Stone Age Cultures Research Articles

Some South African Stone Age Cultures

Some South African Stone Age Cultures

Stone Age Culture Areas of Northern Asia

Stone Age Culture Areas of Northern Asia

A Tentative Correlation of Southern African Stone Age Cultures

A Tentative Correlation of Southern African Stone Age Cultures

The Stone Age Cultures of Northern Rhodesia. By J. Desmond Clark.

<i>The Stone Age Cultures of Northern Rhodesia</i>. By J. Desmond Clark.

Flint Implements: An Account of Stone Age Techniques and Cultures. 8⅜ × 5⅜. Pp. 80. London: Published by the Trustees of the British Museum, 1950. 4s.

Flint Implements: An Account of Stone Age Techniques and Cultures. 8⅜ × 5⅜. Pp. 80. London: Published by the Trustees of the British Museum, 1950. 4<i>s</i>.

Prehistory in Northern Rhodesia

The Stone Age Cultures of Northern Rhodesia With Particular Reference to the Cultural and Climatic Succession in the Upper Zambezi Valley and its Tributaries. By J. Desmond Clark; with a Chapter on the Geology, by Dr. F. Dixey, and Appendixes by H. B. S. Cooke, L. H. Wells and Geoffrey Bond. Pp. xii + 157. (Claremont, Cape: South African Archaeological Society, 1950.) 21s.

Stone Age Cultures of Bellary. By Bendapudi Subbarao. Decan college Dissertation Series 7. Deceab College Postgraduate and Research Institute. Poona, 1948. 62 pages, 25 plates. Price Rs. 8.

Stone Age Cultures of Bellary. By Bendapudi Subbarao. Decan college Dissertation Series 7. Deceab College Postgraduate and Research Institute. Poona, 1948. 62 pages, 25 plates. Price Rs. 8.

Tentative Study of the Pleistocene Climatic Changes and Stone-Age Culture Sequence in North-Eastern Angola

Tentative Study of the Pleistocene Climatic Changes and Stone-Age Culture Sequence in North-Eastern Angola

The Stone Age Cultures of Northern Rhodesia; With Particular Reference to the Cultural and Climatic Succession in the Upper Zambesi Valley and its Tributaries. ByJ. D. Clark. The South African Archaeological Society. P.O.Box 31, Claremont, Cape, 1950. Price £1 1s. in South Africa.

The Stone Age Cultures of Northern Rhodesia; With Particular Reference to the Cultural and Climatic Succession in the Upper Zambesi Valley and its Tributaries. ByJ. D. Clark. The South African Archaeological Society. P.O.Box 31, Claremont, Cape, 1950. Price £1 1s. in South Africa. - Volume 16

Ancient India, number 4 (July 1947–January 1948, Double Number), Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi. 6s. - Etched Beads in India, byM. G. Dikshit (Deccan College MonographSeries no. 4), Poona, 1949, Rs. 10. - Stone Age Cultures of Bellary, byB. Subbarao (Deccan College DissertationSeries no. 7), Poona, 1948. Rs. 8.

Ancient India, number 4 (<i>July</i> 1947–<i>January</i> 1948, <i>Double Number</i>), Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi. 6<i>s</i>. - Etched Beads in India, <i>by</i>M. G. Dikshit (Deccan College Monograph<i>Series no.</i> 4), Poona, 1949, <i>Rs</i>. 10. - Stone Age Cultures of Bellary, <i>by</i>B. Subbarao (Deccan College Dissertation<i>Series no</i>. 7), Poona, 1948. <i>Rs</i>. 8.

Stone Age Cultures in Turkey

Previous articleNext article No AccessStone Age Cultures in TurkeyŞevket Aziz KansuŞevket Aziz Kansu Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Archaeology Volume 51, Number 3July–September 1947 The journal of the Archaeological Institute of America Views: 1Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/501300 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright © 1947 by the Archaeological Institute of America. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Pan-African Congress on Prehistory

