Aterian Research Articles

US Zinc, supported by new owner Aterian, keeps its ZnO plants running

US Zinc, supported by new owner Aterian, keeps its ZnO plants running

Le « Moustérien » de Tipasa et de Ténès (littoral ouest algérois) dans la lecture climatique du second pléniglacaire

The excavations that we undertook, in 1985, in the prehistoric site of Sidi Saïd, in Tipasa (Algeria), allowed us to observe an unusual archaeological stratigraphy. An aterian industry with pedunculated pieces, surmounted by a Mousterian, rich in scrapers and single-sided retouching points, almost systematically in flint, with reduced shapes and strongly reduced (Aterian under Mousterian). This unusual case has led us to consider the reading of the Mousterian-Aterian/Ibéromaurusien passage in a different way and at the same time to take a new look at the work carried out so far on the west coast of Algiers, especially those of Lower cave of the Tenes lighthouse, west of Tipasa. An attempt to compare and correlate the site of Sidi Said and the Lower Cave of the Ténès lighthouse, enabled us to consolidate our conviction on the existence of an aterian stratigraphically below the Mousterian and to discover an original lithic industry of Mousterian tradition, with strongly reduced forms, which would be placed between stratigraphically between the Aterian and the Iberomaurusian. This industry which does not yet have a name or place in the chronology, “curiously” recalls the case of the Middle Solutrean of southwestern Europe, in the context of the second pleniglacial.

Population expansion in the North African Late Pleistocene signalled by mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U6

BackgroundThe archaeology of North Africa remains enigmatic, with questions of population continuity versus discontinuity taking centre-stage. Debates have focused on population transitions between the bearers of the Middle Palaeolithic Aterian industry and the later Upper Palaeolithic populations of the Maghreb, as well as between the late Pleistocene and Holocene.ResultsImproved resolution of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup U6 phylogeny, by the screening of 39 new complete sequences, has enabled us to infer a signal of moderate population expansion using Bayesian coalescent methods. To ascertain the time for this expansion, we applied both a mutation rate accounting for purifying selection and one with an internal calibration based on four approximate archaeological dates: the settlement of the Canary Islands, the settlement of Sardinia and its internal population re-expansion, and the split between haplogroups U5 and U6 around the time of the first modern human settlement of the Near East.ConclusionsA Bayesian skyline plot placed the main expansion in the time frame of the Late Pleistocene, around 20 ka, and spatial smoothing techniques suggested that the most probable geographic region for this demographic event was to the west of North Africa. A comparison with U6's European sister clade, U5, revealed a stronger population expansion at around this time in Europe. Also in contrast with U5, a weak signal of a recent population expansion in the last 5,000 years was observed in North Africa, pointing to a moderate impact of the late Neolithic on the local population size of the southern Mediterranean coast.

Some insights on the aterian in the Libyan Sahara : Chronology, environment, and archaeology

The Aterian has a huge geographic extension covering all North Africa, although it was not supposed to exist in the mountain ranges of the central Sahara. Its chronological context is not yet definitively determined and it is still difficult to say whether the Aterian tools are technological, typological, functional, or chronological markers. Recent surveys and excavations at Uan Tabu and Uan Afuda, two rock-shelters located in the central Tadrart Acacus, provide the first chronological, environmental and archaeological indications on this Late Pleistocene human occupation in the area. The lack of organic matter led us to perform OSL and TL analyses on sand. L'Aterien a une enorme extension geographique qui couvre tout le Nord de l'Afrique, tandis qu'on ne pensait pas qu'il existait dans les montagnes du Sahara central. Son contexte culturel n'est pas definitivement determine et il est encore difficile de dire si les instruments ateriens sont des indicateurs technologiques, typologiques, fonctionels ou culturels. Reconnaissances et fouilles recentes a Uan Tabu et Uan Afuda, deux abris situes dans l'Acacous central, fournissent les premieres indications sur la chronologie, l'environnement et l'archeologie de l'Aterien dans la region. L'absence de la substance organique, nous a porte a faire des determinations OSL et TL sur les sables.

A new Arabian stone tool assemblage and notes on the Aterian industry of North Africa

An unusual stone tool assemblage, reported for the first time in the Arabian Peninsula, occurs at the southwest edge of the Rub’al Khali desert. The assemblage is characterized by large, unifacially worked, prominently tanged points and scrapers. An age of between about 20,000 and 35,000 years B.P., when the Rub’al Khali was a well‐watered grassland, is likely. Typological affinity with the Aterian stone tool industry of North Africa is suggested. Aterian toolmakers were a vigorous population of desert hunters, ranging over much of North Africa and the Sahara during a wet phase of the late Pleistocene. Pursuit of animals running in herds may have been a hunting strategy reflected in some of the Aterian and Arabian tools. Typology of the tanged tools and the palaeogeographic context in which they occur suggest certain specific functional usage.

The Aterian Industry: Its Place and Significance in the Palaeolithic World

The Aterian Industry: Its Place and Significance in the Palaeolithic World

The Aterian Industry: Its Place and Significance in the Palaeolithic World

The Aterian Industry: Its Place and Significance in the Palaeolithic World