[meteorite-list] Arrowheads from NWA - post-Pleistocene

From: E.P. Grondine <epgrondine_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 08:27:26 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <353642.41064.qm_at_web36905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Hi Thaddeus, all -

Most infomative, but...

The source was stated to be the Sahara, not the Atlas
mountains.

The problem that you always have with NWA is
provenience, and that is as true for lithics as well
as meteorites. I think that some of this material is
even coming in from as far away as Mauretania.

The local archeaologists do not have the money to
excavate, in the same way that the local geologists do
not have the money to collect meteorites. What might
be the role of the private market in supporting these
academics is one of those vast questions which I
suppose is beyond the scope of discussion here. In
the meantime, people earn a living, as they usually
do.

I guess that given this situation, one of the
important things that has to be done is to identify
the major source rocks from which these tools were
fashioned. (There is a more elegant term for these
quarries, but it escapes me right now, as many things
do since my stroke.)

Micro-lithic technologies and early domesticates
appear to have spread from the east. Egyptian dates
were given as around 12,000 BCE.

Sheep husbandry appears to have spread from the
Mediterranean to coastal Europe and Africa at a fairly
late date, accompanying tunny fishing and pottery, say
about 6,000 BCE. Cattle husbandry appears to have
developed in the Eastern Sahara slightly earlier, say
about 9,000 BCE, with appearance say about 8,000 BCE
in Egypt.

As the bow and arrow appear late in the Americas, I
would be interested in learning exactly where this
technology developed, and how it spread.

The early African coastal sites are undoubtedly
several hundred feet underwater, as are early coastal
sites are throughout the world. They were drowned as
the ice caps melted following the holocene start
impact in the North Pacific.

Given all the circa dates, it might be nice to have
some tree ring dates for the formation of the Alaskan
mucks and the flooding of the Black Sea.

At any rate, it's good to know you're there to type
this material when it comes in.

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas

--- Thaddeus Besedin <endophasy at yahoo.com> wrote:

