Aterian

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This time period is part of the Pleistocene epoch.

Pleistocene Paleolithic Lower Paleolithic Oldowan culture Acheulean culture Clactonian culture Middle Paleolithic Mousterian culture Aterian culture Upper Paleolithic Châtelperronian culture Aurignacian culture Gravettian culture Solutrean culture Magdalenian culture

Holocene Mesolithic or Epipaleolithic Kebaran culture Natufian culture Neolithic Halafian culture Hassuna culture Ubaid culture Uruk culture Chalcolithic

The Aterian industry is a name given by archaeologists to a type of stone tool manufacturing dating to the Middle Stone Age (or Middle Palaeolithic) in the region around the Atlas Mountains and the northern Sahara.

The industry was probably created by modern humans (Homo sapiens), albeit of an early type, as shown by the few skeletal remains known so far from sites on the Moroccan Atlantic coast.

Bifacially-worked leaf shaped and tanged projectile points are a common artefact type and so are racloirs and Levallois flakes. Items of personal adornment (pierced and ochred Nassarius shell beads) are known from at least one Aterian site, with an age of 82,000 years.

Ateriense Punta foliácea.png Aterian bifacial point.

Ateriense punta.png Aterian nosed point.

Ateriense raspador.png Aterian nosed end-scraper.

[edit] See also

• Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures

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