166,949 research outputs found
Two Acheuleans, two humankinds. From 1.5 to 0.85 Ma at Melka Kunture (Upper Awash, Ethiopian highlands)
The Acheulean is the longest-lasting human cultural record, spanning approximately 1.5 Ma and three continents. The most comprehensive sequences are found in East Africa, where, in large-scale syntheses, the Lower Pleistocene Acheulean (LPA) has often been considered a uniform cultural entity. Furthermore, the emergence and development of Acheulean technology are seen as linked to the emergence and evolution of Homo ergaster/erectus. The criterion for grouping together different lithic assemblages scattered over space and time is the presence of large cutting tools (LCTs), more than of any other component. Their degree of refinement has been used, in turn, as a parameter for evaluating Acheulean development and variability. But was the East African LPA really uniform as regards all components involved in lithic productions?
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the techno-economic similarities and differences among LPA productions in a specific micro-regional and environmental context, i.e. at Melka Kunture, in the Ethiopian highlands, and in a specific period of time: between ~1.5 Ma, when some of the earliest Acheulean complexes appeared, and 1.0-0.85 Ma, when LCTs productions became intensive and widespread. Our detailed comparative analyses investigate all aspects and phases of the chaßnes opératoires. Since hominin fossil remains were discovered at some of the analyzed sites, we also discuss differences among lithic productions in relation to the changing paleoanthropological record.
Our studies show that at Melka Kunture the LPA techno-complexes cannot be grouped into a single uniform entity. The assembled evidence points instead to âtwo Acheuleansâ well-defined by a strong discontinuity in various aspects of techno-economic behaviors. This discontinuity is related to a major step in human evolution: the transition from Homo ergaster/erectus to Homo heidelbergensis
The unknown Oldowan. ~1.7-million-year-old standardized obsidian small tools from Garba IV, Melka Kunture, Ethiopia
The Oldowan Industrial Complex has long been thought to have been static, with limited
internal variability, embracing techno-complexes essentially focused on small-to-medium
flake production. The flakes were rarely modified by retouch to produce small tools, which
do not show any standardized pattern. Usually, the manufacture of small standardized tools
has been interpreted as a more complex behavior emerging with the Acheulean technology.
Here we report on the ~1.7 Ma Oldowan assemblages from Garba IVE-F at Melka Kunture
in the Ethiopian highland. This industry is structured by technical criteria shared by the other
East African Oldowan assemblages. However, there is also evidence of a specific technical
process never recorded before, i.e. the systematic production of standardized small pointed
tools strictly linked to the obsidian exploitation. Standardization and raw material selection
in the manufacture of small tools disappear at Melka Kunture during the Lower Pleistocene
Acheulean. This proves that 1) the emergence of a certain degree of standardization in toolkits
does not reflect in itself a major step in cultural evolution; and that 2) the Oldowan knappers,
when driven by functional needs and supported by a highly suitable raw material,
were occasionally able to develop specific technical solutions. The small tool production at
~1.7 Ma, at a time when the Acheulean was already emerging elsewhere in East Africa,
adds to the growing amount of evidence of Oldowan techno-economic variability and flexibility,
further challenging the view that early stone knapping was static over hundreds of
thousands of years
The KongoKing project: 2012 fieldwork report from the lower Congo province (DRC)
In order to understand the origins of the Kongo kingdom, the KongoKing research group conducted a first survey in the area usually regarded
as the former kingdomâs provincial capital sites of Mbanza Nsundi and Mbanza Mbata in the Lower Congo Province of the DRC during the summer
of 2012. Several test excavations and radiocarbon dates are starting to shed some light on the last five centuries in the area
The Fischer controversy, the war origins debate and France: a non-history
The controversy that followed publication in 1961 of Fritz Fischerâs Griff nach der Weltmacht was not restricted to West Germany. Even if the Fischer debate abroad did not acquire the vehemence it took on domestically, intellectually the effect was powerful. This article will demonstrate that France was potentially a most propitious terrain for the Fischer controversy to spread. Yet for a variety of reasons, largely to do with the nature of history practised in France in the 1950s and 1960s, it had remarkably little impact. The reasons for there being little reaction to the Fischer controversy also explain the state of the war origins debate in France fifty years on and why the warâs causes have not been seriously investigated by French historians for several decades
