LATER BLADE-TOOL INDUSTRIES OF THE NEAR EAST AND AFRICA
The blade-tool industries of normal size we talked about earlier spread from Europe to central Siberia. We noted that blade tools were made in western Asia too, and early, although Professor Garrod is no longer sure that the whole tradition originated in the Near East. If you look again at my chart ([p. 72]) you will note that in western Asia I list some of the names of the western European industries, but with the qualification “-like” (for example, “Gravettian-like”). The western Asiatic blade-tool industries do vaguely recall some aspects of those of western Europe, but we would probably be better off if we used completely local names for them. The “Emiran” of my chart is such an example; its industry includes a long spike-like blade point which has no western European counterpart.
When we last spoke of Africa ([p. 66]), I told you that stone tools there were continuing in the Levalloisian flake tradition, and were becoming smaller. At some time during this process, two new tool types appeared in northern Africa: one was the Aterian point with a tang ([p. 67]), and the other was a sort of “laurel leaf” point, called the “Sbaikian.” These two tool types were both produced from flakes. The Sbaikian points, especially, are roughly similar to some of the Solutrean points of Europe. It has been suggested that both the Sbaikian and Aterian points may be seen on their way to France through their appearance in the Spanish cave deposits of Parpallo, but there is also a rival “pre-Solutrean” in central Europe. We still do not know whether there was any contact between the makers of these north African tools and the Solutrean tool-makers. What does seem clear is that the blade-tool tradition itself arrived late in northern Africa.