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Abbevillian (formerly also ''Chellean'') is a term for the oldest
lithic industry :''Not to be confused with industrial archaeology, the archaeology of (modern) industrial sites.'' In the archaeology of the Stone Age, an industry or technocomplex is a typological classification of stone tools. An industry consists of a nu ...
found in Europe, dated to between roughly 600,000 and 400,000 years ago. The original artifacts were collected from road construction sites on the
Somme __NOTOC__ Somme or The Somme may refer to: Places *Somme (department), a department of France *Somme, Queensland, Australia *Canal de la Somme, a canal in France *Somme (river), a river in France Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Somme'' (book), a ...
river near
Abbeville Abbeville (, vls, Abbekerke, pcd, Advile) is a commune in the Somme department and in Hauts-de-France region in northern France. It is the chef-lieu of one of the arrondissements of Somme. Located on the river Somme, it was the capital of ...
by a French customs officer,
Boucher de Perthes Boucher may refer to: *Boucher (surname), a family name (including a list of people with that name) * Boucher Manufacturing Company, an American toy company *'' R. v. Boucher'', a 1951 Supreme Court of Canada decision that overturned a conviction ...
. He published his findings in 1836. Subsequently,
Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet (29 August 1821 – 25 September 1898), French archaeologist and anthropologist, was born at Meylan, Isère. Biography Mortillet was educated at the Jesuit college of Chambéry and at the Paris Conservatoire ...
(1821–1898), professor of prehistoric anthropology at the School of Anthropology in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, published (1882) "''Le Prehistorique, antiquité de l'homme''", in which he was the first to characterize periods by the name of a site. Chellean included artifacts discovered at the town of Chelles, a suburb of Paris. They are similar to those found at Abbeville. Later anthropologists substituted Abbevillian for Chellean, the latter of which is no longer in use. Abbevillian tool users were the first
archaic human A number of varieties of ''Homo'' are grouped into the broad category of archaic humans in the period that precedes and is contemporary to the emergence of the earliest early modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') around 300 ka. Omo-Kibish I (Omo I) f ...
s in Europe, classified as either late
Homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor' ...
as
Homo antecessor ''Homo antecessor'' (Latin "pioneer man") is an Extinction, extinct species of archaic human recorded in the Spanish Archaeological Site of Atapuerca, Sierra de Atapuerca, a productive archaeological site, from 1.2 to 0.8 million years ago durin ...
or as
Homo heidelbergensis ''Homo heidelbergensis'' (also ''H. sapiens heidelbergensis''), sometimes called Heidelbergs, is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of ''H. erectus'' in ...
.


History

The label Abbevillian prevailed until the Leakey family discovered older (yet similar) artifacts at
Olduvai Gorge The Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropology, paleoanthropological localities in the world; the many sites exposed by the gorge have proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human ev ...
(a.k.a. Oldupai Gorge), starting in 1959, and promoted the African origin of man. Olduwan (or
Oldowan The Oldowan (or Mode I) was a widespread stone tool archaeological industry (style) in prehistory. These early tools were simple, usually made with one or a few flakes chipped off with another stone. Oldowan tools were used during the Lower ...
) soon replaced Abbevillian in describing African and Asian paleoliths. The term Abbevillian is still used, but it is now restricted to Europe. The label, however, continues to lose popularity as a scientific designation. Mortillet had portrayed his traditions as chronologically sequential. In the Abbevillian, early Palaeolithic hominins used cores; in the Acheulian, flakes. Olduwan tools, however, indicate that in the earliest Palaeolithic, the distinction between flake and core is less clear. Consequently, there also is a tendency to view Abbevillian as an early phase of Acheulian.


