Armenian Artifacts to Change the Image of Technological Development

Artifacts from Armenia of 327 thousand years of age have shown scientists that new technologies among prehistoric societies arose independently (and constantly) rather than got dispersed from the region of their invention.

This is told by the authors of an article published in the journal “Science”. Thousands of tools were found in the Nor Geghi 1 complex, where a thin layer of ancient soil has become trapped between two lava flows.

The finds are 325-335 thousand years old, and among them are products built with two different technologies – for example, hand axes (bifaces) and tools of the Levallois technique (thin and pointed).

Archaeologists consider the transition from rough and heavy bifaces to Levallois products a sign of the beginning of the Middle Paleolithic (about 300 thousand years ago).

Traditionally, it is believed that the Levallois technique was invented in Africa and entered Eurasia during the migration of prehistoric civilizations from one continent to another.

This theory associates technological changes with demographic shifts.

However, the findings in Nor Geghi 1 indicate that two methods of stone processing could coexist within the same culture, and local people themselves gradually learned to produce more efficient and light weapons of the form they needed.

In addition, as chemical analysis of several hundred obsidian artifacts has shown, the inhabitants of local settlements built tools of stone brought from afar (120 kilometers from Nor Geghi 1). It means that our distant ancestors actively explored vast territories with diverse landscapes at that times.