An Eastern Mirage? A quantitative evaluation of the technological affinities between early Ahmarian and Protoaurignacian

Abstract

The biocultural processes that led to the transition from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic remain among the most debated topics in prehistoric archaeology. A key aspect of this debate concerns the dispersal of Homo sapiens foraging groups across the Mediterranean Basin. Within this framework, similarities between sub-contemporaneous stone tool industries have often been interpreted as evidence of underlying demographic processes. One long-standing assumption is the techno-typological relationship between the Levantine early Ahmarian and the European Protoaurignacian, with some scholars suggesting that these terms refer to the same cultural phe-nomenon (Zilhão et al. 2024). While this cultural link has become widely accepted in the literature as evidence for one of the East-West demic spread of Homo sapiens, no studies to date have quantitatively assessed the similarities and differences between these two lithic traditions. In this paper, we present the results of a quantitative comparison between the early Ahmarian (layers XX–XVI) and Upper Paleolithic (layers XIII–XIB) lithic assemblages from Ksar ‘Akil, and some of the earliest Protoaurignacian assemblages from the Ital-ian Peninsula (Grotta di Fumane, Riparo Bombrini, and Grotta di Castelcivita). This analysis, framed within the theoretical context of cultural transmission processes, tests the degree of dissimilarity across several technological domains of the core reduction sequence (Cascalheira 2019; Tostevin 2007). Our findings demonstrate that the Protoaurignacian differs significantly from both the early Ahmar-ian and the Upper Paleolithic layers XIII–XIB at Ksar ‘Akil. These results challenge the assumption that lithic evidence supports a demic spread of foraging groups bearing the same technological traditions. Instead, they underscore the need for more nuanced hypotheses regarding the development of the Upper Paleolithic, both in Europe and beyond.

Armando Falcucci

Archaeologist

My research focuses on the earliest stages of the Upper Paleolithic. I am currently analyzing several Aurignacian sites in Italy to better understand the chrono-cultural development of this technocomplex and explore the role of climate change in the evolution of stone tool technologies.