The âPierre Duhem Thesis.â A Reappraisal of Duhemâs Discovery of the Physics of the Middle Ages
Pierre Duhem is the discoverer of the physics of the Middle Ages. The discovery that there existed a physics of the Middle Ages was a surprise primarily for Duhem himself. This discovery completely changed the way he saw the evolution of physics, bringing him to formulate a complex argument for the growth and continuity of scientific knowledge, which I call the âPierre Duhem Thesisâ (not to be confused either with what Roger Ariew called the âtrue Duhem thesisâ as opposed to the Quine-Duhem thesis, which he persuasively argued is not Duhemâs, or with the famous âQuine-Duhem Thesisâ itself). The âPierre Duhem Thesisâ consists of five sub-theses (some transcendental in nature, some other causal, factual, or descriptive), which are not independent, as they do not work separately (but only as a system) and do not relate to reality separately (but only simultaneously). The famous and disputed âcontinuity thesisâ is part, as a sub-thesis, from this larger argument. I argue that the âPierre Duhem Thesisâ wraps up all of Duhemâs discoveries in the history of science and as a whole represents his main contribution to the historiography of science. The âPierre Duhem Thesisâ is the central argument of Pierre Duhem's work as historian of science
Not More of the Same: Michel Serresâs Challenge to the Ethics of Alterity
Much French philosophy of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has been marked by the positive valorization of alterity, an ethical position that has recently received a vigorous assault from Alain Badiouâs privilege of sameness. This article argues that Badiou shares a great deal in common with the philosophies of alterity from which he seeks to distance himself, and that Michel Serresâs little-known account of alterity offers a much more radical alternative to the ethics of difference. Drawing on both translated and as yet untranslated works, I argue that the Serresian ontology of inclination, along with his conceptual personae of the hermaphrodite and the parasite, informs ethical and political positions that offer a distinctive ethics and politics that present fresh insights about the relation between the singular and the universal, the contingency of market exchange, and the nature of violence
Reformist hagiography : the life of St Roding of Beaulieu and the struggle for power in early eleventh-Century Lotharingia
This paper explores an example of âreformistâ hagiographic production in early eleventh-century Lotharingia by focusing on the Life of St Roding of Beaulieu, a small monastery in the diocese of Verdun. Until recently, this text was interpreted exclusively in terms of the scant information it provides on this institutionâs early medieval history and in terms of its ideological message regarding monastic discipline and leadership. By integrating the redaction of this text into the then-current regional geography and political context, this paper proposes a new approach to its interpretation and to the understanding of Beaulieuâs âmonastic reformâ in general. Close analysis of the narrative reveals that its redaction was inspired by specific issues relating to local and regional politics in the mid-1010s, and that parts of the institutionâs recent history were allegorically veiled behind the portrayal of Roding. However, rapid changes in power relationships rendered those aspects of the text outdated within a few years. This raises significant questions regarding the long-term relevance of such hidden stories and the degree to which their various ideological, political and other messages remained accessible to medieval audiences
Changement grammatical et discursif en français multiculturel de la région parisienne : éléments de comparaison
Cet article cherche Ă comparer la variation et le changement dans deux domaines linguistiques, Ă savoir la grammaire et le discours. Il prĂ©sente les rĂ©sultats du projet « Multicultural London English â Multicultural Paris French » et sâinterroge sur les diffĂ©rences dans lâusage des traits innovants et leur corrĂ©lation avec certaines catĂ©gories sociales. Du cĂŽtĂ© grammatical, la recherche se concentre en particulier sur lâusage des interrogatives indirectes in situ telles que 'je sais pas câest qui' et 'je sais ça veut dire quoi', frĂ©quemment utilisĂ©es Ă lâoral chez certains locuteurs. Du cĂŽtĂ© pragmatico-discursif, elle discute de lâutilisation des particules dâextension (et tout, et tout ça). LâĂ©tude rĂ©vĂšle que la distribution des innovations discursives nâest pas la mĂȘme que celle des innovations grammaticales, dont lâusage est davantage clivĂ© en fonction des catĂ©gories sociales. Lâarticle tente dâapporter des Ă©clairages sur les processus de grammaticalisation et de changement, en sâinterrogeant sur lâexistence dâun français multiculturel typiquement « jeune » ou typiquement « parisien »
- âŠ