Scripto · Transcrire

Wikitext

51/
and Broom in South Africa, of Leakey in East Africa, of Wayland in Central Africa, and of Neuville and Ruhlmann and otehrs in North Africa, we find that the only reasonable working hypothesis we can adopt at this stage is to regard this Continent as the most likely centre for the origin of tool-making man."
Differential Developments
Despite the obvious affinities between the European, Asiatic and African expressions of the Great Handaxe Culture, Professor van Riet Lowe indicated how different climates and available raw materials (flint in France, obsidian and quartzite in Central and east Africa, various diabasic rocks and indurated shale in South Africa, quartzite in India and so on) had given rise to differential developments in the three Continents: developments which in time gave rise to entirely different material cultures.
Therefore, he maintained, while a uniform and common terminology was most desirable for the greater part of the earlier Stone or Old Palaeolithic Age, it was essential for each region to develop its own terms to describe cultures which followed during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic and Neolithic times. 
"I sincerely trust," he continued, "that we who live and work in the essential - if not indeed in the original - home of tool-making man will not hesitate to state our case and claim such recognition for Africa as this home of man demands in any discussion which impinges not only on origins but also on terminological usage. Our indebtedness to European pre-historians (especially to those of France) is great, but I venture to suggest that the small spark which first fell in Africa from the great Franch flame will in time burst forth to outshine the torch from which it came. If my view - that we at this Congress have merely returned to the home of our ancestors in an attempt to solve some of the problems to which they have given rise - is correct, the importance of the field in which we find ourselves cannot be overstressed."

Revision: Congrès de Nairobi 59 (#59)

Informations complémentaires

Ressources liées

Wikitext