Anthropologie最新文献

Introduction

A research work on an overview of polished axes has not been undertaken yet in Ivory Coast. The present study is the very first one, which while intending to correct this shortcoming, analyses 418 polished axes collected in different contexts during the colonial period from 1941 to 1958 and kept at ‘Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire’ (IFAN)-Cheikh Anta Diop Dakar.

Objective

The idea among other things is first to understand the context of the immergence of these axes all over the country, to measure the importance of their distribution according to the current regions of the country, to soak up the different opinions about their origin and to propose a typology test allowing to have an approach of this lithic industry.

Methods

From there, a historical but also archaeological approach is necessary in the sense it is based on counting and analyzing letters and monographs of circles produced at the time the axes were collected and their typological study accounted for in the IFAN collection.

Results

It stems from this study that axes production in Ivory Coast has been governed by two phases, one relating to the preparation of the blanks which is characterized by the size and the other relating to the finishing of the axes which corresponds to polishing parts. The result of these techniques is the massive production of polished axes with mostly converging edges. At the same time, the results of surveys carried out among local populations showed that the polished axes are unknown to local populations.

Conclusion

This ignorance of the archaeological artefacts by the local populations is subject to interpretations of a mysterious and often supernatural order linked to their beliefs.

First investigations in the Niokolo-Koba National Park were undertaken in 1969 and conducted by the IFAN Archaeology laboratory (directed by Cyr Descamps) and the Geography laboratory with Christian Barbey, after the collection of a cupule stone by the director of the Park (A. Dupuy). The amateur prehistorian Dr. Gaillard also reported the presence of flakes in the Bafoulabé alluvium. These first collections of prehistoric tools, knapped mainly on jasper and jasper facies chert, were collected in the reworked levels of gravel under the bank (last and lowest alluvial level), in the minor bed of the Gambia (Gué de Bafoulabé) and Niokolo-Koba (at Passage du Koba and in a ravine, opposite the Niokolo camp). The surveys conducted between 1983 and 1984, and the excavation between 1982 and 2003 in the Falémé valley confirmed the identity of the geomorphological and stratigraphic scheme of the lower valley of the Falémé and the Middle Gambia at the crossing of the National Park of Niokolo-Koba. This research also allowed the observation of numerous new prehistoric sites, which confirm the previous data while showing the existence of industries in stratigraphic and geomorphological positions similar to those found in the Falémé valley. A final visit inside the Park in 2003 allowed to precise the GPS coordinates of the former manual locations (between 1982 and 1986). Three Stone Age periods were identified: the Acheulean, the Middle Stone Age, formerly known as the Mousteroid, and the Later Stone Age, formerly known as the Advanced/Final Palaeolithic. The present work takes up previous data presented in mission reports or master's theses in order to place Niokolo-Koba National Park in the major issues of West African prehistoric settlements.

Key evolutionary events in hominin evolution occurred between 3.5 and 2.4 Ma, including the origins of flaked tool technology and the first appearance of the genera Homo and Paranthropus. This period remains poorly understood, however, because deposits of this age are rarely exposed across Africa. The Luangwa River Valley of eastern Zambia is part of the southernmost extension of the East African Rift System; a fossil femur from South Luangwa, identified as Theropithecus cf. darti, hints at the presence of fossiliferous beds of this age in the Luangwa Valley. Additionally, Middle Pleistocene fossils and Early and Middle Stone Age artifacts have also been recovered in sediments adjacent to the Luangwa River. Fossils from these deposits could contribute data on the diversification of hominins and mammals that occurred during the Plio-Pleistocene. The Luangwa River also supports a rich modern mammalian community that represents a critical analogue for reconstructing hominin paleoenvironments. However, no systematic ecological characterizations of living or past mammalian communities of the Luangwa River Valley have been completed. The newly initiated Zambia Rift Valley Research Project (ZRVRP) will analyze the ecology of modern and fossil Luangwa River mammalian and human communities using dental microwear, enamel and collagen isotopic composition, the distribution of bones, fossils, and vegetation on the landscape, and archaeological materials. Patterns of paleoenvironmental change, climatic seasonality, and hominin landscape use over time will provide important comparative context for other Plio-Pleistocene sites. Here, we describe the goals, methods, and community engagement of the ZRVRP, and some challenges involved in launching new paleoanthropological field research.

This review paper presents an inventory of prehistoric sites from Ivory Coast, highlighting the issues with Stone Age sites protection policy. Beyond this inventory of the main known sites, we emphasize the current state of the classified Anyama site which shows quite well the deficiencies of institutional, legislative, and funding mechanisms for research on the Stone Age of Ivory Coast. Our methodological approach combines archaeological documentary research with an analysis of Ivorian legislation on cultural heritage. The crosschecking of these multiple data enables, among other results, to underline recent advances and non-developments of prehistoric archeology in Ivory Coast.

