ESPACE ET TERRITOIRE - ESPACE ET TERRITOIRE : LES ENIGMES SPATIALES DE LA VIE EN SOCIETE.

The technico-cultural otherness of the Asia continent : a new story of the man – Altérité culturelle

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Submission summary

Abstract

The technico-cultural otherness on the Asian continent : Towards a new Human story?

The distribution of Homo erectus then Homo sapiens accession on the whole Eurasia from Africa would mainly due to its cognitive capacities which the technique would be one of the main markers.
By federating international researchers, our objective is to demonstrate that by leaning on the notion of technical culture by an " ontogenealogical " approach of the objects (tools, weapons etc.), a cultural complex patchwork takes shape on the whole continental Asia. This spatio-temporal otherness was eclipsed by the dominant bio-cultural paradigm but now the contest of this reducing model of the evolution of techniques is more and more shared by the scientific community.
A anthropological reconstruction of the otherness requires to think the technique as one of the constituent element of the human evolution and not only as his resultant. Our project is to approach the evolution of man and the techniques differently from the model which described a linear distribution of Homo sapiens « Out of Africa ». The former model often focus on the Africa/Europe duality only and/or on the sole biological difference between Modern human and Neandertal.
The technique is the main point of our project, and will contribute to redefine the Human Story in all its meaning. The otherness of the material cultures in Asia will be treated by the acquisition of comparative data inter and intra-sites, by the determination of technical lineages and the present evolutionary stages as well as by the revealing of the evolution of the material cultures in time and space.
The program articulates around two main technical periods of the prehistory which cover around one million year: the period 300 000-40 000 years which sees the appearance of the Levallois method and the period of transition 40 000-25 000 years, often considered as hinge period between the end of Neandertal and the geographical expansion of Modern human.

The technical identity will be understanded by the determination of spaces-identities, by the spatial discontinuities associated with the notions of border and natural barrier as well as by the factors of impact strength. Four geographical zones were selected: the North of China, the South of China, the Central Asia and the Altai, the Near East.
All the technical and spatial data will be crossed with the data of the biological-genetic anthropology and those of the physical anthropology. A anthropogenetic study, by the sampling of several populations of the Altai and their « genotypage », will serve to test various scenarios of history of the peopleing. This study will aim to describe phenomena of migration and east distribution westward contrary to the usually eastward proposed hypotheses.

Project coordination

Eric BOËDA (CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE - DELEGATION REGIONALE ILE-DE-FRANCE SECTEUR OUEST ET NORD) – eric.boeda@gmail.com

The author of this summary is the project coordinator, who is responsible for the content of this summary. The ANR declines any responsibility as for its contents.

Partner

MNHM/CNRS CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE - DELEGATION REGIONALE ILE-DE-FRANCE SECTEUR EST
arscan CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE - DELEGATION REGIONALE ILE-DE-FRANCE SECTEUR OUEST ET NORD

Help of the ANR 319,999 euros
Beginning and duration of the scientific project: - 36 Months

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