Expansion of Acheulean assemblages
One major dispersal - or more likely, sets of dispersals - from Africa into Asia involved the expansion of Acheulean assemblages.[532] [533] Acheulean assemblages are typically characterised by bifacially flaked handaxes, large cutting tools, and often cleavers: all heavy-duty items that could be used for splitting and shaping wood, smashing bone (to extract its marrow), or digging (for example, to obtain edible tubers).
The earliest in Africa date back to c. 1.7 million years ago but are not found at Dmanisi.1[534] In Asia, the earliest are from the site of ‘Ubeidiya, Israel, and date from c. 1.0 to 1.4 million years ago. Recent work in India has shown that the earliest bifaces at Attirampakkam in South India are 1.0-1.5 million years old - considerably older than previously thought for South Asia.[535] Likewise in Armenia, it now appears that Acheulean bifaces in the Caucasus may be over 1 million years old; again, much earlier than previously reckoned.[536] [537] Together, this evidence may indicate that the use of this technology was diffused between groups - or dispersed by incoming groups - across Southwest and South Asia before 1 million years ago. Unfortunately, there is no skeletal data to indicate what type of hominin(s) made them. A second set of dispersals - again unsupported by hominin skeletal evidence - may be indicated at another Israeli site, Gesher Benot Ya‘aqob, where African types of handaxes and cleavers date from c. 700,000 to 800,000 years ago.16 If this denotes another dispersal event, it appears to have been confined to the Levant as it is not found elsewhere. For reasons not yet understood, Acheulean assemblages do not appear in Europe until 500,000-600,000 years ago; here, they are usually associated with Homo heidelbergensis, which was likely an immigrant into Europe from Southwest Asia.[538]
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