Lupemban

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The lupemban culture (or Lupembien) is a spätmittelpaläolithische (late Middle Stone Age ) to frühjungpaläolithische ( Late Stone Age ) industry in Central Africa ( Congo Basin ) and Angola and potentially low with however, poorly datable inventories in West Africa . However, it has left traces as far as South Africa and Sudan .
The Lupemban developed with and from the Sangoan and together with it forms a complex of the so-called woodland group (based on today's ecological ecological situation, because during the last millennia the sub-Saharan climate changed decisively several times, as is assumed under the influence of different colds - and warm periods of the northern hemisphere and their interstadials ). It used to be classified as much younger than it is today, where a start is set for around 300,000 BP, i.e. still in the late acheuléen. The techno complex is named after the Lupemba station on the Kasai in Angola . (For technical terminology with the distinctions complex, industry and inventory as well as the tool categories (modes) m1 to m5, see prehistoric terminology and systematics .)

Periodization and Carrier

Periodization: John Desmond Clark (in Volume 1 of his Cambridge History of Africa from 1982/89) and others had previously assumed that the Lupemban was primarily a phenomenon of the Young Pleistocene and thus coincided primarily with the Eem warm period and the first phase the Würm glacial period or with its potential climatic effects on sub-Saharan Africa, i.e. wetter and warmer first, drier and 6 degrees colder afterwards.
Overall, based on the inventories, a distinction was made between 3 stages of Lupemban , especially in the equatorial area :

  1. An early stage or lower Lupemban before 40,000 BP, when the climatic consequences of the Würm Ice Age pushed the rainforests back in favor of savannahs for about 70,000 years.
  2. As middle stage or upper Lupemban after 40,000 BP.
    These two phases had to be abandoned for dating reasons.
  3. On the other hand, there is a final stage that is usually divided into two regionally different phases:
    1. A complex that could have arisen in the far northeast of the Congo Basin from the Bambata complex and begins around 40 / 30,000 BP, ending roughly at the beginning of the Holocene . The savannah was decisive for the environment. The main find is the Matupi Cave in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (before 1997 Zaire ).
    2. A complex at the end of the Middle Pleistocene between 19,000 and 10,000 BP in Zambia that has even stronger Lupemembu suits. His highly developed tool repertoire mainly includes small, finely crafted tips, Levallois tees and disc cores as well as trapezoidal micro-drills and micro-tips for arrow shafts (petits tranchets). He is also known as the Lupembo-Tschitolian . At sites in the southern Congo Basin in more densely forested river valleys, dulled microliths are found more often on the back, while sites on less forested plateaus tend to have larger, two-sided retouched tools, possibly evidence of environmentally adapted hunting methods of different groups or the same group due to seasonal factors.

New evaluation: Due to the fact that the dating to approx. 300,000 BP has been moved back much further, the Lupemban finds had to be completely reevaluated in recent years and Clark's previous division into three phases in the late Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic had to be revised, especially for the first two phases . The classic Lupemban industries are no longer seen so much as a reflection of certain environmental conditions, such as the effects of the European Würm Warm Period, but rather as local manifestations of a very widespread technological tradition, the specific properties of which depend at least in part on the material available in each case . Environmental factors may well have played a role in the tool typology as a framework for human activities and their ability to cope with the environment using certain tools. In the meantime, one sees not only the Lupemban as a kind of mosaic, which consists of variations within the framework of a broad overall picture and less as a contrast between the two clearly defined cultural zones Lupemban and Tschitolian, which is also in this context with its inventories determined primarily by microliths heard. Recent research has confirmed both the widespread use and importance of the Lupemban industries during the later phases of the Middle Pleistocene and the early phases of the Young Pleistocene . The central role of one type of tool, the blade tip, in the cultural classification is thus also obsolete. Rather, the Lupemban now plays a critical role in interregional transitions, such as the transition from simple, coarse core tools to the microliths of the Tschitolian. Lupembam suits can therefore be found even in Namibia, and North African Atérien could also be more closely related to Lupembam than to widespread European or Levantine Levallois tool traditions .

Carrier: Possibly, at least in the early phase, these are representatives of Homo rhodesiensis such as the Sangoan, which at that time was still widespread across sub-Saharan Africa and is interpreted paleoanthropologically as a possible link between early Neanderthals and archaic Homo sapiens . However, an early form of anatomically modern human ( Homo sapiens ) is probably the bearer of culture, especially since an associated human lower jaw with an almost modern shape was found at the East African Porc Epic site near Dire Dawa . The basis of this later dating of the hominid finds from Broken Hill (today Kabwe ) are newer amino acid dates of the accompanying remains of the mammalian fauna (slaughtering remains in the local cave of 25 large mammals, 5 of which were now extinct savannah forms), which roughly changed with the beginning of the Eem- Warm period covers. Because there are hardly any hominids found, especially in the rainforest areas, a clear statement can hardly be made here. In addition, the finds are somatically very heterogeneous, and Sapiens types mix with neandertaloid forms. In particular in the western Congo basin there are no hominid finds (the acidic milieu of the rainforest floor dissolves bones), so that the type of people responsible for the Lupemban and Tschitolian remains unclear. Occasionally it was assumed that the type was closer to today's, particularly dark-skinned inhabitants of West Africa than to the Bushmen ( Khoisan ) of the east and south, although we now know that the genetic differences between the two groups are not that great. The relationship to today's pygmies is also rather unclear; however, they appear to have physical elements from both groups.

