Wadi Aabet (archaeological site)
 
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The archaeological site of Wadi Aabet is located near Tripoli in Lebanon in the eponymous wadi , a river that falls dry in summer. In accordance with the fact that the discoverers of the site were French Jesuits , the site is often called Ouadi Aabet .
The site is attributed to the Middle or Early Late Acheuleans of the Levant . It comes from the first quarter of the Mindel-Riss interglacial and differs significantly from the Ras Beirut Ib surface site discovered in 1946 , which was attributed to the Latamne culture or tradition. Dating at such sites is mostly impossible because they have no stratigraphy , so the place is assigned to the long epoch of the Middle Acheuléen, which corresponds to about 700,000 to 400,000 years ago. The site in the wadi is a former beach site. Such sites are rare in Lebanon, as the transition from the mountains to the sea is generally very steep. This should also have been the case in the Acheuléen.
A total of 53 artifacts were found in Wadi Aabet, nine of which were classified as hand axes . Underneath was a basalt hand ax . It represents the only case of an adaptation of this technique to a different local material.
literature
- Henri Fleisch , Paul Sanlaville: La plage de + 52 m et son Acheuléen à Ras Beirut et le Wadi Aabet, Liban , in: Paléoorient 2,1 (1974) 45-85 ( full text ).
Remarks
- ↑ Fred Wendorf, Anthony E. Marks (ed.): Problems in Prehistory. North Africa and the Levant , Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas 1975, p. 267.
- ↑ Recherches françaises sur le quaternaire hors de France , Supplement, 1977, p. 107.
- ↑ Christophe Delage: Chert Availability and Prehistoric Exploitation in the Near East , John and Erica Hedges, Oxford 2007, p. 155.