Halouanndji IV

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coordinates: 36 ° 39 ′ 0 ″  N , 38 ° 4 ′ 15 ″  E

Relief Map: Syria
marker
Halouanndji IV​
Magnify-clip.png
Syria

Halouanndji IV is an old Paleolithic site on the Sādschūr in Syria, a tributary of the Euphrates . 155 artifacts were found there on a former river terrace. It was mid-sized, recovered from river pebbles cores and haircuts and four hand axes . All in all, the Euphrates Valley shows a very high degree of homogeneity in stone processing, which depends heavily on the starting material, the river pebbles in question. The exact dating is not possible, it is only certain that the artifacts must have originated before the oxygen isotope level 10, i.e. are at least around 350,000 years old.

Dating

The finds could be related to those of Hammam Kebir II at the confluence of the Euphrates and Sādschūr, which in turn belonged to the same formation called Qf II as Ain Abu Jemaa, Ain Tabous and Hamadine . They can therefore be assigned to the time between MIS 36 and MIS 22. However, since the speed with which the Euphrates cut into the subsurface was apparently greater on the Syrian upper reaches than on the section further below, the deposits on the upper section could be younger. It can only be said that the location is younger than MIS 36 or 22, but older than MIS 10.

Lithic analysis

Andrew Shaw analyzed 151 of the 155 artifacts from Halouanndji IV. This included four hand axes, 27 cores not worked according to the Levallois technique, then 118 knock-offs that were also not worked according to the aforementioned technique. 62.9% of the pieces are heavily abraded, the rest, however, without abrasion or with only slight traces of these changes, which can be attributed to movements in the subsurface. Very slight disturbances in the stratification are also indicated by the fact that only a small part of the collection shows changes at the edges.

The artifacts all go back to coarse flint, most of which was probably collected from the river bed. The cores were only marginally processed, as was also shown at sites of the same era, such as Latamne on the Orontes . The cores of Halouanndji IV were 84.7 mm long and weighed 354 g. The length varied between 54.8 and 139.1 mm, the weight between 76 and 1244 g. The cores were mostly only used for a few cuts, so that only five of them had more than five corresponding notches, only one had 13. 29.6% of them still had their cortex on more than 50% of the surface, which had not been completely removed from any nucleus. 37.0% had only one platform, whereby the initial size did not allow extensive knocking off as the cores were only medium-sized.

The four hand axes show moderate abrasion, so they were transported in the river. They are medium in size and little edited. The largest of them is 135.4 mm long, 69.1 mm wide and 44.2 mm thick. The smallest hand ax is 87.5, then 47.5 and 43.3 mm. All four were worked exclusively with a hard hammer. The cutting end is at the top throughout.

The haircuts are mostly medium-sized and relatively robust. They come from round river pebbles that have been processed in a similar way to the cores. 88.3% have cortex on their back, processing there was unidirectional in 57.3% of the cases. In doing so, several platforms were seldom formed, and the pieces were hardly turned by hand during processing. The cuts were on average 67.3 mm long, 55.3 mm wide and 22.1 mm thick. The smallest cut measured 24.6 mm, it was 25.4 mm wide and only 8.3 mm thick. The largest, however, was 52.6 mm thick, 113.6 mm wide and 134.4 mm long. Two haircuts were retouched .

literature

  • Andrew D. Shaw: The Earlier Palaeolithic of Syria: Reinvestigating the Evidence from the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys , 2012, pp. 79-85, ISBN 978-1407309248

Remarks

  1. ^ Andrew D. Shaw: The Earlier Palaeolithic of Syria: Reinvestigating the Evidence from the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys , 2012, p. 80.
  2. ^ Andrew D. Shaw: The Earlier Palaeolithic of Syria: Reinvestigating the Evidence from the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys , 2012, Tab.6.32, p. 80.
  3. ^ Andrew D. Shaw: The Earlier Palaeolithic of Syria: Reinvestigating the Evidence from the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys , 2012, Table 6.35, p. 81.
  4. ^ Andrew D. Shaw: The Earlier Palaeolithic of Syria: Reinvestigating the Evidence from the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys , 2012, Tab.6.37, p. 82.