There are several “typical Mousterian” stone tools. Different from the tools of the Levalloisian type, these were made from “disc-like cores.” There are medium-sized flake “side scrapers.” There are also some small pointed tools and some small “hand axes.” The last of these tool types is often a flake worked on both of the flat sides (that is, bifacially). There are also pieces of flint worked into the form of crude balls. The pointed tools may have been fixed on shafts to make short jabbing spears; the round flint balls may have been used as bolas. Actually, we don’t know what either tool was used for. The points and side scrapers are illustrated (pp. [64] and [66]).
LEVALLOIS FLAKE
THE MIXING OF TRADITIONS
Nowadays the archeologists are less and less sure of the importance of any one specific tool type and name. Twenty years ago, they used to speak simply of Acheulean or Levalloisian or Mousterian tools. Now, more and more, all of the tools from some one layer in a cave are called an “industry,” which is given a mixed name. Thus we have “Levalloiso-Mousterian,” and “Acheuleo-Levalloisian,” and even “Acheuleo-Mousterian” (or “Mousterian of Acheulean tradition”). Bordes’ systematic work is beginning to clear up some of our confusion.
The time of these late Acheuleo-Levalloiso-Mousterioid industries is from perhaps as early as 100,000 years ago. It may have lasted until well past 50,000 years ago. This was the time of the first phase of the last great glaciation. It was also the time that the classic group of Neanderthal men was living in Europe. A number of the Neanderthal fossil finds come from these cave layers. Before the different habits of tool preparation were understood it used to be popular to say Neanderthal man was “Mousterian man.” I think this is wrong. What used to be called “Mousterian” is now known to be a variety of industries with tools of both core-biface and flake habits, and so mixed that the word “Mousterian” used alone really doesn’t mean anything. The Neanderthalers doubtless understood the tool preparation habits by means of which Acheulean, Levalloisian and Mousterian type tools were produced. We also have the more modern-like Mount Carmel people, found in a cave layer of Palestine with tools almost entirely in the flake tradition, called “Levalloiso-Mousterian,” and the Fontéchevade-Tayacian ([p. 59]).
MOUSTERIAN POINT
OTHER SUGGESTIONS OF LIFE IN THE EARLY CAVE LAYERS
Except for the stone tools, what do we know of the way men lived in the time range after 100,000 to perhaps 40,000 years ago or even later? We know that in the area from Europe to Palestine, at least some of the people (some of the time) lived in the fronts of caves and warmed themselves over fires. In Europe, in the cave layers of these times, we find the bones of different animals; the bones in the lowest layers belong to animals that lived in a warm climate; above them are the bones of those who could stand the cold, like the reindeer and mammoth. Thus, the meat diet must have been changing, as the glacier crept farther south. Shells and possibly fish bones have lasted in these cave layers, but there is not a trace of the vegetable foods and the nuts and berries and other wild fruits that must have been eaten when they could be found.