I've just completed my English language translation of:
Otte, Marcel & Janusz K. Kozlowski. 2004. La place du Baradostien dans l’origine du Paléolithique supérieur d’Eurasie. L'Anthropologie 108 (3-4): 395-406
an article in this month's issue of L'Anthropologie, which also contains several other articles of interest, noted by Jacques Cinq-Mars today in a "Bookyard" post, at:
CLICK HEREThe English language title of Otte & Kozlowski 2004 is: "The Significance of the Baradostian in the Origin of the Upper Paleolithic of Eurasia", a subject which, for some time now, I've been more or less in-the-dark and in search of more information. The Baradostian industry is found in the Zagros Mountains along both sides of the present-day Iraq-Iran border, and is the earliest manifestation of the Upper Paleolithic in this region. The English abstract of Otte & Kozlowski reads:
The Zagros “Baradostian” clearly belongs to Aurignacian traditions; earlier than traditions in the Levant, it now seems to be later than those in the Balkans. The Aurignacian territory is thus even larger than previously considered, extending from Portugal to Afghanistan. Enormous, profound and complex, the Aurignacian phenomenon cannot be reduced to simple terms, habitually sufficient for “cultures” more limited in range. A new operational mode must be developed to explain a process clearly associated with the origins of modern humans.
The conclusion of the authors seems to be that the Baradostian, which is sometimes called the 'Zagros Aurignacian', and which has old conventional 14C datings of between 40-29 kyr BP, does indeed belong to the "Aurignacian traditions", but they also make clear that while various facies of the European Aurignacian share with Baradostian some common techno-typological elements(stressing the production of blade armatures struck from carinated core-burins and core-scrapers), which are absent in the "transitional" industries of the Balkans and Central Europe, therefore: "This suggests the introduction of external Aurignacian features, probably superimposed on the local base of certain 'transitional' industries, initially in South-eastern Europe, then in the Middle Danube Basin. This complex origin of the Aurignacian would be more probable than a single, lone migratory flow, as classically envisioned" (Otte & Kozowski 2004:404 - my poor and dirty translation).
Inasmuch as Kozlowski had previously advocated a possible Baradostian origin for the Danube Aurignacian via Bacho Kiro, I found this statement to be something of a change of opinion, for specific reasons discussed in the paragraphs covering the relationship of the Bachokirian industry to the Baradostian and the Aurignacian, among which, I quote (again, my poor translation): "Also, the 'chaines operatoire' are different in the two entities: in Bachokirian, we observe a certain levalloisian technological tradition, which is quasi-missing in Baradostian" (Otte & Kozlowski 2004:404).
The point being that Otte and Kozlowski seem to have arrived in agreement with the recent evaluation of the Bachokirian published by Tsanova & Bordes:
T. Tsanova and J.-G. Bordes, Contribution au débat sur l’origine de l’Aurignacien : principaux résultats d’une étude technologique de l’industrie lithique de la couche 11 de Bacho Kiro In: T. Tsonev and E. Montagnari Kokelj, Editors, The Humanized Mineral World, Actes du Workshop de Sofia (septembre 2003), ERAUL, Liège (2003), pp. 41–50 103.
mentioned in passing during an earlier discussion here:
CLICK HEREfrom which I include a translation of the Tsanova & Bordes conclusion on the Bachokirian (from Jacques, this time):
"The association of all these attributes cannot be attributed to mixture because they are associated on the same objects in the context of coherent system. If from the point-of-view of technical traditions this industry appear to belong to the MP, it also looks as if it corresponds to traces left by groups exhibiting techno-economic behaviours usually attributed the UP. In this sense, we feel that this industry can be viewed as a transitional one, with affinities to complexes such as the Central European Bohunician (Svoboda, 1990) or, also with industries such as Boker Tachtit, in Israel(Marks & Reid Ferring, 1988; Marks, 1983), Üçagizli cave in Turkey (Kuhn, 2002 ; Kuhn et al., 1999), and Ksar Aqil in Lebanon (Azoury, 1986). While there is need for more detailed comparisons [between these complexes/industries] we feel that, at this time, the most apt label for the Bacho Kiro material is Bachikirian. On the other hand, we believe that the Bacho Kiro-Level 11 cannot be viewed anymore as signaling a possible origin of the Aurignacian because the principal traits/markers/indicators of this technocomplex [Aurignacian] (soft hammer direct percussion, volumetric organization of the debitage, importance of blade production, unipolarity…) in both its atlantic and mediterranean facies, (Bon & Bodu, 2002), are not found at Bacho Kiro. It follows that one cannot view anymore Bacho Kiro-Level 11 as an element testifying to the diffusion of the Aurignacian in Europe, but, instead, as the trace of gradual transformations which, everywhere in Europe, seem to emerge from a Mousterian substrate".
All of which is to say, perhaps it won't be long now before people will begin to have serious doubts about the earliest traces of the European Aurignacian being located in Bacho Kiro, level 11. Especially since the excavator (Kozlowski) seems to have expressed a [major?] change in his opinion on the subject of Bachokirian/Aurignacian connections.
Happy holidays to all,
Dar