Evidence of early Homo sapiens populations at the Atlantic coast of Africa remains relatively poorly known in relation to other regions of the continent. Nevertheless, available data across the continent provides a good starting point for current and future research investigations. The many sites known, documented and studied contribute in an increasingly way to the global understanding of the human emergence, including evidence of human evolutionary and technological advances, specific adaptations to diverse environments, the diffusion of Homo species and how humans interacted with each other from the “Early Stone Age (ESA)” through to the Middle Stone Age (MSA) from northern and southern Africa to the West. The differences of knowledge between the Atlantic coast in regard to other regions might be attributed to a number of reasons including but not limited to the history of scientific interest, site formation processes or economic, institutional and political constraints. However, the region received a renewed attention and funds that, combined with new methods and techniques, has been allowing an increased training of new researchers and the acquisition of high-resolution archaeological, paleoenvironmental and chronological data. Together, these inputs will reduce the differences of knowledge between the Atlantic coast and the Northern, Southern and Eastern Africa regions. The African Atlantic Coast represents more than 40% of the continent's perimeter, covering all Africa's climate zones, the hot arid environments, mountainous regions, and tropical rainforest could become relevant barriers for human mobility, but the shallow continental platform, and the great number of river basins allowed mobility between north and south coastal biomes into the continental interiors. These may have provided predictable patchy clusters of resources allowing human populations to thrive, enabling greater mobility and consequent diffusion of cultural traits, resources, and DNA. In this paper we review the record about the prehistory, paleoenvironments and paleoanthropological visibility and potentiality of Atlantic Africa.

Sub-Himalayas are comprised of Pliocene and Pleistocene formations, the Upper Siwaliks, shaped by the still active tectonics and by the Himalayan Rivers and their tributaries building terraces. All these terrains have yielded, at least from surface, Palaeolithic remains, whose ages are difficult to assess precisely. The earliest evidence of human activity probably occurs at the end of Pliocene. Undoubtedly, peopling was not continuous but lithic industries witness each of the main Palaeolithic technical phases. Until the end of the Middle Palaeolithic, technical practices in Sub-Himalayas are consistent with those in Peninsular India, south of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, yet with always more cobble tools, especially in surface collections. Such industries were named Soanian. However, from the time when the so-called “modern” behaviours emerged in Peninsular India, around 45 ka, the Sub-Himalayas continued to accommodate lithic industries with cobble tools in increasing proportion. This makes this region more akin to Southeast Asia, where industries of this time period belong to Hoabinhian tradition, rich in cobble tools, of which the “sumatraliths” are the most significant tool type. The question remains to know which phenomenon induced these diverging technical practices between north and south of the Indo-Gangetic Plain.

Intentional dental modifications are known to have occurred on several continents at different periods and have been used as a diachronic bio-cultural marker to reconstruct the history of human settlement on different geographical scales. Such practices, present since the Neolithic in Southeast Asia, are thought to have originated in China and to co-exist in different forms in archaeological sites. There are many gaps and the proportion of archaeological evidence of these practices varies, making it impossible to trace their history and evolution perfectly. However, in Cambodia, cases of dental ablations are known from the Neolithic, the Metal Age and historical periods, and joint cases of dental abrasions or ablations have been attested since the Metal Age. As cases of dental abrasion were documented right up to the end of the twentieth century, this article aims to provide information on the still living memory of the motivations and techniques used by the mountain populations of Cambodia. As a complement and in comparison, we will present the unpublished cases of the Neolithic burials at the Laang Spean site, which bear witness to similar practices and raise questions about their relationship with those that persist today among certain ethnic groups.

The sub-Andean forests in the Middle Cauca River Valley (Central West of Colombia) show evidences of preceramic lithic industry, recovered from paleo-soils buried by volcanic debris. Their production and use were dated by 12,000 to 4000 BP. Lithic assemblages included cobbles with modified edges with surface modification by use. According to the shape, size or raw material those instruments were used as hammers or ground-stones. Other flint knapped products, such as cores and flakes, or products of bipolar percussion, are present. Additionally, in those cultural contexts there were some particular instruments with bifacial manufacture, standardized shape and preparation for hafting. Those instruments were used in different tasks, basically for preparation of soils toward domestication and harvest of plants. Lithic assemblages were localized on rolling hills, alluvial or colluvial terraces. Artifacts demonstrated careful selection of raw material, from volcanic or metamorphic origin. A relative stability can be proposed during the Early and Middle Holocene in the inland basin of Cauca, taking into account the similar typological and technological characteristics of the lithic ensembles, attesting to the role of this region in the origins of horticulture.

In the Brazilian tropics, while débitage methods have generally undergone limited evolution, various solutions were sought to obtain tool blanks with controlled volumetric characteristics during the late Pleistocene and Holocene periods. One such solution was the unifacial shaping. It was particularly developed between 12,000 and 8000 BP in a vast area of central Brazil. It produced tools with varied functional potential. These unifacial pieces are found in a technical system where they are complemented by relatively standardized retouched flakes. This ensemble corresponds to what is known as the Itaparica Technocomplex, and emerged at a decisive moment in the densification of the region's population. Bipolar-on-anvil débitage is another facet of the technical solutions developed by prehistoric populations in Brazil. Although it receives less attention in the literature than other productions, it is nonetheless almost ubiquitous. Using a variety of methods, this débitage can be employed to produce a wide range of products, depending on the period and context. Recurrently, it is used to obtain medium to very small-sized products, whose functional purpose is not always well understood. These two examples illustrate the particularities of the technical history of Brazil's prehistoric populations. They highlight the choice of a different trajectory from that of their European contemporaries, who focused instead on the development of débitage concepts.