Deviation Actions
Description
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The third installment of the Stone Age 101 series represents the Middle Paleolithic from around 200.000 until 40.000 years ago. In Europa and western Asia it was dominated by the "Mousterien" a culture associated with the Neanderthal. Meanwhile in Africa early Homo Sapiens appeared. Nearing the end of the Middle Paleolithic he migrated to the Middle East and Europe.
The Beginning of the middle Paleolithic was defined using the appearance of a special flint napping technique invented by Neanderthals - the Levallois technique. It is characterized by the innovation of preparing a core of flint first in order to produce more defined flakes. This technique was more efficient and economical than the ones used during the Acheulean. Defining tools of the Middle Paleolithic are so called "scrapers" as well as tear drop shaped projectiles.
Our representative couple comes from modern day Iraq where I used the caves of Shanidar as my exemplary location. This site is important because it gives clues about Neanderthal social life as several skeletons of old individuals show deformations that would have made survival without help impossible. One famous burial contained pollen of medicinal plants and was long cited as evidence for Neanderthal burial ceremonies - however recent research suggests there may be natural explanations for the pollen samples.
We added this to the river favorites gallery because the cave is very close to the Greater Zab river which was one of the rivers dealt with in our rivers exhibition in 2023, and due to the obvious lack of other photos from that river on DA we focused on the Shandiar Cave.