Fleming et al. (2013) stated:
The technological character of the Aterian has been debated for almost a century, but has until recently eluded definition. The problems defining the industry have related to its research history and the fact that a number of similarities have been observed between the Aterian and other North African stone tool industries of the same date. Levallois reduction is widespread across the whole of North Africa throughout the Middle Stone Age, and scrapers and denticulates are ubiquitous. Bifacial foliates moreover represent a huge taxonomic category and the form and dimension of such foliates associated with tanged tools is extremely varied. There is also a significant variation of tanged tools themselves, with various forms representing both different tool types (e.g., knives, scrapers, points) and the degree tool resharpening.
More recently, a large-scale study of North African stone tool assemblages, including Aterian assemblages, indicated that the traditional concept of stone tool industries is problematic in the North African Middle Stone Age. Although the term Aterian defines Middle Stone Age assemblages from North Africa with tanged tools, the concept of an Aterian industry obfuscates other similarities between tanged tool assemblages and other non-Aterian North African assemblages of the same date. For example, bifacial leaf points are found widely across North Africa in assemblages that lack tanged tools and Levallois flakes and cores are near ubiquitous. Instead of elaborating discrete industries, the findings of the comparative study suggest that North Africa during the Last Interglacial comprised a network of related technologies whose similarities and differences correlated with geographical distance and the palaeohydrology of a Green Sahara. Assemblages with tanged tools may therefore reflect particular activities involving the use of such tool types, and may not necessarily reflect a substantively different archaeological culture to others from the same period in North Africa. The findings are significant because they suggest that current archaeological nomenclatures do not reflect the true variability of the archaeological record of North Africa during the Middle Stone Age from the Last Interglacial, and hints at how early modern humans dispersed into previously uninhabitable environments. This notwithstanding, the term still usefully denotes the presence of tanged tools in North African Middle Stone Age assemblages.
Tanged tools persisted in North Africa until around 20,000 years ago, with the youngest sites located in Northwest Africa. By this time, the Aterian lithic industry had long ceased to exist in the rest of North Africa due to the onset of the Ice Age, which in North Africa, resulted in hyperarid conditions. Assemblages with tanged tools, 'the Aterian', therefore have a significant temporal and spatial range. However, the exact geographical distribution of this lithic industry is uncertain. The Aterian's spatial range is thought to have existed in North Africa up to the Nile Valley Possible Aterian lithic tools have also been discovered in Middle Paleolithic deposits in Oman and the Thar Desert.
Studies of the variation and distribution of the Aterian have also now suggested that associated populations lived in subdivided populations, perhaps living most of their lives in relative isolation and aggregating at particular times to reinforce social ties. Such a subdivided population structure has also been inferred from the pattern of variation observed in early African fossils of Homo sapiens.
Associated faunal studies suggest that the people making the Aterian exploited coastal resources as well as engaging in hunting. As the points are small and lightweight, it is likely that they were not hand-delivered but instead thrown. There is no evidence that a spear thrower was used, but the points have characteristics similar to atlatl dart points. It has so far been difficult to estimate whether Aterian populations further inland were exploiting freshwater resources as well. Studies have suggested that hafting was widespread, perhaps to maintain flexibility in the face of strongly seasonal environment with a pronounced dry season. Scrapers, knives and points all seem to have been hafted, suggesting a wide range of activities were facilitated by technological advances. It is probable that plant resources were also exploited. Although there is no direct evidence from the Aterian yet, plant processing is evidenced in North Africa from as much as 182,000 years ago. In 2012, a 90,000-year-old bone knife was discovered in the Dar es-Soltan I cave, which is basically made of a cattle-sized animal's rib.
Due to the archaeological spread of the Aterian culture and unique linguistic spread of the Niger-Congo languages (e.g., languages of the Atlantic coast in Senegal, Kordofan in Sudan), Fleming et al. (2013) indicates that possibly the “Nilo-Saharan linguistic phylum is derived from the Aterian culture area.”
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