THE Government of Kenya has agreed that a Pan-African Congress on Prehistory (Archaeology) shall be convened in Nairobi, Kenya Colony, during January 11-February 1, 1947. The Congress will be concerned with the prehistory of the African continent, and the discussions will also include relevant subjects, such as those aspects of palseontology which intimately concern prehistory, climatic changes and quaternary geology in relation to prehistory. It is proposed that the Congress should be divided into two parts. The first three and a half days will be devoted to discussions upon problems of a general nature, including the following: terminology for the various pluvial periods and post-pluvial phases of the Pleistocene ; terminology for the stone-age cultures in Africa ; definitions of the words 'Pliocene' and 'Pleistocene' with the view of reaching an agreed definition throughout the African continent ; cooperation in respect of research programmes in prehistory and allied subjects in the various African territories ; protection of prehistoric sites and of other sites of connected interest ; control of excavations ; future of research into prehistory and allied subjects in African territories. The second part of the Congress will be devoted to the reading of papers and to discussions upon discoveries made in the field of prehistory since 1939, and more particularly to such discoveries as have had little publicity outside the territories in which they were made, owing to wartime conditions. Excursions to sites in East Africa are planned to take place both during the days immediately preceding the Congress and also during the week following the Congress. The former is designed to give delegates an opportunity of seeing the principal type sections upon which the pluvial and post-pluvial climatic changes for Kenya were originally based, and also to see some of the more important prehistoric sites in the Rift Valley. During the Congress, there will be an excursion to the Olorgesailie prehistoric site, which is being developed as a 'museum on the spot' to illustrate the evolution of the Acheulean culture. It is hoped to obtain special air-travel facilities for delegates to the Congress. All correspondence relating to the Congress should be addressed to Dr. L. S. B. Leakey, Organising Secretary, P.O. Box 658, Nairobi, Kenya.

The Irish Stone Age

A MAJOR contribution to the advance of Irish archaeology in the years before the War was made by the archaeological expedition of the Harvard Irish Survey, directed by Dr. Hugh O'Neill Hencken, which between 1932 and 1936 excavated no less than fifteen ancient sites in Ireland, six of them-Kilgreany Cave in Co. Waterford and five sites in Northern Ireland-being of the Stone Age. These were excavated by Dr. Movius, assistant director of the expedition, and on that basis he has now, in this admirably produced volume, given us the first comprehensive and systematic modern account of the Irish Stone Age cultures, and the chronology and character of their natural environment. Its importance is very far from being confined to Irish archaeology. The first part deals with the Late Glacial and Early Post-Glacial chronology of all Northern and North-Western Europe, and the second, in which the earliest known human settlement in Ireland is shown to be Mesolithic of the Boreal Period, perhaps nearer 7000 than 6000 B.C., relates that settlement and its sequels not only to their local surroundings but also to the whole physiography and prehistory of the British Isles and the adjacent mainland. The book will remain the standard work on its subject for a considerable time to come. The Irish Stone Age Its Chronology, Development and Relationships. By Dr. Hallam L. Movius, Jr. Pp. xxiv + 339 + 7 plates. (Cambridge : At the University Press, 1942.) 30s. net.

Book Reviews

IN one sense the late Dr. Wright's presentation and survey of present-day knowledge of the data bearing on early man and the development of his material culture in the early stone age supersede all previous manuals of the kind. It is the first of such handbooks available for the general reader and the student to review critically the earliest material from East Anglia which, it is claimed, shows evidence of human handiwork, and to give an account of the investigations of the Abbé Breuil on the gravels of the Somme and their bearing on and consequences in determining the dating of palælithic industries, which, it would seem, must now be subjected to considerable revision. A summary account of the latter research by the Abbé Breuil himself for the benefit of British archæologists appears in the current issue of the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. Further, Dr. Wright, while pointing out that the familiar classification of palælithic implements, baaed on the material from France, is too deeply rooted in archiælogical studies to be ignored in a general survey, adopts and expounds the core-flake classification of implements, entering fully into its teclinological, classificatory and ethnical implications, as affecting the world-wide study of stone age cultures.

Research Items

THE material from the excavation of the Mumbwa Cave, Northern Rhodesia, considered essential for the elucidation of the prehistory of South Africa, with the exception of part of the collection associated with the deeper burials, and the human skeletal remains, was destroyed by fire in the Ethnological Museum of the University of Witwatersrand. The excavators, Prof. Raymond Dart and N. del Grande, recorded in 1931 that pottery occurred in all the levels, though only sparingly in the deeper, down to the very base of the Late Stone Age deposits at a depth of two metres. It is the fragments from these deeper levels which survive, and have now been described and discussed further by L. W. Wells (Man of May, 1939). Not only do these fragments show that the pottery of the deeper levels was homogeneous, but also comparison with photographs of the pottery of the higher levels indicates an identity of characteristics and strong evidence for community of types between all levels. This agrees with the homogeneity of the lithic culture, and the continuity of the associated skeletal remains. The Mumbwa pottery holds an isolated position among African ceramics. It is of a type which, if found unassociated, would have been classified as Bantu; but as it is associated with a well-characterized lithic and human skeletal remains of predominantly Bush-Boskopoid character, devoid of recognizable Negro feature, it must be regarded as an integral part of a stone age culture, and the work of a non-Negro, pre-Bantu people-a conclusion of the highest importance, as hitherto it has been presumed that all unglazed pottery was of Bantu origin.

