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Some Palaeoliths from South Arabia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

Extract

The material here described was found in the Hadhramaut by Elinor Gardner and myself between November 1937 and March 1938. My personal investigation of the Palaeolithic Age was limited by pre-Islamic excavations, and I am therefore indebted to her for the gathering of most of the specimens in situ in terrace gravels, and to her detailed study of their positions.

The collection consists mainly of groups from four fairly widely separated localities; the physiography of these has already been outlined in a comprehensive paper published in the Geographical Journal. Whenever appropriate to the purpose of this account, which is to place for the first time on illustrated record all we observed about the palaeoliths, I have reused in this different context illustrations of Quaternary environment which appeared in that Journal. With thanks I acknowledge the permission of the Royal Geographical Society to do so.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1953

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References

page 189 note 1 Caton-Thompson, G., The Tombs and Moon Temple of Hureidha. Report of the Research Committee of the Soc. of Antiquaries, no. XIII, 1944Google Scholar.

page 189 note 2 Caton-Thompson, G. and Gardner, E. W., ‘Climate, Irrigation and Early Man in the Hadhramaut,’ Geog. Journal, XCIII, no. 1, January 1939Google Scholar.

page 190 note 1 G. M. Lees in discussion following my lecture to the Royal Geographical Society (Geog. Journal, op. cit., p. 37).

page 190 note 2 ibid, p. 37.

page 191 note 1 The motor track (now, I believe, a road) is 270 km. long owing to twists and turns to surmount the drainage lines and formidable headward erosion nearing the scarps.

page 192 note 1 For acceptance of this term by an experienced authority see Geog. Journal, op. cit., p. 37.

page 192 note 2 Pike, R. W., The Geographical Review, xxx, no. 4, October, 1940Google Scholar.

page 192 note 3 Ingrams, W. H., ‘A Journey to the Sei‘ar country and through the Wadi Maseila,’ Geog. Journal, LXXXVIII, no. 6, December 1936Google Scholar.

page 193 note 1 R. W. Pike, ibid, pp. 631–5.

page 193 note 2 Dr Pike notes this also, but found contrary evidence in the area believed to be that of the former headwaters of westward drainage.

page 193 note 3 Zootecus, Melania tuberculata, Planorbis, Bulinus.

page 194 note 1 E. W. Gardner's map in Geog. Journal, op. cit., shows the now fragmentary pre-Islamic irrigation system upon it and the sites excavated.

page 194 note 2 Movius, Hallam L. Jr., ‘Early Man and Pleistocene Stratigraphy in Southern and Eastern Asia,’ Papers of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, vol. XIX, no. 3, 1944, p. 41Google Scholar. Also ‘Lower Paleolithic Archaeology in Southern Asia and the Far East,’ Studies in Physical Anthropology, no. 1, 1949, p. 36Google Scholar. The Stone Age in Burma,’ Transactions American Philosophical Soc., vol. XXXII, pt. III, 1943, pp. 350–3Google Scholar.

page 195 note 1 Zootecus insularis; Obeliscella bentiae; Pupoides sp.

page 195 note 2 Details and fossil flora in Geog. Journal, op. cit., pp. 27–9 and fig. 9.

page 196 note 1 The artifacts from the two gravels were not kept separate as they should have been; but I do not think that any significant difference would have emerged. The specimens are field-marked ‘Hamus OW.’

page 198 note 1 A few kilometres upstream, however, it crosses the ‘Amd valley to the north side. This is visible in th e air view, pl. XXVIII, 2.

page 199 note 1 The pieces are marked ‘Hamus 10 m.’ or ‘Dar es-Sa‘ad 10 m.’

page 199 note 2 Seligman, C. G., ‘The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt,’ Journ. Royal Anthropological Inst., vol. 51, 1921, pp. 115–53Google Scholar.

page 200 note 1 The ‘quasi’ indicates what I judge to be fortuitous.

page 202 note 1 The pre-Islamic population of the first five centuries B.C. at least, were using obsidian, carnelian and sandstone as well as chert for tools, mainly, but not entirely of microlithic size. (Caton-Thompson, , The Tombs and Moon Temple of Hureidha, pls. LVIII–LX, pp. 134–6Google Scholar).

page 203 note 1 The artifacts are field marked ‘Wadi Geda‘a, Maryama.’ I now adopt a more authoritative spelling. Maryama is the nearest village.

