TOOLS FROM AFRICA AND ASIA ABOUT 100,000 YEARS AGO
Professor Movius characterizes early prehistoric Africa as a continent showing a variety of stone industries. Some of these industries were purely local developments and some were practically identical with industries found in Europe at the same time. From northwest Africa to Capetown—excepting the tropical rain forest region of the west center—tools of developed Acheulean, Levalloisian, and Mousterian types have been recognized. Often they are named after African place names.
In east and south Africa lived people whose industries show a development of the Levalloisian technique. Such industries are called Stillbay. Another industry, developed on the basis of the Acheulean technique, is called Fauresmith. From the northwest comes an industry with tanged points and flake-blades; this is called the Aterian. The tropical rain forest region contained people whose stone tools apparently show adjustment to this peculiar environment; the so-called Sangoan industry includes stone picks, adzes, core-bifaces of specialized Acheulean type, and bifacial points which were probably spearheads.
In western Asia, even as far as the east coast of India, the tools of the Eurafrican core-biface and flake tool traditions continued to be used. But in the Far East, as we noted in the last chapter, men had developed characteristic stone chopper and chopping tools. This tool preparation tradition—basically a pebble tool tradition—lasted to the very end of the Ice Age.
When more intact open air sites such as that of an earlier time at Olorgesailie, and more stratified cave sites are found and excavated in Asia and Africa, we shall be able to get a more complete picture. So far, our picture of the general cultural level of the Old World at about 100,000 years ago—and soon afterwards—is best from Europe, but it is still far from complete there, too.