Early Stone Age Cultures of the Great Salt Lake Region, Utah

NO traces of the Folsom culture, the earliest known Stone Age culture of North America, have been found as yet west of the Rocky Mountains. It has been suggested that climatic conditions on the eastern side of the range in early times, possibly so early as the late phases of the Ice Age, were more favourable to human occupation ; but the discovery of a primitive culture in caves of the Great Salt Lake region of Utah demonstrates the existence of early man west of the Rockies at a period for which the geological evidence would warrant a very considerable antiquity, possibly in comparative terms not far removed from the close of the Ice Age.

An Early Stone Age Culture of America

An Early Stone Age Culture of America

Cultural Succession in the South African Stone Age

A PBBLIMINABY report by Prof. C. van Riet Lowe on a discovery of faunal remains and stone implements of early man in the diamondiferous gravels of the Vaal River (see p. 53) is the first account in any detail to reach Great Britain of a firmly established archaeological succession in the early stone age cultures of South Africa, which, it is safe to predict, will be a standard of reference in future research. From the evidence of five sites on the Riverview Estates, a diagrammatic section of stratification has been constructed which shows a regular chronological succession of cultures in the Lower, Middle and Later Stone Ages from ‘Chellean’ to ‘Capsio-Aurignacian’. Points of special significance emerging are the identification of the much discussed so-called Victoria West industry, with its gigantic stone cores, as the factory d©bris of the Upper Stellenbosch of Lower Palaeolithic age; the occupation by man of the Vaal River Valley both during and after the deposition of the old river gravel the full significance of this will appear on publication of the palseontological evidence; the confirmation of the chronological relation of Upper Stellenbosch and Fauresmith cultures, the latter being shown by stratigraphie evidence to be of much later age; and the local specialisation in South African cultures and technique, which renders inept the application of a West European terminology. While the author refrains from broader inference, pending the opinion of experts on geological, climatological and palÅ” onto-logical evidence in a report now in preparation, the conclusion is warranted that this discovery will have more than local significance, especially as a contribution to the study of the great hand-axe culture, characteristic of Africa, but of highly specialised technique in South Africa, and distributed from Great Britain to India and even beyond.

Research Items

Early Man in Uganda. Mr. E. J. Way land, as a preliminary to a Geological Survey Memoir to be published in the course of the current year, has summarised in chronological order the main features of his studies in Uganda since 1919 with reference to its prehistory (J. Roy. Anihrop. Inst., 64, Pt. 2). The prehistory of a country is no longer merely a question of culture sequences and human types, but has now been enlarged to include the physical conditions, their changes and the effects of these on human activities. In Uganda there were not only great changes of climate during Pleistocene days, but also of topography and hydrography, consequent upon powerful earth-movements, of which the Rift Valley and Victoria Nyanza are two visible expressions. Two pluvials are claimed in the Pleistocene and in each of them is an intrapluvial period, while the post-pluvial period is punctuated by two spells of moister climate. They are separated by a relatively dry break and preceded by a more pronounced swing towards aridity. Earth movements are recorded at three points, to the most recent of which the present configuration of the Rift Valley and the lake and the flow-direction of the river-system are due. Equated with these events of the Pleistocene are Stone Age cultures. With Pluvial I are associated Early and Later Kafuan. In the following inter-pluvial, lakes dry up. The early part of Pluvial II is associated with Pre-Chellean and Protosangoan, followed by Chelleo-Acheulean and Early Sangoan. It is correlated tentatively with Riss. An intrapluvial follows associated with Acheulean, a valley culture, and Full Sangoan, a hill culture. Pluvial II, correlated with Wurm, is associated with Mousterian and Lower Aurignacian, followed by Still Bay and Upper Aurignacian, respectively. The Aurignacian has the appearance of a foreign origin, presumably from the north or north-east. From the Aurignacian arise microlithic industries, such as Magosian and Wilton, a dying Still Bay influence being discernible in the former. These are post-pluvial and are correlated tentatively with the Achen retreat and Buhl stadium. In Uganda, pottery appears first with Wilton.

THE STONE AGE CULTURES OF SOUTH AFRICA. By A. J. Goodwin and C. van Riet Lowe. (Annals of the South African Museum, vol. XXVII). The Trustees of the South African Museum, 1929. pp. 289, 4 text-figures and 45 plates. 25s.

THE STONE AGE CULTURES OF SOUTH AFRICA. <i>By</i> A. J. Goodwin and C. van Riet Lowe. (Annals of the South African Museum, vol. XXVII). The Trustees of the South African Museum, 1929. pp. 289, 4 <i>text-figures and</i> 45 <i>plates</i>. 25<i>s</i>.