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Bitumen as a hafting material on Middle Palaeolithic artefacts

Nature volume 380, pages 336–338 (1996)Cite this article

Abstract

A SCRAPER and a Levallois flake, discovered in the Mousterian levels (dated around 40,000 BC) of the Umm el Tlel site in Syria, were submitted to an organic geochemieal study to identify a black substance occurring on their surface. The shape of this black substance suggests that the organic traces are remnants of a hafting material used by Middle Palaeolithic people to glue handles onto their tools. Gas chromatography–mass spectro-metry (GC–MS) analyses of both C15+ alkanes and C15+ aromatics confirm that the black substance is a highly weathered bitumen, the source of which remains unknown. According to some diagnostic molecular information (for example, the occurrence of fluoranthene and pyrene), it seems that the raw bitumen used has been subjected to extreme temperature. The scraper and the Levallois flake described here are, to the best of our knowledge, the first reported examples of Middle Palaeolithic artefacts hutted with bitumen to handles.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Département d'Ethnologie/Préhistoire, Université de Paris X, Nanterre, 200 Avenue de la République, 92001, Nanterre Cedex, France

    Eric Boëda

  2. Elf Aquitaine, Direction Exploration, CSTJF, Avenue Larribau, 64018, Pau Cedex, France

    Jacques Connan & Daniel Dessort

  3. Ministère de la Culture, Direction Générate des Antiquités et des Musées, Damas, Syria

    Sultan Muhesen

  4. Centre des Faibles Radioactivités, Laboratoire mixte CNRS-CEA, 91198, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France

    Norbert Mercier, Hélène Valladas & Nadine Tisnérat

Authors
  1. Eric Boëda
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  2. Jacques Connan
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  3. Daniel Dessort
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  4. Sultan Muhesen
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  5. Norbert Mercier
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  6. Hélène Valladas
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  7. Nadine Tisnérat
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Boëda, E., Connan, J., Dessort, D. et al. Bitumen as a hafting material on Middle Palaeolithic artefacts. Nature 380, 336–338 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1038/380336a0

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