Abstract
Fieldwork around the southern periphery of the Gulf of Zula (Red Sea coast of Eritrea) in 2005 documented an archaeological locality called Asfet characterized by stone tools (lithics) referrable to the African Middle Stone Age (MSA). The lithic assemblage features prepared core and blade technologies, the production of points (triangular, perforators, and small bifaces) and various retouched tools mainly on local raw material sources. Typologically, the assemblage exhibits reasonable affinity with northeast African, the Nile Valley and Southern Arabian MSA Industries. Although the chronology of the site has yet to be established, the lithic assemblage bears close resemblance to MSA finds in the Afar and Ethiopian rift-basin sites dated to 280–70 ka. The Asfet find demonstrates that the Red Sea coastal region around the Gulf of Zula hosted Pleistocene-age hominin settlements and provides a much-needed baseline to look for archaeological shell-middens in the area that may hold valuable clues to hominin exploitation of coastal/aquatic resources during the Middle Stone Age.
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Acknowledgements
Fieldwork that led to the discovery of the Asfet site was funded by the Leakey and Wenner-Gren Foundations, and the Dan David Prize. I am grateful to administrators of the former University of Asmara and the National Museum of Eritrea for facilitating my research program on the Red Sea coast. Profound thanks to John Shea, my field assistants, and the community of Irafailo.
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Beyin, A. (2023). Asfet (Gulf of Zula), Eritrea. In: Beyin, A., Wright, D.K., Wilkins, J., Olszewski, D.I. (eds) Handbook of Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20290-2_13
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