Distribution, dating, tool inventory, environment

Distribution: The Lupemban, together with the Stillbay complex south of Cape Town and the Pietersburg complex in the Transvaal (name until 1994, today the four northeastern provinces of South Africa), is the main characteristic of the Middle Paleolithic in sub-Saharan Africa. What these three techno complexes have in common is the appearance of flat, retouched, leaf-tip-like devices that vary between triangular, oval, heart-shaped, almond-shaped and symmetrical, double-pointed shapes. They were found in large numbers near Dundo in northern Angola , but in a secondary location in river gravel. However, it is assumed that their occurrence there is linked to certain geological conditions, especially fine-grained homogeneous material. Typologically, the relationship to the older hand axes of the Acheuleans is often clear.
In view of the much earlier chronology of the Lupemban and especially of the Sangoan, one can no longer assume, as it used to be, that both cultures were mainly of the open tree savannahs of sub-Saharan Africa with the center in equatorial Africa , when the wetlands there became temporarily drier and in the expanding savannahs, new demands on the device technology had arisen, even if the Sangoan was thought to have denser forest habitats because of the devices that are potentially suitable for woodworking, such as pecking (analysis of traces of use ). At least it can still be said that the Lupemban and the Sangoan probably have their roots in the late acheuléen. In addition, environmental influences are by no means excluded in recent research.
For the later phase of the Lupemban, such environmental influences are more likely to be detectable. Especially finds in East Africa, which occur there together with the Bambata complex , which is at least 30,000 to 45,000 years old, which is very common here , possibly show such dependencies on the basis of paleozoological evidence that indicate a more humid climate at that time. Findings from Somalia and Ethiopia provided similar evidence. Finds near Khartoum also point in this direction and could mean that the Lupemban extended along the valley of the White Nile into humid regions.
The Sudanese Lupemban and the analogous inventories there are also extensively associated with the Khormusan of Northeast Africa, one of the last cultures of the Later Stone Age , which begins at around 40 / 30,000 BP and ends at around 18 / 20,000 BP. In addition, similar forms occur at other sites in Sudan (the Arkin site in Lower Nubia , there Stratum 5, where Lupemban-like lanceolates were found). Similar in Ghana and in the Kalahari , which at that time apparently offered much better opportunities to live than today and where Lupemban tools appear together with Sangoan inventories. Somewhat later inventories can be found together with Sangoan types in Muguruk in western Kenya as well as in Rwanda and Burundi .

Dating and the environment: The Lupemban started much earlier than previously assumed, because there are inventories of Lupemban trains at Mumbwa in Zambia and other places (e.g. Twin Rivers near Lusaka in Central Zambia) that may range between 250,000 and 170,000 Could be years old. But the Lupemban actually follows on from the Sangoan, the periodization of which, however, has now also been shifted back to 250,000 BP and earlier and in its beginnings possibly goes back to 400,000 BP.
A similarly old Lupemban layer stratigraphically isolated over a Sangoan layer may also be between 250,000 and 170,000 years old, but this point is now relatively and not absolutely datable, as it was not found in an undisturbed location, but in a fluvial gravel layer. As at comparable sites in Northern Angola, local pollen analysis findings show that the climate at that time was not very different from today's. A least 300,000 year-old reference in Mwanganda in northern Malawi is also attributed to the lupemban culture and contains almost exclusively page retouched haircuts with a few nuclear devices . Regarding these early dates, however, it must be said that these inventories were mostly found in a secondary location as floating debris and were probably mixed with other types, so that a typologically and chronologically reliable classification is neither given nor possible.
The finds of Katanda on the Semliki River north of Edward Lake near Ishango in the easternmost corner of the Congo Republic represent a certain special case , for whose inventories corresponding to the Lupemban from the m3 device typology an indirectly derived age between 170,000 and 80,000 years Is accepted. The problem here, however, is the fact that finely crafted, barbed harpoon tips made of bone were found in the equipment inventory there , the development of which would therefore have to start much earlier than that of the European bone harpoons with soluble shaft tips, whose age is determined to be 15,000 years at the most has been. The development of bone processing would also have to be redefined. The chronological classification of these so-called katanda harpoons is currently the subject of scientific controversy.
Even earlier with radiocarbon dating , i.e. values ​​measured at its upper safety limit, which initially resulted in inventories to be dated very late, meanwhile had to be strongly corrected according to modern uranium-thorium measurements in connection with dated findings from other areas of discovery. For example, at one of the most important sites, the Kalambo cases , there was initially a sequence of 32,000 to 27,500 BP. In the meantime, however, it is assumed that the lower time limit of the Lupemban should be around 50,000 BP at most and that the material here is between 300,000 and 400,000 years old.