page 204 note 1 Neither we, nor Dr Huzayyin who passed through Hadhramaut from Yemen the preceding year, saw any hand-axes. As far as I know the only one published is a fine lanceolate from North Central Arabia (Cornwall, P. B., Man, 121, Nov.-Dec, 1946Google Scholar), Huzayyin found a rough biface of some kind in Yemen, but I have no details.

page 205 note 1 Paterson, T. T. and Fagg, B. E. B., ‘Studies in the Palaeolithic Succession in England,’ Proc. Prehist. Soc., vol. VI, pt. 1, 1940, fig. 10 f, pp. 1920Google Scholar.

page 211 note 1 The group is field-marked ‘Shibam I.’

page 211 note 2 Geographical Journal, op. cit., pp. 20–2 and fig. 1.

page 212 note 1 The pieces are field-marked Harshiat RL 56.7.

page 212 note 2 The Desert Fayum, 1934, p. 22Google Scholar.

page 214 note 1 It contains additionally six interesting but broken flake fragments and a bifaced, rather rough, slug.

page 214 note 2 Desert Fayum, pp. 62, 63, 67, 68 (a), (f).

page 214 note 3 Proc. Prehist. Soc., vol. XII, 1946, pp. 117–18Google Scholar.

page 214 note 4 DrHuzayyin, S. A. remarks the same in Nature, Sept. 18, 1937, p. 513Google Scholar.

page 215 note 1 de Terra, H. and Paterson, T. T., Studies in the Ice Age in India and Related Human Cultures, 1939, pp. 270–6Google Scholar.

page 215 note 2 I apologize for scrappy extracts from a beautifully unfolded account, which is much too detailed to quote fully.

page 215 note 3 ibid, p. 274.

page 215 note 4 Abrasion makes it difficult in some cases to determine what is human.

page 216 note 1 Caton-Thompson, G. and Gardner, E. W., Kharga Oasis in Prehistory, 1952, pp. 7380Google Scholar, particularly pp. 77–78, 80.

page 217 note 1 The distribution and age limits of these specialized core-tools has not received the attention they deserve. They are well-represented for instance in British Somaliland, but seem there to form part of an advanced Aterio-Stillbay culture. They survive also in the classic Aterian (cf. ibid, p. 86, pl. 84, 1).

I regret I have not had the advantage of Dr Desmond Clark's publication on his Somaliland palaeoliths and their history.

page 217 note 2 cf. p. 215.

page 217 note 3 A good collection in the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, forms the basis of my remarks.

page 217 note 4 T. T. Paterson in his contribution to de Terra op. cit., pp. 301–12 gives the definitive and fully illustrated account. Hallam Movius, op. cit., 1944, 15–29, analyses and summarizes the material.

page 217 note 5 T. T. Paterson, op. cit., pp. 307–8. Movius, op. cit., 1944, p. 26, says 95–100° which is surely a misprint ?

page 217 note 6 T. T. Paterson, op. cit., pl. XXXVI, 5. This is about 5 cm. longer than ours and belongs to the Early Soan period.

page 218 note 1 T. T. Paterson, op. cit., p. 310.

page 218 note 2 A blemish on a first-class publication such as de Terra and Paterson's is the lack of numerical information, total, sectional and typological.

page 218 note 3 Trans. Royal Soc. of Edinburgh, vol. LX, pt. II (No. 2), 19401941Google Scholar, ‘On a World Correlation of the Pleistocene’ p. 404.

page 218 note 4 Extracted from Caton-Thompson, G., The Tombs and Moon Temple of Hureidha, 1944, p. 7Google Scholar.

page 218 note 5 Perhaps not altogether irrelevant is the reminder that those racially submerged people, the Veddoids, extend from the mouth of the Indus, across Baluchistan, Persian Makran, ‘Oman, into the Hadhramaut, where their language is pre-Islamic (Coon, C. S., The Races of Europe, 1939, pp. 425–31Google Scholar).

page 218 note 6 The material is in the possession of the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge. Obsidian microliths from pre-Islamic burials of the 4th–6th century B.C. (Caton-Thompson, , The Tombs and Moon Temple of Hureidha, pp. 134–6Google Scholar and pls. LVIII, LIX) may also be seen there.