ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF BLADE TECHNOLOGIES IN THE MIDDLE AND EARLY UPPER PALAEOLITHIC

Abstract

The origins of blade technology used to be located at the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic and identified with the emergence of Anatomically Modern Humans. The paper points to earlier appearance of blade technology, earlier than the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic, in the form of a number of episodes that occurred starting from the early phase of the Middle Palaeolithic. Such episodes took place in Africa, the Near East as well as in Europe. However, it is interesting that the early emergence ofblade technology in Europe is not recorded in the westem Mediterranean. At the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic we can see the emergence of a blade technology on the base of Levallois concept and, independently, of the Levallois tradition at late technology as the fully- fedged Upper Palaeolithic Aurignacian. The distribution range of these two units: Levallois stenmed'transitional'industries and the Aurignacian covers the Near East,south-east Europe and the Danube basin to the west and Central Asia to the east. The paper discusses the possibilities of the identification of the range ofthese units with the diffusion ofthe Anatomically Modern Humans in Eurasia.