Provenience of the type

The Abbevillian
type site In archaeology, a type site is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and Hallstatt led scholars to divide the European Iron Age ...
is on the 150-foot terrace of the
River Somme The Somme ( , , ) is a river in Picardy, northern France. The river is in length, from its source in the high ground of the former at Fonsomme near Saint-Quentin, to the Bay of the Somme, in the English Channel. It lies in the geological ...
. Tools found there are rough chipped bifacial
handaxe A hand axe (or handaxe or Acheulean hand axe) is a prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history, yet there is no academic consensus on what they were used for. It is made from stone, usually flint or cher ...
s made during the
Elsterian Stage The Elster glaciation (german: Elster-Kaltzeit, ''Elster-Glazial'' or ''Elster-Zeit'') or, less commonly, the Elsterian glaciation, in the older and popular scientific literature also called the Elster Ice Age (''Elster-Eiszeit''), is the oldest k ...
of the
Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
Ice Age, which covered central Europe between and years ago. The Abbevillian is a phase of Olduwan that occurred in Europe near, but not at, the end of the
Lower Palaeolithic The Lower Paleolithic (or Lower Palaeolithic) is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 3 million years ago when the first evidence for stone tool production and use by hominins appears in ...
(2.5 mya. – 2,500,000 years ago). Those who adopt the Abbevillian scheme refer to it as the middle Acheulian, about - years ago. Geologically it occurred in the
Middle Pleistocene The Chibanian, widely known by its previous designation of Middle Pleistocene, is an age in the international geologic timescale or a stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. The ...
, younger than about 700,000 years ago. It spanned the Günz-Mindel interglacial period between the
Günz The Günz is a river in Bavaria, Germany. It is formed near Lauben by the confluence of its two source rivers: the Östliche Günz (eastern Günz) and the Westliche Günz (western Günz). It is approx. long (including its western source river) ...
and the
Mindel The Mindel () is a river in Bavaria, southern Germany. The Mindel originates west of Kaufbeuren, in the Allgäu region, and flows generally north. It flows into the Danube (right tributary) in Gundremmingen, east of Günzburg. The towns Mindelhei ...
, but more recent finds of the East Anglian Palaeolithic push the date back into the Günz, closer to the ya mark.An important point to remember is that tool-makers advanced at different rates throughout the globe. For example, the style of tool-making that is called Abbevillian was practiced at a different time period in Africa than in Europe. The Abbevillian culture bearers are not believed to have evolved in Europe, but to have entered it from further east. It was thus preceded by the earlier
Olduwan The Oldowan (or Mode I) was a widespread stone tool archaeological industry (style) in prehistory. These early tools were simple, usually made with one or a few flakes chipped off with another stone. Oldowan tools were used during the Lower ...
of Homo erectus, and the Upper
Acheulian Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French ''acheuléen'' after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated ...
, of which
Clactonian The Clactonian is the name given by archaeologists to an industry of European flint tool manufacture that dates to the early part of the interglacial period known as the Hoxnian, the Mindel-Riss or the Holstein stages (c. 400,000 years ago). Clac ...
and
Tayacian The Tayacian is a Palaeolithic stone tool industry that is a variant of the Mousterian. It was first identified as distinct by Abbé Breuil from the site of La Micoque in Les-Eyzies-de-Tayac although since then the cave at Fontéchevade has becom ...
are considered phases, supplanted it. The Acheulian there went on into the
Levalloisian The Levallois technique () is a name given by archaeologists to a distinctive type of stone knapping developed around 250,000 to 300,000 years ago during the Middle Palaeolithic period. It is part of the Mousterian stone tool industry, and was ...
and
Mousterian The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the latt ...
are associated with Neanderthal man.


Abbevillian sites in Europe

To avoid the question of what culture name should be used to describe European artifacts, some, such as Schick and Toth, refer to "non-handaxe" and "handaxe" sites. Handaxes came into use at about the 500,000 ya mark.Acheulean or later Acheulean, dated to 500,000-100,000 ya. Non-handaxe sites are often the same sites as handaxe sites, the difference being one of time, or, if geographically different, have no discernible spatial pattern. The physical evidence is summarized in the table below Note that the dates assigned vary widely after 700,000 ya and, except where substantiated by scientific methods, should be viewed as tentative and on the speculative side.


Notes


Footnotes


References

* * * * * * * * *


See also

*
Timeline of glaciation There have been five or six major ice ages in the history of Earth over the past 3 billion years. The Late Cenozoic Ice Age began 34 million years ago, its latest phase being the Quaternary glaciation, in progress since 2.58 million years ago. ...
*
List of human fossils The following tables give an overview of notable finds of hominin fossils and remains relating to human evolution, beginning with the formation of the tribe Hominini (the divergence of the human and chimpanzee lineages) in the late Miocene, roug ...


Further reading

* * {{cite journal , last = Wintle , first = A. G. , journal = Nature , title = Hominid Evolution: Dating Tautavel Man , doi = 10.1038/304118b0 , volume = 304 , issue = 5922 , pages = 118–119 , date = July 14, 1983 , pmid = 6408487 , bibcode = 1983Natur.304..118W , s2cid = 4276118 , issn = 0028-0836


External links


The Abbevillian Culture
section in a pdf document. Search on Abbevillian.

This site presents the view that
Olduwan The Oldowan (or Mode I) was a widespread stone tool archaeological industry (style) in prehistory. These early tools were simple, usually made with one or a few flakes chipped off with another stone. Oldowan tools were used during the Lower ...
and Abbevillian are phases of the
Acheulean Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French ''acheuléen'' after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated ...
. Archaeological cultures of Europe Abbeville