Tool inventory : (For the typical inventory periodization, see there.) The classic Lupemban inventory is mainly produced using the Levallois technique . Characteristics are double points with surface retouching on both sides, so-called leaf tips (lanceolates), altogether very carefully worked two-sided stone artifacts. These include the technically most outstanding products of the Paleolithic device manufacture in Africa. Some of them were probably used as knives, but most of them were used as lance and spear points, especially since some show clear scarf marks . The devices are rather small. In addition to the tools mentioned, they mainly include burins , hatchets , side scrapers and blades , back knives and flat discs, which were probably used for woodworking. Core axes similar to those of the Sangoan also occur. The late phase of the Lupemban then changes into the Tschitolian , especially in the Congo area , the latest phase of the Congo Middle Paleolithic.

The Acheuléen / Sangoan-Lupemban-Tschitolian complex

John Desmond Clark identified two complexes of the Early / Middle and Late Stone Age in his "Cambridge History of Africa" ​​published together with John Donnelly Fage : a Sangoan-Lupemban and a Lupembo-Tschitolian . In Sub-Saharan Africa , the Sangoan, together with the subsequent Lupemban and the subsequent Chitolian, forms a cultural sequence Acheuléen / Sangoan - Lupemban - Tschitolian , because both Sangoan and Lupemban as well as Lupemban and Chitolian partially overlap and thus result in two interlocking complexes that are combine to form the overall complex Sangoan-Lupemban-Tschitolian.
See Sangoan and the individual main articles on the Sangoan-Lupemban and Lupembo-Tschitolian complex.

Literature and Sources

Individual evidence

  1. ^ David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, pp. 116 f., 122 f., 128; John Desmond Clark (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982/89, Vol. 1, pp. 61, 202 ff., 246.
  2. ^ Hermann Müller-Karpe: Handbook of Prehistory. Volume I: Paleolithic . 2nd edition. CH Beck Verlag, Munich 1977, p. 109; Brockhaus, Vol. 1, p. 623, Vol. 2., p. 49.
  3. ↑ The Stone Age period in Africa differs greatly from that of Europe. See cultural historical periodics
  4. ↑ Sherratt, p. 80; John Desmond Clark (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982/89, Vol. 1, pp. 289 ff., 315.
  5. ↑ John Desmond Clark (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982/89, Vol. 1., pp. 289 ff.
  6. ↑ John Desmond Clark (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982/89, Vol. 1, pp. 291 f.,; David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, pp. 109, 120 f.
  7. ^ David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, p. 121 f.
  8. ↑ John Desmond Clark (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982/89, vol. 1, p. 469; David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, p. 124.
  9. ↑ John Desmond Clark (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982/89, Vol. 1, pp. 293, 320.
  10. ↑ Hermann Baumann (ed.): The peoples of Africa and their traditional cultures . 2 vols. Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1975 and 1979, p. 32; Hermann Müller-Karpe: Handbook of Prehistory. Volume I: Paleolithic . 2nd edition. CH Beck Verlag, Munich 1977, p. 109 f.
  11. ↑ John Desmond Clark (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982/89, Vol. 1, pp. 471 f.
  12. ^ David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, p. 117.
  13. ^ Hermann Müller-Karpe: Handbook of Prehistory. Volume I: Paleolithic . 2nd edition CH Beck Verlag, Munich 1977, p. 109.
  14. ↑ Lutz Fiedler, Gaëlle Rosendahl, Wilfried Rosendahl: Paleolithic from A to Z. WBG, Darmstadt 2011, p. 294.
  15. ↑ Britannica, Vol. 7, p. 566; John Desmond Clark (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982/89, Vol. 1., pp. 291 f.
  16. ^ David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, pp. 116ff., 139
  17. ^ David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, p. 108.
  18. ^ David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, p. 139.
  19. ^ David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, pp. 124, 139.
  20. ↑ John Desmond Clark (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982/89, vol. 1, pp. 215, 222, 292; David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, p. 123.
  21. ^ David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, pp. 108, 117, 124.
  22. ^ David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, pp. 82, 85, 117.
  23. ^ David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, pp. 117, 120.
  24. ^ David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, p. 120; Hoffmann, p. 171.
  25. ^ David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, p. 69.
  26. ↑ Lutz Fiedler, Gaëlle Rosendahl, Wilfried Rosendahl: Paleolithic from A to Z. WBG, Darmstadt 2011, p. 222.
  27. ^ Hermann Müller-Karpe: Handbook of Prehistory. Volume I: Paleolithic . 2nd edition CH Beck Verlag, Munich 1977, p. 109.
  28. ↑ John Desmond Clark (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982/89, Vol. 1, pp. 290 f., 467; David W. Phillipson: African Archeology . 3rd edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, p. 117.
  29. ↑ John Desmond Clark (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982/89, Vol. 1, pp. 186, 204, 213 ff., 241, 246, 290, 317, 423, 426.
  30. ↑ John Desmond Clark (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982/89, Vol. 1, pp. 205, 317, 423-427, Vol. 2, pp. 62 f, 65.