RETHINKING EARLY PALEOLITHIC TYPOLOGIES IN CHINA AND INDIA

The concept of a technological "line" separating eastern Asia from western Asia, Africa, and Europe was first proposed by Hallam L. Movius over forty years ago. Despite the fact that other features of Movius' model have since required revision, his interpretation continues to be widely followed. Recent studies on the rate and extent of gene flow or cultural contact between Early Pleistocene hominid populations in eastern and western Asia have resuscitated Movius' classificatory scheme to support arguments inferring hierarchical sociobehavioral abilities between these two hominid populations. It is our contention that Movius' classificatory scheme provides no objective basis for ranking the tool traditions of eastern Asia and the rest of the world. This study offers an approach to the analysis and classification of Early Paleolithic tools that provides relatively objective criteria for comparing tool traditions. This approach is based upon replication of typologies and technologies for eight Early Paleolithic assemblages in Asia using local sources of raw material. By determining the stages of the tool manufacturing process present, the quality of the raw material, and the range of forms for each site, this approach provides a standard basis for comparison among tool traditions and variations within those traditions.

[1]  G. Clark,et al.  World Prehistory: In New Perspective , 1977 .

[2]  J. Aigner.  Pleistocene Archaeological Remains from South China , 1974 .

[3]  F. Bordes.  A tale of two caves , 1972 .

[4]  J. D. Clark.  African and Asian perspectives on the origins of modern humans. , 1992, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[5]  Jean S. Aigner,et al.  Zhoukoudian: A Closer Look [and Comments and Reply] , 1986, Current Anthropology.

[6]  W. Andrefsky.  Raw-Material Availability and the Organization of Technology , 1994, American Antiquity.

[7]  J. Leng.  Early Paleolithic technology in China and India , 1992 .

[8]  C. Stringer,et al.  Genetic and fossil evidence for the origin of modern humans. , 1988, Science.

[9]  K. L. Hutterer,et al.  Observations on the Lower Palaeolithic of Northeast Asia [and Comments and Reply] , 1983, Current Anthropology.

[10]  F. Ikawa-Smith.  Early Paleolithic in South and East Asia , 1978 .

[11]  Steven L. Kuhn,et al.  A Formal Approach to the Design and Assembly of Mobile Toolkits , 1994, American Antiquity.

[12]  José Maria Alves da Silva.  Origin and Development , 1993 .

[13]  P. Mellars.  Major Issues in the Emergence of Modern Humans , 1989, Current Anthropology.

[14]  Desmond Collins.  Culture Traditions and Environment of Early Man , 1969, Current Anthropology.

[15]  Bruce A. Bradley,et al.  Lithic Reduction Sequences: A Glossary and Discussion , 1975 .

[16]  G. Clark,et al.  The Biocultural Transition and the Origin of Modern Humans in the Levant and Western Asia , 1988 .

[17]  D. P. Agrawal.  The archaeology of India , 1984, The Journal of Asian Studies.

[18]  T. T. Paterson,et al.  Studies on the ice age in India and associated human cultures , 1940 .

[19]  P. Fish.  Beyond Tools: Middle Paleolithic Debitage Analysis and Cultural Inference , 1981, Journal of Anthropological Research.

[20]  F. Bordes.  The Old Stone Age. , 1968 .

[21]  J. Olsen.  Recent Developments in the Upper Pleistocene Prehistory of China , 1987 .

[22]  M. Stoneking,et al.  Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution , 1987, Nature.

[23]  N. Toth.  The oldowan reassessed: a close look at early stone artifacts , 1985 .

[24]  Jeffrey J Flenniken,et al.  The Past, Present, and Future of Flintknapping: An Anthropological Perspective , 1984 .

[25]  P. Graziosi.  Prehistoric research in Northwestern Punjab ; Anthropological research in Chitral , 1966 .

[26]  C. Swisher,et al.  Age of the earliest known hominids in Java, Indonesia. , 1994, Science.

[27]  Paul R. Fish,et al.  The interpretive potential of Mousterian debitage , 1979 .

[28]  P. Goldberg,et al.  Taphonomy at a Distance: Zhoukoudian, "The Cave Home of Beijing Man"? [and Comments and Reply] , 1985, Current Anthropology.

[29]  F. Bordes.  Typologie du paléolithique : ancien et moyen , 1988 .

[30]  R. Clarke.  The Ndutu cranium and the origin ofHomo sapiens , 1990 .

[31]  A. P. Kahtri.  Mahadevian': An Oldowan Pebble Culture of India , 1962 .

[32]  D. Stiles.  Early hominid behaviour and culture tradition: raw material studies in Bed II, Olduvai Gorge , 1991 .

[33]  W. Huang.  Bifaces in China , 1989 .

[34]  C. Groves.  A Theory Of Human And Primate Evolution , 1989 .

[35]  Hitoshi Watanabe.  The chopper-chopping tool complex of eastern asia: An ethnoarchaeological-ecological reexamination , 1985 .