthrostudies:
This is interesting because the Soanian in Asia, is a very primitive style of tool industry which persists into the Neolithic - I wonder what species of hominid made the Soanian.
I know its not relevent, since the tools haven't been redated. But, if an Acheulian-like (Mode 2/3) industry can survive for so long elsewhere, an Upper Paleolithic industry could persist into the Neolithic in Europe.
If theres a link between certain archaic and modern races, then, ghost lineages into more recent times are suggested by the late appearence of certain modern types.
Assuming that I understand you correctly, allow me to disagree. To quote Geraads & al. 2004:759 ( ref. below),
“The use of a so-called simple technology by hominids is certainly neither a univocal indicator of high antiquity nor a deciding factor of cultural affinity.” … and, I would add that this applies to instances of human phylogenetic appurtenance and this, in quite a few research circumstances.
Geraads, Denis, Jean-Paul Raynal, and Vera Eisenmann. 2004. The earliest human occupation of North Africa: a reply to Sahnouni et al. (2002). Journal of Human Evolution 46: 751–761.CLICK HERE for access to the actual article.
The history of prehistoric or palaeoanthropological research, from the late 19th century to almost the end of the first half of the last one, is filled with a variety of so-called ‘typological’ hypotheses -- such as the one(s) you seem to suggest (adhere to ?) -- that were, in addition, coupled with the rather simplistic ethnographic (‘comparative method’) analogies of the days. As the years went by, many if not most of these were found to be, interpretively/paradigmatically, rather wanting or just plain cul-de-sacs. Unfortunately, history, in this case, does seem to repeat itself or, at the very least, to drag on forever, and there are still quite a few researchers around who appear not to be too concerned about the finer lessons of history.
This said, I would suggest that it is incorrect or, at the very least uncautious and potentially misleading and confusing to apply basic cultural taxonomic labels to entities such as the Soanian which, to my knowledge, remains to be well understood and clearly characterized/defined with regards to it overall chronological, techno-typological, etc. context(s) and the actual identity of its bearers/makers.
For more on the Soanian, see
HERE, as well as the abstract of a paper presented by Parth Chauhan at the recent Montreal Palaeoanthropology meeting. See
HERE.
Anne Gilbert:
You say you wonder what species of hominid made the Soanian? I don't know. I don't know anything about the Soanian. OTOH, it seems like what evidence there is suggests that you can't really link a tool type to a type or species of hominid any more. Both AMH and Neandertals utilized "Mousterian" tools in what is now Israel. and Neandertals used the more "advanced" Chatelperronian later on. The suggestion that comes out of this Vogelherd study is that, absent any fossils, we don't know *who* used the earliest Aurignacian. Maybe *both* Neandertals *and* AMH. Until we have some fossils, there will be no way of knowing.
Just a picky point, here. You are quite right in noting that hominid-lithics equations have now been shown to frequently incorrect. However, such invalidations are rarely, if at all, arrived at on the basis of ‘tool types’, but on contextually (relatively) well-defined industries/cultural traditions. For example, I can assure you that I have found very respectable ‘Acheulean’ and dignified ‘Mousterian’ bifaces in eastern Beringia. If I had not known better, perhaps I would have made it into the media. In other words, ‘tool-types’ alone can be very misleading.
Anthrostudies (in response to A.G. – above):
Yes, you're right, its a mystery. With the Soanian being a transitional Acheulian to Mousterian industry though, its a impessive survival of a tool type until the Neolithic?
See my earlier comments.
Paul Tréhin:
Older lithic industries sem to survive long after new ones have appeared. It is actually the case for most tools : even though electric powered planes used in wood work have been invented more that 40 years ago, hand held planes are still in use...
A few years ago I saw a great TV reportage on a small contemporary tribe in Papouasia which was still using acheulean tools. The grand father was teaching his grand children where to find appropriate flint nodules, how to chose the right ones and how to do flint knapping. It was extremely interesting, unfortunately, I haven't been able to retrieve the producer of the reportage.
This shows that stone industries can survive for very long periods.
From the above, it should be clear that these people from Papua were definitely not [making] and using Acheulean tools, but their own, in time and space and that the superficial similarities between the latter and the former – - which happen to be separated by great chronological and geographical distances –- can definitely not be used to overstate the survival length of ‘industries’ and lithic techno-complexes.
Paul Tréhin:
I just thought of another possibility for the Vogelherd ivory horse being dated from the Aurignatian. Could it be that the ivory itself was from that period but that the sculpture was made much later on ?
From a style point of view this would be rather unlikely... Neolithic art was much less realistic than the ivory horse is.
Were there neolithic style artefacts besides the ivory horse and the recently found Acheulean tools ?
Well, what a fantastic new subject of research...
Fossil or sub-fossil ivory is used now and is likely to have been used in the distant past, for a variety of purposes. As a matter of fact, an Alaskan site has yielded, a few years ago, an ivory point whose date is a bit earlier than all the other dates obtained from the stratigraphic unit in which it was found. In fact, sufficiently older to suggest that the actual ivory blank is likely to have come from fossil mammoth ivory. But in this instance and all the other ones I know of, the raw material in question is (was) obtained from sedimentary deposits of various kinds which are (or must have been) characterized by continuous or near/discontinuous permafrost conditions. If it could be demonstrated that such unique preservation conditions were present in the Swabian Jura shortly prior to and at the time of the Vogelherd Aurignacian occupation, one would be in a position to imagine an ‘earlier than’ date for the Vogelherd ivory figurines, but certainly not younger and definitely not Neolithic. It follows that the most parsimonious explanation is that the figurines in question were produced by Aurignacian carvers using relatively fresh or possibly, if permafrost conditions were extant, on fossil ivory.
Daryl Habel:
And no "recently found Acheulean tools" at Vogelherd either. You seem to be confusing anthrostudies' change of subject (to Acheulean-Soan, which is a Pakistani-Indian Himalayan industry) with Vogelherd.
You are right. This was (is) all very confusing.
Jacques
