J’ai le très grand privilège d’ouvrir ce fascicule de
Des datations très hautes n’avaient jusqu’ici été obtenues qu’en Afrique orientale (3 400 000 ans pour des traces possibles de boucherie à Dikika, dans l’Afar éthiopien, 3 300 000 ans pour des pierres incontestablement « taillées » dans l’Ouest-Turkana kenyan), mais c’est la première fois que l’Asie nous livre des matériaux atteignant de tels âges ; ma manie d’anticiper beaucoup les datations des divers événements, émergences diverses ou mouvements de populations, n’avait jamais eu l’audace de dépasser 2 500 000 ans pour le premier déploiement hors du continent africain. Des découvertes en Israël, en Géorgie, au Pakistan, en Chine commençaient peu à peu à rejoindre mon audace ; Masol l’a dépassé.
Il y aura bien sûr du scepticisme, de sains débats, autour de ces découvertes et de leur interprétation, et il faudra encore beaucoup de travaux sur le terrain et sur les objets pour confirmer ces déclarations, de la part d’ailleurs de leurs auteurs eux-mêmes. Les découvertes africaines récentes ont l’air de confirmer cette idée que la taille de la pierre, comme d’ailleurs la consommation de viande, sont plus le fait d’une période privilégiée et l’activité probable de plusieurs Hominidés, plutôt que la contemporanéité confortable d’un seul Homininé, de ses outils et de sa soudaine gourmandise pour le gibier. L’outil de pierre au second degré semble néanmoins jusqu’ici demeurer une spécificité de notre sous-famille. Mais la paléontologie, la paléoanthropologie, la préhistoire nous réservent évidemment encore bien d’autres surprises.
Quoi qu’il en soit, je salue les brillants résultats d’Anne Dambricourt Malassé et de l’expédition franco-indienne de Masol, que j’ai l’honneur de parrainer à sa demande, et je les remercie d’avoir fait à
I am deeply honoured to open this issue of
The 170-m-thick formation belongs to the famous Siwaliks deposit known and excavated since the 19th century, of which it represents the sequence of final Pliocene or the Pliocene–Pleistocene transition age. It is known as the Tatrot formation of the Upper Siwaliks. The latter, overlying the Gauss–Matuyama limit, was well dated by palaeomagnetism as a bit older than 2.58 My. The site is named Masol and includes several villages over an 80-hectare surface area. It is exceptional because it is the site where the French-Indian expeditions (Muséum national d’histoire naturelle/Society for Archeological and Anthropological Research, respectively) discovered stone tools and fossil vertebrate remains, some of which were clearly marked by butchery. Eight field expeditions aimed at verifying a chronologically surprising discovery, but all the attempts, both in the field (a few choppers and flakes most likely associated with fossils) and in the laboratory (similar mineral concretions on the marks and the surrounding bone tissues), all the traceological analyses of the quartzites and the associated flakes, and all those carried out for verifying the artificial nature of the dismembering traces, all researches and analyses that I personally followed, gradually hold out against criticisms.
In other words, probable Hominids lived 2,600,000 years ago in that region of Asia, who were at least partly omnivorous and knew how to shape lithic material into useful cutting edges.
Age datings measuring very old ages had to this day only been found in East Africa, i.e. 3,400,000 years for possible traces of butchery in Dikika, in the Ethiopian Afar, and 3,300,000 years for indubitable knapped stone in western Kenyan Turkana. But it was the first time that material of such an old age was found in Asia. My mania for much anticipating age datings of the different events, population origination or fluctuations never dared rising above 2,500,000 years for the first deployment out of the African continent. The findings in Israel, Georgia, Pakistan, and China kept with my boldness: the Masol site goes far beyond my daring.
Of course, sceptics will raise their voice and healthy discussions will take place about the findings and their interpretations. We will need much more field work and artefact analyses to confirm the statements, starting with the authors themselves. Recent findings in Africa appear to confirm that stone cutting as well as meat consumption results from a more propitious period and probable activity of several Hominids rather than the comfortable contemporaneousness of a single Hominin, his tools and his craving for game. However, stone tool seems to a second degree a specificity of our sub-family. But palaeontology, palaeoanthropology and prehistory hold in store for us many other surprises. In any case, I welcome Anne Dambricourt Malassé’s outstanding results and those of the French-Indian Masol expeditions that I am honoured to sponsor at her request, and I thank all the members for entrusting their first statements to