Ain Abu Jemaa

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Aïn Abu Jemaa is an ancient Paleolithic site on the Euphrates , about 25 km northwest of Deir ez-Zor on the eastern border of Syria . In 1978, numerous remains of equipment were found in a mine there. The stone artifacts were assigned to the time between MIS 36 and 22, which corresponds roughly to the time a little before 1.2 to about 0.85 million years. All 355 cores and tees are in the National Museum Damascus , as are the ten hand axes .

Survey, geology, dating

From 1976 to 1980 excavations took place in the area around Aïn Abu Jemaa under the direction of Paul Sanlaville . In 1978, as part of a survey by the Center national de la recherche scientifique (Project RCP 438), ancient Paleolithic artifacts were discovered in a quarry. Since it was no longer possible to determine exactly where they had been collected, dating based on the layer from which they were taken was no longer possible. However, the artifacts were evidently exposed to such strong effects from the environment that they must have been moved in the rubble below, not in the layer of sand above. In this way, an assignment to the lowest and therefore oldest layer could be made probable. The deposits of the Euphrates were designated with Qf III , II and I formation , where “Qf” stands for “Quaternary fluvial”. The finds from Aïn Abu Jemaa were assigned to the formation Qf II , a designation that in turn refers to the Euphrates river and the geological epoch of the Quaternary . The site is located directly upstream from a basalt deposit (Ayash). Dating on this basalt deposit came to 402,000 ± 11,000 years. The debris above the camp is considered to be older, but it is not clear whether the deposition there was not over a long period of time.

Lithic analysis

Among the 355 artifacts were 81 non-Levallois cores, 260 tees, and ten hand axes.

Almost all artifacts, such as 77 of the 84 nuclei, show strong abrasions, which are typical for pronounced fluvial movements. They are probably younger than MIS 36, but older than MIS 22, i.e. at least 880,000 to 850,000 years old. However, a single one of these cores shows practically no abrasion, and it also shows only minor traces on the edges. It is therefore assumed that the core cannot have got into the rubble until much later. Of the ten hand axes, eight are heavily abraded, while two are only slightly. The same applies to the 261 flakes.

Neolithic example of a left cortex, in this case on a scratch from Northamptonshire , England , typical machining marks of a hard hammer

All devices are made of coarse-grained chert or flint. The severely affected cortex, also known as the cortex, does not allow an assignment to a specific place of origin. The only known location in question is in Jebel al-Bishri. However, since round pieces of rubble (cobbles) were used as the starting material, a corresponding raw material extraction on site must be assumed.

The cores have an average maximum length of 82.3 mm and weigh an average of 329 g. Most of them (75.9%) are to be understood as so-called “migrating platform cores”, as they arise from ad hoc discounts. On average, it was only processed twice to win a tee, with 2.8 tee shots. When reducing, the kernels were never worked for long, as in Maadan . The mostly preserved cortex - 55.2% of the nuclei still had more than half of the cortex - indicates only short processing episodes.

Five of the ten medium-sized hand axes are reasonably well preserved. Their length is between 98 and 123.6 mm, their width between 53.8 and 80.7 mm. The thickness varies between 28.1 and 54.7 mm. The little intensive processing left the nucleus almost the same size as it was found, and considerable parts of the cortex were also preserved. The two hand axes, on which the machining technique could be determined, were machined with a hard hammer.

The medium-sized, thick cuts according to the current vocabulary (a selection that can be explained by the river transport, but above all by the picking up itself, in which larger artifacts are collected more frequently) are on average 63.4 mm long, with the smallest only 30.8 mm, while the largest is 108.7 mm. The width, on average at 49.3 mm, varies even more. It ranges from 19.5 to 119.6 mm. The thickness also varies between 6.4 and 49.1 mm, but is only 19.3 mm on average.

A sidescraper is the only retouched artifact.

Similar observations were made at the Aïn Tabous site a little further downstream, based on the 55 cores, 7 hand axes and 158 cuts found there.

literature

  • Andrew Douglas Shaw: The Earlier Palaeolithic of Syria: Settlement History, Technology and Landscape-use in the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys , PhD, University of Durham, 2008, pp 215-223.
  • Andrew Douglas Shaw: The Earlier Palaeolithic of Syria. Reinvestigating the Evidence from the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys , Oxford 2012, pp. 23-27.

Remarks

  1. ^ Andrew Douglas Shaw: The Earlier Palaeolithic of Syria: Settlement History, Technology and Landscape-use in the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys , PhD, University of Durham, 2008, p. 215.
  2. ^ Andrew Douglas Shaw: The Earlier Palaeolithic of Syria: Settlement History, Technology and Landscape-use in the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys , PhD, University of Durham, 2008, p. 216.
  3. ↑ Anas Al Khabour offers an overview of the sites on the Syrian Euphrates and its two main tributaries: Histoire de l'occupation de la vallée de l'Euphrate entre le Balih et le Habur à l'époque préclassique , in: Juan-Luis Montero Fenolós ( Ed.): Du village neolithique à la ville syro-mésopotamienne , Ferrol 2012, pp. 163–175 ( academia.edu ).
  4. ^ Andrew Shaw: The Earlier Palaeolithic of Syria. Reinvestigating the Evidence from the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys , Oxford 2012, p. 27. For the activities of the project, cf. Lorraine Copeland : The Survey of RCP 438 in 1979 , in: Paul Sanlaville (Ed.): Holocene Settlement in North Syria , Oxford 1985, pp. 67-98.
  5. ^ Francis Hours : Le Paléolithique inférieur de la Syrie et du Liban. Le Point de la question en 1980 , in: Jacques Cauvin , Paul Sanlaville (Ed.): Préhistoire du Levant. Chronologie et organization de I'espace depuis les origines jusqu'au Vie millenaire, Colloques Internationaux du Center national de la recherche scientifique , 598, Lyon, 1981, pp. 165–183, here: p. 180.
  6. ↑ On the geology of the Euphrates valley cf. Tuncer Demir, Rob Westaway, David Bridgland, Malcolm Pringle, Sema Yurtmen, Anthony Beck, George Rowbotham: Ar-Ar dating of late Cenozoic basaltic volcanism in northern Syria: Implications for the history of incision by the River Euphrates and uplift of the northern Arabian Platform , in: Tectonics 26 (2007) 1-30 ( online , PDF).
  7. ↑ Andrew Douglas Shaw: The Earlier Palaeolithic of Syria: Settlement History, Technology and Landscape-use in the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys , PhD, University of Durham, 2008, p. 216 f.
  8. ^ Andrew Douglas Shaw: The Earlier Palaeolithic of Syria: Settlement History, Technology and Landscape-use in the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys , PhD, University of Durham, 2008, Table 8.3.10, p. 222.