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This image shows Levallois and biface tools. Credit: Royal Holloway, University of London |
Royal Holloway, University of London. A new discovery of thousands of Stone Age tools has provided a major
insight into human innovation 325,000 years ago and how early
technological developments spread across the world, according to
research published in the journal
Science.
Researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London, together with
an international team from across the United States and Europe, have
found evidence which challenges the belief that a type of technology
known as Levallois – where the flakes and blades of stones were used to
make useful products such as hunting weapons – was invented in Africa
and then spread to other continents as the human population expanded.
They discovered at an archaeological site in Armenia that these
types of tools already existed there between 325,000 and 335,000 years
ago, suggesting that local populations developed them out of a more
basic type of technology, known as biface, which was also found at the
site.
Dr Simon Blockley and Dr Alison MacLeod, from the Department of
Geography at Royal Holloway, analysed volcanic material that preserved
the archaeological site in the village of Nor Geghi, in the Kotayk
Province of Armenia. By employing innovative procedures developed at
Royal Holloway, they extracted suitable material to help date the
Levallois tools.
"The discovery of thousands of stone artefacts preserved at this
unique site provides a major new insight into how Stone Age tools
developed during a period of profound human behavioural and biological
change", said Dr Blockley. "The people who lived there 325,000 years ago
were much more innovative than previously thought, using a combination
of two different technologies to make tools that were extremely
important for the mobile hunter-gatherers of the time.
"Our findings challenge the theory held by many archaeologists that
Levallois technology was invented in Africa and spread to Eurasia as the
human population expanded. Due to our ability to accurately date the
site in Armenia, we now have the first clear evidence that this
significant development in human innovation occurred independently
within different populations."
Archaeologists argue that Levallois technology was a more innovative
way of crafting tools, as the flakes produced during the shaping of the
stone were not treated as waste but were made at predetermined shapes
and sizes and used to make products that were small and easy to carry.
With the more primitive biface technology, a mass of stone was shaped
through the removal of flakes from two surfaces in order to produce
bigger tools such as a hand axes.
eurekalert.org /
Link 2 (
University of Connecticut)
More information: Early Levallois Technology and the Lower to Middle Paleolithic Transition in the Southern Caucasus,
Science, 2014.
www.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/… 1126/science.1256484
Actualización:
Los humanos tenían capacidad para innovar hace 300.000 años / SINC
La innovación local y no la expansión de la población provocó la aparición de nuevas tecnologías en Eurasia hace más de 300.000 años, según un estudio que publica la revista Science. Este resultado pone de manifiesto la antigüedad de la capacidad humana para la innovación.
El análisis de los artefactos de piedra de un yacimiento de hace 325.000
años en Armenia indica que la innovación tecnológica humana se produjo
de forma intermitente en distintas partes del Viejo Mundo, en lugar de
dispersarse desde un único punto de origen, como se pensaba
anteriormente. El estudio se publica hoy en la revista
Science.
Investigadores de la Universidad de Connecticut (EE UU) examinaron
miles de artefactos de piedra recuperados en Nor Geghi 1, un yacimento
armenio único al estar conservado entre dos flujos de lava, y datado
hace entre 200.000 y 400.000 años.
El estudio detallado de los
sedimentos permitió a los investigadores correlacionar las herramientas
de piedra con un período de tiempo de entre 325.000 y 335.000 años,
momento en el cual el clima de la Tierra era similar al de hoy.
Estos
utensilios proporcionan la primera evidencia clara de que hubo un uso
simultáneo de dos tecnologías distintas: la bifacial, comúnmente
asociada con la producción de hacha de mano durante el Paleolítico
Inferior; y la tecnología Levallois, que se relacionaba hasta ahora con
la desaparición de esta primera hace unos 300.000 años.
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