I shall have to bring in many unfamiliar words for the names of the
industries. The industries are usually named after the places where
they were first found, and since these were in most cases in France,
most of the names which follow will be of French origin. However,
the names have simply become handles and are in use far beyond the
boundaries of France. It would be better if we had a non-place-name
terminology, but archeologists have not yet been able to agree on such
a terminology.
THE ACHEULEAN INDUSTRY
Both in France and in Palestine, as well as in some African cave
sites, the next layers in the deep caves have an industry in both the
core-biface and the flake traditions. The core-biface tools usually
make up less than half of all the tools in the industry. However,
the name of the biface type of tool is generally given to the whole
industry. It is called the _Acheulean_, actually a late form of it, as
“Acheulean” is also used for earlier core-biface tools taken from the
glacial gravels. In western Europe, the name used is _Upper Acheulean_
or _Micoquian_. The same terms have been borrowed to name layers E and
F in the Tabun cave, on Mount Carmel in Palestine.
The Acheulean core-biface type of tool is worked on two faces so as
to give a cutting edge all around. The outline of its front view may
be oval, or egg-shaped, or a quite pointed pear shape. The large
chip-scars of the Acheulean core-bifaces are shallow and flat. It is
suspected that this resulted from the removal of the chips with a
wooden club; the deep chip-scars of the earlier Abbevillian core-biface
came from beating the tool against a stone anvil. These tools are
really the best and also the final products of the core-biface
tradition. We first noticed the tradition in the early glacial gravels
(p. 43); now we see its end, but also its finest examples, in the
deeper cave levels.
The flake tools, which really make up the greater bulk of this
industry, are simple scrapers and chips with sharp cutting edges. The
habits used to prepare them must have been pretty much the same as
those used for at least one of the flake industries we shall mention
presently.
There is very little else in these early cave layers. We do not have
a proper “industry” of bone tools. There are traces of fire, and of
animal bones, and a few shells. In Palestine, there are many more
bones of deer than of gazelle in these layers; the deer lives in a
wetter climate than does the gazelle. In the European cave layers, the
animal bones are those of beasts that live in a warm climate. They
belonged in the last interglacial period. We have not yet found the
bones of fossil men definitely in place with this industry.
[Illustration: ACHEULEAN BIFACE]
FLAKE INDUSTRIES FROM THE CAVES
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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