Un débitage lamellaire au Proche-Orient vers 40 000 ans cal BP. Le site d’Umm el Tlel, Syrie centrale

Abstract

Across the Near-East and particularly in Syria, a number of archaeological sites have delivered new industries which can be linked to the intermediate Palaeolithic, more commonly qualified as “Transition industry” Due to the apparition of several facies with new technical orientations, the term of intermediate Palaeolithic seems most appropriate. The bladelets production is one of those innovations. Among the four facies identified in the Palmyra and the El Kowm basins (central Syria), facies 3 and 4 are the most frequent and the best documented in terms of chrono-stratigraphical sequence. Here we present the facies 3 discovered in stratigraphy on the site of Umm el Tlel. This facies has been dated and the industries have been submitted to a micro use-wear analysis. The levels III2a’ and II base’, selected for analysis and dated around 36,000±2500 years (T.L.), are characterized by different modes of production and by various predetermined removals. Among these productions, the bladelets represent more than a third of the predetermined removals. These bladelets have various morphologies and dimensions and result from two modes of production. The first mode consists in alternating Levallois products and bladelets and the second mode utilizes specifics cores. The presence, on all types of bladelets, of micro use-wear corroborates the intentionality of these productions. The use-wear show that the bladelets have been used for various actions in and on different materials worked and that they were maintained according to different modes of prehension. Across the Levant, a technical continuity clearly appears between the facies of the intermediate Palaeolithic and the industries of the upper Palaeolithic: the Ahmarian and the Aurignacian. Nevertheless this technical innovation is integrated in a distinct way according to the considered period. During the intermediate Palaeolithic the lithics productions are different according to the facies and the use of the bladelets is varied. While during the upper Palaeolithic there is a technical normalization of the blanks but also functions of bladelets.