Преориньяк — «забегание вперёд» или начало?

Anikovich M.V. Preaurignacian — «Running ahead of time» or the beginning? A clear and precise definition of the term « running ahead of time» in the work of L. B. Vishneatsky (1993: 7-16) allows to look at the similar phenomenon not as at «the archaeological curious incident», but as at one of the kinds of the cultural changeableness in prehistory. But it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that some of the stone industries, analysed by L. B. Vishneatsky, can turn out to be not an utterly disappeared phenomenon (Preaurignacian, Howieson’s Poort) but, notwithstanding its old age, a genuine beginning, source of a new archaeological epoch: Upper Palaeolithic period. Such a probability becomes possible if we take into consideration a number of indirect but at the same time interrelated circumstances. Their thorough analysis supports the hypothesis that in ancient European industries of the Aurignacian technocomplex there existed a kind of common source, formed much earlier outside Europe, most probable, in the result of the activity of people of a modern physical type. At present, at least, the Near-Eastern Preaurignac remains the only candidate for the role of such a source. Ghirea E.Y. The examples used by L. B. Visneatsky to illustrate the phenomenon of « running ahead of time» are the first of the lamellar complexes known now. The appearance of the blade as one of the leading types of the blanks inevitably leads to a fairly narrowdefined change of the general look of the industry. Moreover, there exist a pre-determination in the industry development on the basis of a serial extraction of flakes, that, eventually, are doomed to become lamellar. The point is that only the blade can be such a serial produced by flakes that is distinguished by a sharp cutting and a fairly long cutting edge. In its turn it presupposes the formation of tool complexes of the same type in various industries. This is definitely seen in the Palaeolithic period, especially in the early one. This fact doesn’t withdraw the question of the reasons of the appearance of qualitative innovations (such as «running ahead of time»), but allows to define the relation to the second phenomenon, used by L.B. Vishneatsky. That is «a normal course of developing» or «a normal evolutionary consecutiveness». The word «norm» itself has a shade of some «must» or execution. Not sharing the idea of predestination of human history, it is impossible to give up the obvious fact of existence in the histo