Ain al Fil
Aïn al Fil ( Arabic عين الفيل, DMG ʿAyn al-Fīl 'Elefantenbrunnen') is an archaeological site in the area of El Kowm in the Syrian desert , about 3 km from the village of El Kowm, east-southeast of Tell Arida. The site at a height of 465 m offers the oldest known human traces of the entire Levant, dating to almost 1.8 million years, and thus replaces the Israeli site Yiron, which was previously considered the oldest evidence of the presence of hominins . The lithic artifacts are close to the Oldowan .
Excavations, dating
During the excavations of 2008 and 2010, un- retouched cuttings , rubble tools and core-like artifacts were found in the oldest layers . They are part of the so-called mode 1 of human stone processing technology, and the stone implements are also very similar to those in East Africa. They were formed shortly before the Olduvai-Matuyama reversal, i.e. at least 1.77 million years ago. The artefacts are far ahead of those of the neighboring, southeastern Hummal , layers 19-23, with perhaps 1.2 million years, the oldest in the Levant. With 1.6 to 1.2 million years, Bizat Ruhama is also on the edge of the Negev much younger, similar to Ubeidiya in the Jordan Valley .
In 1980 the site at an artesian well was inventoried as No. 9 of a total of 143 sites in Syria under the name Aïn Chekh Ali alias Qadouriyeh . It was registered as Ain Beni Ali Nord by the relevant Syrian authorities . The fountain is known locally as Aïn al Hamediyeh , but there it is also called Bir Hassan Onuzi after the owner of the fountain . The fact that Jacques Cauvin referred to him as Tell Hassan Unozi contributed to further confusion .
In 2003 Reto Jagher discovered rubble tools and fragments of an elephant's tusk in the basin that represents the site, which is 20 m in diameter and only a few meters deep ; the species could be classified between Mammuthus trogontherii , the steppe mammoth , and Mammuthus meridionalis , the southern elephant , so it was a transitional form. Jagher named the site accordingly Aïn al Fil , which means something like 'elephant well'. In the meantime this name has also been adapted by the local population.
In what is now the extremely dry region, Elephantidae could only survive during the Old and the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene . As early as 1983, tool finds had indicated that hominins had lived there in the " Clactonia " age, which was rather unspecifically dated to the Old or Middle Paleolithic , so that the old age was not entirely surprising. During an inspection in 2004, very archaic-looking devices were once again collected.
In 2008, Hélène Le Tensorer and Vera von Falkenstein discovered artifacts from an Oldowan industry at the bottom of the quaternary section. Layer F contained pieces from what was initially known as the “ Tayacia ” culture. The said elephant remains were found in layer I. In layer L1a there were few bones, while L1b contained numerous mammalian bones, including those from Equus stenonis , but also bones from very large bovids and camelids. The said Oldowan industry was detected below, in layer L2. Below is only rock.
In 2009, Juan José Villalain collected samples for paleomagnetic dating . Above layer D1, the stones had a normal magnetic field orientation, while the Oldowan layer was just above a layer that belongs to the time of the Olduvai-Matuyama reversal, about 1.77 million years ago. The elephant remains, that is, the aforementioned transitional form, was known from Europe up to that point and was also dated, albeit less precisely. It existed there 1.6 to 1.4 million years ago, but was traced back to older, Asian forms. The remains of Equus stenonis also fit this picture insofar as this species lived in Europe 2 million years ago.
About 800 artifacts were recovered from the first pit, which was built in 2008 and 2010. This included rubble tools , predominantly made of flint , as well as so-called "flint manuports", i.e. flint stones that were transported by people but not worked on and that show no signs of use except for impact marks, then cores and chips. The former could be divided into three groups, namely unifacial choppers or “hackers” with an uneven cutting edge, then classic bifacial and multifacial choppers with blunted tips. In contrast to Layer 18 in Hummal, there are no spheroids. Shapeless or spherical cores are the standard. Then there are cobbles, barely worked, pebble-like devices.
Significance for Out of Africa 1
Until the discovery of Aïn al Fil, it was assumed that the first hominins to leave Africa ( Out of Africa 1 ) would have made their way across the Dead Sea , the Jordan and the Beqaa valleys to continue from there to the Hike north. The Aïn al Fil site shows that deserts can also be considered as potential routes of expansion, as Swiss archaeologists were able to prove for the early Acheuléen in El Kowm as early as 1982 .
literature
- Jean-Marie Le Tensorer , Hélène Le Tensorer, Pietro Martini, Vera von Falkenstein, Peter Schmid, Juan José Villalain: The Oldowan site Aïn al Fil (El Kowm, Syria) and the first humans of the Syrian Desert , in: L'anthropologie 119 (2015) 581-594.
- Jean-Marie Le Tensorer: Le Paléolithique ancien de Syrie et l'importance du Golan comme voie de passage lors de l'expansion des premiers hommes hors d'Afrique , in A. Abdel Rahman (ed.): The International Co !! oquium - History and Antiquities of Al-Golan , Ministry of Culture, Damascus 2009, pp. 37–56.
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ This article is based primarily on Jean-Marie Le Tensorer , Hélène Le Tensorer, Pietro Martini, Vera von Falkenstein, Peter Schmid, Juan José Villalain: The Oldowan site Aïn al Fil (El Kowm, Syria) and the first humans of the Syrian Desert , in: L'anthropologie 119 (2015) 581-594.