Le Moustier 1 Neanderthal skull, today in the Neues Museum, Berlin.[5]
Mousterian point
The European Mousterian is the product of
Neanderthals. It existed roughly from 160,000 to 40,000
BP.[6]
Some assemblages, namely those from Pech de l'Aze, include exceptionally small points prepared using the
Levallois technique among other prepared core types, causing some researchers to suggest that these flakes take advantage of greater grip strength possessed by Neanderthals.[7]
In North Africa and the Near East, Mousterian tools were produced by
anatomically modern humans. In the
Eastern Mediterranean, for example, assemblages produced by Neanderthals are indistinguishable from those made by
Qafzeh type modern humans.[8] The Mousterian industry in North Africa is estimated to be 315,000 years old.[2]
Possible variants are Denticulate, Charentian (Ferrassie & Quina) named after the
Charente region,[9] Typical, and the Mousterian Traditional Acheulian (MTA) Type-A and Type-B.[10] The industry continued alongside the new
Châtelperronian industry during the 45,000–40,000
BP period.[11]
Locations
Mousterian artifacts have been found in
Haua Fteah in Cyrenaica and other sites in Northwest Africa.[12]
In the Iberian Peninsula Mousterian stone tools (Mode 3) have been found in the Middle and Upper Pleistocene caves and in open-air sites of the main valleys.[13][14] The archaeo-palaeontological records in the Sierra de Atapuerca caves (Burgos, Spain) from Middle Paleolithic (i.e., Galería de las Estatuas y Cueva Fantasma sites) have provided Mousterian stone tools associated with Homo neanderthalensis.[13]
Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar contains Mousterian objects.
The archaeological cave site of
Azykh contains Mousterian relics in the overlying strata. In this cave, a lower jaw of a hominid named
Azykhantrop has been found. It is supposed that this finding belongs to a pre-
neanderthal species.[16][17]
The most important sites with significant Neanderthal and Mousterian finds in
Croatia are
Krapina,
Vindija,
Velika pećina and
Veternica, located in the north-western part of Croatia and the region of
Hrvatsko zagorje.[18][19][20][21][22] Mousterian industry sites on
Istrian peninsula are
Romualdova pećina and an open-air site at Campanož.[23] Sites on the
Adriatic coast and its hinterland are
Mujina pećina, with a Mousterian stratigraphic sequence, and Velika pećina in Kličevica with finds approximately 40,000 years old that are late Mousterian.[24] An underwater Mousterian excavation site at Kaštel Štafilić - Resnik recovered about 100 artefacts of which half are tools, Mousterian centripetal cores and side scrapers, several pseudotools, numerous pieces of
chert and
Levallois method artifacts.[25][26][27] Other underwater Paleolithic finds are a single Mousterian tool offshore of
Povljana on the
island of Pag and stone tools of possible Mousterian type at a depth of 3 m at Stipanac in
Lake Prokljan.[28] In the area north of the town of
Zadar an extensive series of sites exist where usually small
Micro-mousterian industry tools, denticulates and notched pieces are found.[27]
Stone scrapers for cleaning and working leather, Mousterian Culture, Israel, 250,000-50,000 BP
Mousterian Culture and Late Stone Age Stone Tools. Notch for sharpening wood, and denticulate for sawing wood and bone. Rosh En Mor and En Aqev. 250,000-22,000 BP. Israel
Mousterian &
Aurignacian Cultures, Stone Burins used for incising stone and wood, Qafzeh, Hayonim, el-Wad Cave, 250,000-22,000 BP Israel
Mousterian Culture, stone spearheads, 250,000-50,000.
Israel Museum
^Callaway, Ewen (20 August 2014).
"Neanderthals: Bone technique redrafts prehistory". Nature. 512 (7514): 242.
Bibcode:
2014Natur.512..242C.
doi:10.1038/512242a.
ISSN0028-0836.
PMID25143094. From the Black Sea to the Atlantic coast of France, these [Mousterian] artefacts and Neanderthal remains disappear from European sites at roughly the same time, 39,000–41,000 years ago, Higham's team conclude. The data challenge arguments that Neanderthals endured in refuges in the southern Iberian Peninsula until as recently as 28,000 years ago
^
abRichter, Daniel; Grün, Rainer; Joannes-Boyau, Renaud; Steele, Teresa E.; Amani, Fethi; Rué, Mathieu; Fernandes, Paul; Raynal, Jean-Paul; Geraads, Denis (2017-06-07). "The age of the hominin fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, and the origins of the Middle Stone Age". Nature. 546 (7657): 293–296.
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^Haviland, William A.; Prins, Harald E. L.; Walrath, Dana; McBride, Bunny (24 February 2009).
The Essence of Anthropology. Cengage Learning. p. 87.
ISBN978-0-495-59981-4. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
^Shaw, Ian; Jameson, Robert, eds. (1999).
A Dictionary of Archaeology. Blackwell. p. 408.
ISBN0-631-17423-0. Retrieved 1 August 2016. "the classic Mousterian can be identified after perhaps 160,000 BP and lasts until c. 40,000 BP in Europe."
^Dibble, Harold L.; McPherron, Shannon P. (October 2006). "The Missing Mousterian". Current Anthropology. 47 (5): 777–803.
doi:
10.1086/506282.
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^Shea, J. J. (2003). "Neandertals [sic], competition and the origin of modern human behaviour in the Levant". Evolutionary Anthropology. 12: 173–187.
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^Lan Shaw, Robert Jameson, ed. (2008). A Dictionary of Archaeology. John Wiley & Sons.
ISBN9780470751961.[page needed]
^Dolukhanov, Pavel (2004). The Early Slavs: Eastern Europe from the Initial Settlement to the Kievan Rus. Routledge.
ISBN9781317892229.[page needed]
^Karavanić, Ivor; Vukosavljević, Nikola; Janković, Ivor; Ahern, James C.M.; Smith, Fred H. (November 2018). "Paleolithic hominins and settlement in Croatia from MIS 6 to MIS 3: Research history and current interpretations". Quaternary International. 494: 152–166.
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