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Oued Djebbana, Algeria

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Handbook of Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa

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Abstract

The site of Oued Djebbana is located on the outskirts of the Bir el Ater town in the Tebessa region of eastern Algeria (34.730° N, 8.051° E). It is the first site where the Aterian technocomplex was identified and named so after the nearest major settlement, “Bir el Ater.” The Aterian is a North African variant of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) technology characterized by the use of pedunculation to create tanged stone points. At the time of its discovery in 1917, Oued Djebbana was the only site showing an industry with tanged tools in a clear stratigraphic context without any evidence of material intrusion from other periods. The Oued Djebbana material is relevant for establishing regional models of hominin adaptation affiliated with the Aterian technology. Although the site did not provide human remains nor reliable chronometric age yet, it is the only one that produced an association of pigments, shell beads, tanged tools, and blade technology in the Algerian MSA. These elements, in addition to bifacial points, bone tools, and exchange networks, were described in Aterian sites in Morocco and the African MSA as evidence of complex and modern behavior. At Oued Djebbana, both pigments and beads that indicate a deliberate non-utilitarian behavior, as well as shells of Nassarius gibbosulus, are evidence of long-distance exchange networks

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the editors for their invitation to contribute to this volume, and for the constructive comments on the chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, HIPASO, University of Constantine 2, Constantine, Algeria

    Nadia Bahra

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  1. Nadia Bahra
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology and Center for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA

    Amanuel Beyin

  2. Institute of Archaeology, Conservation and History, University of Oslo, Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    David K. Wright

  3. Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

    Jayne Wilkins

  4. Department of Anthropology and Penn Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Deborah I. Olszewski

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Bahra, N. (2023). Oued Djebbana, Algeria. 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_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20290-2_4

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