Sort order:  

Status: 1 Treffer   •   Seite 1 von 1   •   10 Artikel pro Seite

2017-05-16 04:01:27   •   ID: 1602

Acheulian Trihedrals in Africa and Europe

Figure 1a
Figure 1b
Figure 1a and 1b: This is an African trihedral quartzite pick hand-axe (16 cm long) exhibiting wind gloss and desert varnish, found in 1976 in the Grand Erg Oriental in Algeria by a Friend who has already passed away.

In Africa Acheulian stone tool assemblages are defined by the presence of the handaxe (or biface) and/or other large cutting tools (LCTs) such as cleavers, unifaces, or picks/trihedrals.

In the absence other diagnostic markers, an assemblage may still be identified as Acheulean by the presence of particular stone working techniques intended to produce large flake-blanks which are further knapped into LCTs. Among these techniques are the Victoria West, Kombewa, Talbalbal-Tachengit techniques.

Trihedrals in Africa seem to be more numerous during the older and early middle Pleistocene.  

The assemblages in Konso Gardula, Ethiopia were dated to 1.75 million years and are among the oldest Acheulian ensembles I. the world. The Nachukui Formation is a geological deposit located on the western shore of Lake Turkana, northern Kenya, that includes archaeological sites dated to the earliest stone tool production in the world.

The KS4 ensemble, dated to 1.5 million years is characterized by the presence of pick-like tools with a trihedral or quadrangular section, unifacially or bifacially shaped crude hand-axes, and a few cores and flakes.

At 1,5 million years ago, Trihedrals were also present in the Levant at Ubeidiya (Israel), situated on the edge of the western escarpment of the Jordan Rift Valley- see: 2153

Sidi Abderrahmane near Casablanca Thomas I quarry unit L exhibits classical Trihedrals dated geochronologically  and by OSL to about 1,3 million years. Trihedrals were  still present during OIS 16 at the STIC Quarry (see a Trihedral in Figure 2 from STIC quarry from the classic Biberson Publication 1961 on Figure II).

Here Handaxes were manufactured mainly on various quartzites available close to the site as pebbles of small to medium size and some blocks as well as a few flint nodules collected in a secondary position from beach deposits.

Figure 2
The site of Arkin 8, on the West margin of the Nile at the Sudanese-Egyptian border is undated. However, the character of the stone-tool industry, dominated by heavy duty tools, cordiform, ovate and lanceolate handaxes, as well as Trihedrals; tentatively aligns it with this early Middle Pleistocene group of sites (Wendorf 1968).

Similarly undated, early bifaces and trihedral pieces have recently been recorded for the Fezzan, Libya. Sites of younger Middle Pleistocene age in Noth Africa and Egypt usually have no Trihedrals.

This hold true for the  younger localities at Sidi Abderrahman – Cap Chatelier, Grotte d’Ours, and Grotte des Littorines and sites in the Fayum depression (associated with the 40 m lake), the Wadi Midauwara in the Kharga depression, at Bir Tarfawi and Bir Sahara East.

Geochronometric dating of the Acheulean deposits in the oases of the western desert suggest a minimum age of 350 k.a. while recent work on the geochronology of the fossil-spring tufas of the Kharga Oasis have provided U-series minimum ages of 300 k.a.

In Europe the presence / absence of Trihedrals seem to be not of much chronical value. For example an Acheulian with some Trihedrals is known all along the middle and lower Guadalquivir basin along the main river and several of its tributaries (Figure 3 shows a typical example).

The geostratigraphic sequence of the Guadalquivir depression is composed of 14 terraces, dated recently by U/Th and paleomagnetic determinations. Acheulian remains are especially concentrated on the middle terraces, dated not earlier than MIS 11.

Figure 3
Recently a late S- European Acheulean site characterized by an unusual abundance of large cutting tools (LCT) and Trihedrals was described from Porto Maior- see: 2141 (Neves, Pontevedra; ca 200 k.a. BP). Such ensembles resemble more the African and the Near east ones, than the contemporaneous European Late Acheulean.

Therefore, this special ensemble is suggested to point to an African origin.

Overall there are some striking similarities between the Acheulean of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula:

  • Broad similarities in lithic technology


  • presence of cleavers


  • the use of non-flint rocks, such as quartzite, as raw material for bifaces


  • Gonen Sharon draw attention to a special technique, called entame core method in the chaine operatoire of biface production in Northern Africa and Spain. He notes that:  

    “It is suggested that the frequent use of the entame core method common to both North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula indicates similarity in lithic tradition during the Acheulean.

    This may support the view of North African origin for the Iberian Acheulean during the Middle Pleistocene” (Afr Archaeol Rev 2011)- but again it could be a convergence phenomenon, primed by the same raw material-but see: 2187 .

    The presence of trifacial Handaxes in lithic assemblages is a characteristic of several Acheulian series of Southwestern France.

    It was E. Boëda, who first described the habitual use of this concept in levels 8 and 9 of Pech-de-l'Azé II in the Perigord Noire (Boëda, 1989).

    Figure 4
    Other localities of interest in this context were detected within a ca 150 km distance, especially in the Bergeracois Region: Barbas C'4 sup, and the Aquitaine: Combe-Grenal level 59, and at open-air sites such as Combe Brune 2 and 3.

    Figure 4 shows the initial stage in the production of a large (about 14 cm long) trihedral biface from the Bergerac area, made by the typical, often extremely homogeneous Flint of the Region, found at several localities in large blocks and plates.

    It resembles similar lithics appearing early in the production of Trihedrals, at the site of Petit-Bost (Neuvic, Dordogne) an open-air locality in the Isle valley, dated by TL to MIS 9/8 by TL, between 340 and 270 k.a. (C. Mathias and L. Bourguignon 2019).

    The local use of a trifacial concept is known over a long time-span between MIS9 until MIS6-see here: 2064 for a different interpretation!

    Trihedrals are part of the classic ensemble at La Micoque, layer N. The age of Layer N will possibly remain unknown. After the lower strata have been consistently  dated to a glacial circle at 250-300 k.a. BP, there is a possibility that they are much older than traditionally suggested.

    Acheulian Trihedrals are part of the “Chalossien” of France, which has never been dated by modern techniques and are also frequent at some “Micoquian / KMG” ensembles of Germany (Bocksteinschmiede, Salzgitter Lebenstedt- all dated to MIS3.

    Provenance: Collection Weigand and Hernus (AUT/GER)