Research review of Hummalian industry
Xinzhuo YAO, Youcheng CHEN · Prehistoric Archaeology · 2024
The Hummalian industry is a Paleolithic industry in the Levant region of Western Asia, excavated in the El Kowm area of Central Syria. The Hummal site has been investigated and excavated several times since 1965. The main cultural layers of the Hummal industry are located in layers 6, 7 and the sand layer αh, dated between the Yabrudian and the Mousterian industry, about 200,000 years ago. The lithic industry is dominated by blade technology and bladelet technology. Blade technology embodies both the prismatic method and the Levallois-like method, producing large and long blades, which are partly selected to retouch one or both edges, generally as points or scrapers. In addition, through the removal of bladelet cores and burin-cores, finer bladelets could be produced, and through truncated-faceted techniques on flakes or pieces, wider bladelets or small flakes could be produced. The discovery and study of the Hummalian industry provide important insights into the evolution of early blade technology in the western Old World.