Retouched Levallois Point

Discussion of the individual object

This retouched Levallois point was made on an atypical Levallois point (Nubian A) that retains some cortex in the central part of the flake and along the right lateral margin near the proximal end. There are four dorsal scars larger than 2cm that follow a "Nubian A" core preparation pattern: two elongated scars initiated from the distal end, a lateral scar, and a large central removal coming from the proximal end. The platform is plano-convex and multifaceted. The bulb is well developed and the ventral face bears strong ripples. The orientation of the point is slightly off the axis of flaking. There is flat, semi-invasive, inverse, subparallel retouch at the distal end of the point. There are also discontinuous alternating scars along both lateral margins that are too small and irregular to be considered retouch but could result from use or damage, and a few damage scars that cut through the patina that covers both faces of the object. The tool could be considered a Nazlet Khater point as defined by (Van Peer 1998:121). In the Bordes typology (Bordes 1961; Debénath and Dibble 1994) it would be a retouched Levallois point.


Discussion of the group

This artifact was part of a set of 147 lithic objects donated to the Metropolitan Museum by Charles T. Currelly in 1906 (06.322.1- 06.322.147). Currelly participated in Edward Naville’s excavations at Deir el- Bahri between 1905 and 1907, and he most likely collected these artifacts from the surface of the high desert plateau behind the site, as is indicated in a letter of May 19, 1906 addressed to Edward Robinson, the then assistant director at The Met. In the letter, William M. Laffan, a trustee of the museum, writes that these flints "are from the edge of the Libyan desert where it approaches the Valley of the Kings behind Der-el-Bah’ri, and are of unusual interest." Additionally, the substantial build-up of dark brown patina covering the artifacts shows that they were likely exposed on the desert surface. Aside from the patina, the preservation is otherwise quite good, with only minimal signs of rolling/damage, and lacking the high degree of weathering and erosion seen on Paleolithic artifacts that were naturally transported far distances. Therefore, the artifacts were probably found close to their original depositional positions. Indeed, it is the case in the Egyptian high desert that Paleolithic artifacts can remain in-situ moving very little over vast time spans, as had been determined through survey and studies refitting flakes to cores at Abydos (Adelsberger et al. 2013).

Middle Paleolithic artifacts are found commonly on the surface of the high desert plateaus near the Nile valley throughout Egypt (Olszewski et al. 2005; Vermeersch et al. 2000). However, this group of artifacts donated by Currelly contains a mixture of Lower Paleolithic and Middle Paleolithic artifacts indicating that he either collected them from multiple locations or that he collected them from a site that was re-used in later periods (e.g. Taramsa 1, Van Peer et al. 2010). The presence of the Lower Paleolithic artifacts makes this collection especially important, as there are fewer Lower Paleolithic sites that have been found and studied in Egypt compared to the Middle Paleolithic or later sites.

Lower and Middle Paleolithic artifacts in Egypt are critical for addressing questions of early human evolution and dispersal, particularly as the Nile valley was one of the main corridors for human migration ‘out of Africa’.


Elizabeth Hart, J. Clawson Mills Research Fellow, 2018


References


Adelsberger, Katherine A., Jennifer R. Smith, Shannon P. McPherron, Harold L. Dibble, Deborah I. Olszewski, Utsav A. Schurmans, and Laurent Chiotti 2013. "Desert Pavement Disturbance and Artifact Taphonomy: A Case Study from the Eastern Libyan Plateau, Egypt." In Geoarchaeology 28 (2), pp. 112–30.

Bordes, François 1961. Typologie du Paléolithique ancien et moyen. Bordeaux: Delmas.

Debénath, André, and Harold L. Dibble. 1994. Handbook of Paleolithic Typology Lower and Middle Paleolithic of Europe. Philadelphia, Pa: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Olszewski, Deborah I., Harold L. Dibble, Utsav A. Schurmans, Shannon P. McPherron, and Jennifer R. Smith 2005. "High Desert Paleolithic Survey at Abydos, Egypt." In Journal of Field Archaeology 30 (3), pp. 283–303.

Van Peer, Philip 1998. "The Nile Corridor and the Out-of-Africa Model: An Examination of the Archaeological Record." Current Anthropology. 39 (Supp.1): S115–40.

Van Peer, Philip, Etienne Paulissen, and Pierre M. Vermeersch 2010. Chert Quarrying, Lithic Technology and a Modern Human Burial at the Palaeolithic Site of Taramsa 1, Upper Egypt. Leuven: Leuven Univ. Press.

Vermeersch, Pierre M., Gilbert Gijselings, and Etienne Paulissen 2000. "Surface Sites." In Palaeolithic Living Sites in Upper and Middle Egypt, edited by Pierre M. Vermeersch. Leuven: Leuven University Press, pp. 19–55.

From the first platform of the Mentuhotep Temple, Deir el Bahri. Donated to the Museum by C. T. Currelly, 1906.

Hayes, William C. 1953. Scepter of Egypt I: A Background for the Study of the Egyptian Antiquities in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Middle Kingdom. Cambridge, Mass.: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp. 9–10, fig. 1.