There are several ways to make a stone tool. That's according to a new analysis of artifacts from Lebanon and Italy, which found that Modern humans made their tools in a variety of ways in the Middle East and Europe around 42,000 years ago.
Revealing your results in Journal of Human Evolution, The study authors say these different approaches arose independently, with one theoretically drawing inspiration from Neanderthals, challenging the traditional theory that migrating humans imported Middle Eastern tool-making traditions into Europe as they moved.
“Our study adds to a growing body of research depicting modern human expansion into Eurasia as a complex, nonlinear process,” said Armando Falcucci, study author and anthropologist at the University of Tübingen, according to press release. “This highlights the importance of recognizing the often underappreciated extent of cultural interaction with our extinct relatives when reconstructing our species' deep past.”
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Making tools in motion
Map of the Mediterranean showing the geographic location of analyzed sites and reconstructed sea levels at approximately 42,000 years ago.
(Image credit: Armando Falcucci)
Of course, the traditional view is that modern humans took their technological traditions with them when they traveled to new territories. In fact, a common theory is that the stone tool culture of modern people in the Middle East was brought to Europe when they migrated from one country to another about 60,000 years ago.
According to this theory, it is often assumed that the Ahmar tool-making tradition from the Levant inspired the Proto-Aurignacian tradition from Europe around 42,000 years ago.
Although the two cultures appear similar, their similarities and archaeological relatedness have not been much quantified historically. attention of researchers. To solve this problem, Falcucci and his colleague turned to stone tools from four archaeological sites in Lebanon and Italy, systematically studying thousands of artifacts from Ksara Aquila in Beirut, Riparo Bombrini in Ventimiglia, Grota di Fumane in Verona and Grota di Castelcivita in Salerno.
“Externally, stone tools from these different areas may look similar,” said Stephen Kuhn, another study author and an anthropologist at the University of Arizona, according to a press release. “But we wanted to look deeper, looking in detail at how they were made.”
Read more: Humans and Neanderthals interbred in Northern Europe more than 45,000 years ago
Middle Eastern and European instruments
By focusing on the stone components of composite tools, or tools composed of two or more materials, Falcucci and Kuhn found differences in Akhmarian and proto-Aurignacian production. Although toolmakers in the Middle East and Europe, for example, made fewer and fewer blades, their methods varied, suggesting that the Ahmar tradition was not the original source of the proto-Avrignacian tradition.
“In general, the techniques of the Akhmar and post-Ahmar cultures in the Middle East do not correspond to the technologies of the proto-Avrignacian culture,” Falcucci said in a press release. “The differences in flaking techniques suggest that European hunter-gatherers independently developed their own projectile technology.”
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Do you take advice from Neanderthals?
So, if the Ahmarian did not inspire the proto-Aurignac, then what did? According to Falcucci and Kuhn, one possibility is that the Châtelperronian culture, a tool-making tradition usually associated with Neanderthals, influenced the Proto-Avrignacian culture. Indeed, they suggest that modern humans met Neanderthals when they migrated from the Middle East to Europe, exchanging technology as well as genes during their encounters.
Although future work will be needed to test whether Neanderthals influenced the proto-Aurignacian tradition, Falcucci and Kuhn emphasize that their study shows that the evolution of human technology was much more complex than previously thought, and included more surprises and perhaps more species than generally expected.
“The general assumption that all Paleolithic technological innovations in Europe were introduced through successive waves of migration from the Middle East needs to be re-evaluated,” Kuhn said in a press release. Whether this reassessment will include Neanderthals will be revealed by the following analysis.
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