Technological homogeneity within the Arabian Nubian Complex: Comparing chert and quartzite assemblages from central and southern Arabia

Jeanne M Geiling,Jeffrey I Rose,Rémy Crassard,Vitaly I Usik,Yamandú H Hilbert

doi:10.2218/jls.v3i2.1420

Abstract

Nubian Levallois technology is the defining characteristic of the Middle Paleolithic or Middle Stone Age technocomplex known as the Nubian Complex. Until recently, this technocomplex was found exclusively in northeastern Africa; however, archaeological surveys conducted across the Arabian Peninsula in the last decade have expanded the known distribution of this technological phenomenon. Since 2009, researchers from separate archaeological missions have mapped sites yielding Nubian cores and debitage, and by extension Nubian technology, in the southern, central and northernmost parts of the Arabia Peninsula. Nubian Complex artifacts in central and southern Arabia were made using different raw materials: in Al-Kharj (central Saudi Arabia) Middle Paleolithic industries were made exclusively on quartzite, while in Dhofar (southern Oman) chert was the only knappable material available for use. Given these differences, we sought to examine the influence of raw material variability on core morphology and size. Contrary to initial hypothesis, this study finds that the differences recorded are not a function of raw material properties. In both areas, Nubian cores were reduced using the same technological systems producing a set of preferential blanks. Rather, the recorded differences from raw material constrains were primarily due to knapping accidents, which occur in higher proportions at quartzite-based assemblages from Al-Kharj (specifically the siret fracture) compared with the chert assemblages from Dhofar. In sum, we argue that raw material had little effect on Nubian Levallois core technology and was not a constraint on Nubian Complex artisans.

Highlights

We focus our attention on one specific Middle Paleolithic technocomplex known as the Nubian Complex (NC), by which we mean a group of technologically related industries that might share a common origin and occupy a discrete geographic and temporal range
The Nubian Levallois cores from the Arabian NC sites of TH.69, TH.377, TH.383, AK-22, AK-40 and AK-43 were compared in terms of their technological attributes and metric parameters
Nubian cores show a concise distribution of shapes, with triangular forms being predominant

Summary

Introduction

Nubian technology and raw material variability in ArabiaIn recent years, research teams working across the Arabian Peninsula have made great advancements on the study of regional Middle Paleolithic human occupation (e.g., Amirkhanov 2006; Armitage et al 2011; Bailey 2009; Crassard 2009; Delagnes et al 2012; Petraglia et al 2012; Rose & Petraglia 2009; Rose et al 2011). Scholars have interpreted this variability as representative of different hominid or culture groups producing different lithic industries, who inhabited separate hunter-gatherer ranges within Arabia These groups appear to have flourished during generally favorable climatic regimes throughout Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5, between 130-75 thousand years (ka) BP, and MIS 3, between 60-20 ka BP (Armitage et al 2011; Delagnes et al 2013; Petraglia 2011; Rose et al 2011), while fluctuating landscape carrying capacity led to population expansions and overlapping huntergatherer ranges (Rose & Marks 2014). We focus our attention on one specific Middle Paleolithic technocomplex known as the Nubian Complex (NC), by which we mean a group of technologically related industries that might share a common origin and occupy a discrete geographic and temporal range

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Discussion

Conclusion