Early Stone Age

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Early Stone Age or Earlier Stone Age ( English , short: ESA ) is the term used in German for the oldest section of the Stone Age in Africa . The threefold division of the African Stone Age was first formulated in 1929 for South Africa and later extended to large parts of Africa. The Early Stone Age dates from around 2.6 million to 130,000 years ago and includes the archaeological cultures of Oldowan and Acheuléen . The beginning of the Old Paleolithic outside Africa occurred with a time lag: after the out-of-Africa expansion of Homo ergaster or Homo erectus about 1.8 million years ago in Western Asia , about 1.1 million years ago in Europe. The Middle Stone Age followed the Early Stone Age in Africa .

Oldowan

The Oldowan marks the oldest phase of the Early Stone Age. The name goes back to the eponymous site in the Olduvai Gorge , which was excavated by Mary Leakey and Louis Leakey in the sixties and seventies of the twentieth century. Like the designation Early Stone Age , the term Oldowan is by definition only used for sites in Africa, although there are early rubble equipment industries in other parts of the world that are up to 1.8 million years old. The main distribution area of ​​the Oldowan is East Africa .

In recent research (especially by Helene Roche ), the Oldowan is divided into several sub-levels: These are:

  • the Early Oldowan (dated about 2.6 to 2 million years ago);
  • the Oldowan (also known as the classic Oldowan; dates from around 2.0 to 1.7 million years ago);
  • the Developed Oldowan (so called by Leakey; beginning around 1.7 million years ago).

The distinction between these three stages is based on the tool shapes that were still manufactured at this time using the so-called hard impact technique . Early and classic Oldowan are still characterized by rubble devices such as the chopper or the chopping tool , whereas the first proto- two-sided (early forms of hand axes) appear in the Developed Oldowan . The later the Oldowan, the more frequent the occurrence of cutting industries (i.e. industries in which tools are no longer made from the core but from the chips; an example of this is the Dmanissi site in Georgia).

Acheulean

The African Acheuleans dates from around 1.7 to 0.3 million years ago. It begins with Upper Bed II of the Olduvai Gorge, where the first hand axes have been identified. The most important feature of this era is the appearance of hand axes and other so-called large cutting tools ( LCT ): These include, for example, Ovate (stone device with convex edges, made of elongated cores), Picks (stone device with two concave edges that create a rectangular working end) and Cleaver (artifacts with a sharp transverse edge). Another characteristic of the Acheuléen is the introduction of the soft hammering technique , i.e. stone processing using an organic material placed between the raw piece and the hammer stone. This results in a finer, less hard working of the stone.

See also

Portal: Prehistory and Protohistory  - Overview of Wikipedia content on the subject of Prehistory and Protohistory

literature

  • Gerhard Bosinski : The first people in Eurasia. In: Yearbook of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum. Volume 39, 1995, pp. 131-181.
  • Hallam L. Movius, Jr .: The Lower Paleolithic Cultures of Southern and Eastern Asia. In: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. Volume 38, 1949, pp. 329-420.
  • L. Ramendo: Les galets amenagés de Reggan (Sahara). In: Libyca 11, 1963, pp. 43-73.
  • Helene Roche et al .: Early hominid stone tool production and technical skill 2.34 Myr ago in West Turkana, Kenya. In: Nature . Volume 399, 1999, pp. 57-60, doi : 10.1038 / 19959 .
  • Wil Roebroeks , Thijs van Kolfschoten (Ed.): The earliest occupation of Europe. In: Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia. Volume 27, Leiden University Press, Leiden 1995.
  • S. Simone: Choppers et bifaces de l'Acheuléen mediterranéen. Monaco 1987.

Web links

Commons : Early Stone Age  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Astley John Hilary Goodwin, Clarence van Riet Löwe: The Stone Age Cultures of South Africa. In: Annals of the South African Museum. Volume 27, 1929, pp. 1-289.
  2. ↑ Gudrun Corvinus: Chapter Southern Africa . In: Ofer Bar-Yosef et al. (Ed.): New research on the Paleolithic. Research on General and Comparative Archeology (AVA), Volume 4, CH Beck, Munich 1984, pp. 465-547.
  3. ↑ Sileshi Semaw: The World's Oldest Stone Artefacts from Gona, Ethiopia: Their Implications for Understanding Stone Technology and Patterns of Human Evolution Between 2 6–1 5 Million Years Ago . In: Journal of Archaeological Science. Volume 27, 2000, pp. 1197-1214, doi: 10.1006 / jasc.1999.0592 , full text (PDF; 1.0 MB).
  4. ^ Mary D. Leakey: Olduvai Gorge, Volume 3. Excavations in beds I and II. 1960-1963. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1971, p. 4.
  5. ↑ Eric Delson et al .: Encyclopedia of human evolution and prehistory. Garland Verlag, New York / London 1988, p. 387 f.
  6. ↑ Mary D. Leakey: Olduvai Gorge, vol. 3. Excavations in beds I and II. 1960-1963. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1971, p. 8.
  7. ↑ Olaf Jöris: The old Paleolithic site Dmanisi (Georgia, Caucasus). Archaeological finds and findings from the complex of finds in the context of early human development. Publisher of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum, Mainz 2008, p. 108.
  8. ↑ Grahame Clark: The stone age hunters. Thames and Hudson, London 1967, p. 35.
  9. ↑ Mary D. Leakey 1971, pp. 1-8.