کد مقاله | کد نشریه | سال انتشار | مقاله انگلیسی | نسخه تمام متن |
---|---|---|---|---|
4557376 | 1329552 | 2007 | 12 صفحه PDF | دانلود رایگان |
Spring-deposited carbonate rocks, or tufas, exposed along the flanks of the Libyan Plateau near Kharga Oasis, Western Desert, Egypt, can provide a directly datable stratigraphic context for Middle Stone Age/Middle Paleolithic (MSA/MP) archaeological material, if such material can be found in situ within tufa strata. Two such localities (Mata'na Site G and Bulaq Wadi 3 Locus 1) described by Caton-Thompson were revisited and sampled for uranium-series analysis. At Mata'na Site G (KH/MT-02), Middle Stone Age (“Upper Levalloisian”) material is underlain by tufa with a uranium-series age of 127.9 ± 1.3 ka, and overlain by tufa with an age of 103 ± 14 ka. At Bulaq Wadi 3 Locus 1, a uranium-series age of 114.4 ± 4.2 ka on tufa capping a small collection of Middle Stone Age artifacts also provides a minimum age constraint on that material. Tufa underlying an MSA workshop (KH/MD-10) indicates that this assemblage, characterized by use of several Levallois reduction methods, was deposited after ∼124 ka. Furthermore, uranium-series ages averaging ∼133 ka on a Wadi Midauwara tufa (WME-10) without associated archaeological material suggest that one period of spring flow in the region began during the Marine Isotope Stage 6/5e transition, prior to the warmest portion of the last interglacial period. The dated archaeological material suggests that the distinction that has been identified between Nubian and non-Nubian complexes in the Nile Valley may hold for the Western Desert, although local complexity has yet to be fully described.
Journal: Journal of Human Evolution - Volume 52, Issue 6, June 2007, Pages 690–701