Micoquien

The Micoquian is an archaeological culture of the Neanderthals in Central and Western Europe, named after the archaeological site in southern France " La Micoque " in Les- Eyzies -de Tayas that focus in the late Middle Palaeolithic is (about 60000-40000 ago). Recent research in Micoquian see only a stone tool industry, the overlapping occurred in time with the culture of the Mousterian. Key forms are the wedge gauge and the Micoque wedge, a special hand-ax type. Although first wedge knife inventories already in the Eemian - and were found ( 130,000 115,000 before present) in the early part of the Würm or Vistula glaciation, dating most sites in Central and Western Europe in the late Neanderthals time.

Material Culture

Technologically, the Micoquian is characterized by the appearance of asymmetrical bifaces, which are called because of their blunt back as a " wedge knife". Wedge knife in its typical form have a chronological lead nature. Other tools of Micoquian, such as scrapers and small hand axes, have both similarities to Late Acheulian and Mousterian to. The hand-axes of the reference La Micoque often have a rounded, talon -shaped base and led to the introduction of this type of " Micoque - wedge" ( see illustration).

The Micoquian - term

The namesake of the Micoqien culture was the archaeologist and art dealer Otto Hauser, who first used the term in 1906 and in 1916 received his doctorate at the University of Erlangen with a dissertation on the Micoquian culture. Hauser estimated selling well over 100 of these Micoque wedges, which he found during the excavations in La Micoque, museums and collectors.

The problem with the term Micoquian is that subsequent excavations have revealed the find site La Micoque the much older dating of the Micoque wedges, which are now dated to the crack ice age. Already in 1932, pointed Henri Breuil by Otto Hauser as "layer 6" designated Micoquian layer for the first time to the Acheulean. Since the wedge knife inventories otherwise increasingly turned out as latest stage of the Acheulean, originally propagated by Hauser type locality is chronological rather unsuitable. Therefore, the term wedge blade groups is used by some archaeologists for chronological fuzzy concept Micoquian instead today. The term wedge knife Groups reflects the distribution area in Central and Eastern Europe, which is so geographically isolated from the simultaneous Micoquian southwest France. Important sites in Germany are the Balver cave (North Rhine- Westphalia), the Bockstein in the Lone Valley (Baden- Württemberg) and the Sesselfelsgrotte in Altmuehltal ( Bayern).