> The small projectile points of the varieties
> usually illicitly exported from Northern and Western
> Saharan sites are technologically Mesolithic and
> Neolithic; as such, most were produced after the
> dissemination of animal husbandry, ceramics, and the
> bow, and were thus produced after ~10,000 - 9,000
> BP.
> There is evidence that the bow had an earlier
> introduction in localized variations of lithic
> assemblages of this period - small projectile points
> of the Capsian Epipaleolithic (Mesolithic) period
> may
> have been used as arrow points. There is evidence
> of
> atlatl(spearthrower) use in Africa as early as
> 25,000
> BP, so most upper Paleolithic-Epipaleolithic
> (Mesolithic) objects from the Western Sahara
> classified as projectile points were probably used
> to
> tip dart projectiles launched from atlatls, and are
> metrically equivalent to atlatl points in use in the
> Americas, where historical documentation by colonial
> Europeans of their use exists (e.g. Aztec weapon
> technology). Looted projectile points that have been
> common on the antiquities market recently are not
> typically the long, narrow lanceolate and often
> unifacial late Ibero-Maurisian (Oranian) projectiles
> (with parallel-oblique flaking) that are quite
> similar
> to Magdalenian objects, but are instead small (<3cm
> in
> length), bifacial, and barbed/stemmed or triangular
> with concave or convex bases, although small, often
> serrated bipointed and elliptical lanceolate forms
> exist.
> Both Oranian and Magdalenian cultures are
> contemporaneous, with the Oranian usually considered
> to begin between the end of the Oldest Dryas and the
> onset of the B?lling Interstadial in the
> Blytt-Sernander system, approximimately 15,000 BP,
> and
> terminating with at the approximate initial
> Neothermal
> Atlantic(Holocene)Atlantic period, when Capsian
> Mesolithic (Epipaleolithic) industries superseded
> Oranian Mesolithic industries in the archaeological
> record (the Oranian Ibero-Maurisian-Capsian
> transition
> is classified, as a chronological stage,
> independently
> of European Mesolithic stages - the term
> 'Epipaleolithic' is applied instead). Magdalenian
> technological components range in age from ca.
> 18,000
> BP (W?rm Glacial Maximum)to ca. 11,000 BP (terminal
> Pleistocene). Climatic correlation between those
> environmental changes stimulating technological
> innovation in Northwestern Africa (Oranian sites
> occur
> from Libya to Morocco) and stadial/interstadial
> events
> in Europe have not been adequately explored, so the
> Blytt-Sernander system is used for convenience,
> since
> a Mediterranean coastal focus is common to sites in
> Northwest Africa with artifacts common to Oranian
> industries, thus eustasy had direct impact on
> Oranian
> settlement patterns and resource exploitation.
> Like Magdalenian industries, Oranian industries
> produced blade (linear flake) tools, and when these
> non-microlithic tools are predominant in single
> components of Oranian lithic assemblages, these
> assemblages are properly considered to be the
> products
> of late Upper Paleolithic industries. With the
> inclusion of microblade technologies in both Oranian
> and Magdalenian assemblages, these assemblages are
> classified as Mesolithic/Epipaleolithic; hafted,
> highly standardized microblade-based lithic objects,
> which were inserted in series into organic handles
> are
> abundant in Mesolithic contexts from Europe to
> Alaska,
> although most organic artifacts presumed to have
> been
> present upon deposition of assemblages have
> disintegrated.
> A distinction between Capsian Mesolithic and Capsian
> Neolithic industries must be recognized, with
> ceramics, in use beginning ~7,000 BP, a diagnostic
> artifact of the Capsian Neolithic, which existed in
> the middle Atlas region of Algeria from 6,200 ?
> 5,300
> BP
>
(http://www.reference-wordsmith.com/cgi-bin/lookup.cgi?exact=1&terms=Neolithic).
> Anyway, any projectile points predating 13,000 BP
> are
> unsuitable for hafting as arrow points due to
> excessive weight and length, and Capsian Neolithic
> sites, producing the small, exquisitely-crafted
> projectile points familiar to us, are found from
> Tunisia (where the type site, Jabal al-Maqta?, is
> located, on the shore of a salt lake) to Morocco.
> This explains the intersection of meteorite
> collection
> and artifact looting in Morocco and Algeria. You
> will
> find that the morphology of projectile points
> acquired
> from Moroccan dealers is almost always typical of
> these later types. The Sahara is not all
> uninhabitable
> dunes and barren rock, and did not undergo
> desertification at the same rate everywhere. Today,
> wetlands are still extant throughout the Western
> Sahara, with perennial freshwater and brackish pools
> and wetlands in the Atlas Mountain region where
> Capsian culture flourished.
> -Thaddeus
>
> --- "E.P. Grondine" <epgrondine at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi Sterling, list -
> >
> > Bessey's "arrowheads" are likely far older than
> > 13,000-9,000 years old (11,000 BCE - 7,000 BCE).
> The
> > Sahara begins to dry up at the start of the
> Holocene
> > by 8,350 BCE at the latest. (Atlantic impact.)
> The
> > impact that produced the Alaskan and Siberian
> mucks,
> > and altered the north Pacific currents, and the
> > world's weather, are covered in my book "Man and
> > Impact in the Americas".
> >
> > It is too bad these mucks are not absolutely dated
> > yet. But 11,000 BCE would be a late date for
> > Bessey's
> > "arrowheads" (points) - most are likely far older.
> >
> > E.P. Grondine
> > Man and Impact in the Americas
> >
> >
> > > > --- "Sterling K. Webb"
> > <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> Hi, Tom, List
> > > >>
> > > >> Dean Bessey used to (may yet) sell neolithic
> > > >> arrowheads from NWA. Most are probably 9000
> to
> > > >> 13,000 years old, from the time that the
> Sahara
> > > >> was a well-watered grassland with scattered
> > forest
> > > >> stands and lots of big game, well illustrated
> > in
> > > >> the rock drawings the neolithic peoples left
> > behind:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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Received on Mon 11 Jun 2007 11:27:26 AM PDT