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A Figurine from the African Acheulian1

The Tan-Tan figurine was discovered during an archaeological survey by Lutz Fiedler, state archaeologist of Hessen, Germany (Kuckenburg 2001:136), in a fluvial terrace deposit on the north bank of the River Draa a few kilometers south of the Moroccan town of Tan-Tan. The terrace system has been sectioned along a road leading down to a bridge crossing the river and to the east along a drainage gully also connecting to the river. The two sections show the same sequence and are about 20 m high, from the river to the arid plain overlooking it. The lowest facies contains red sands and pebbles and yields lithics of typical Early Acheulian character. This layer is followed by a ca. 12-m sequence of alluvial gravels, sands, and finer fractions of varying compositions, the lower part of which contains a rich industry of the Middle Acheulian, free of specimens of Levallois technique. The figurine described here is from this horizon, around 1.5 m above its base or 15 m below the plain’s eroded surface. This major alluvial series is in turn locally truncated by fluvial erosion and followed by coarse channel deposits devoid of any stone tools. Farther up in the profile occurs a finer facies about 1 m thick with Middle Paleolithic artefacts, capped by a more recent weathering horizon (L. Fiedler, personal communication). This clear-cut sequence of three artefact-bearing deposits has not so far been subjected either to sedimentary analysis or to dating. However, the antiquity of the Middle Paleolithic of the general region is on the order of 120,000 to 50,000 years, and Middle Acheulian of similar composition occurs between 500,000 and 300,000 years. The Early Acheulian industry of Morocco and the Maghreb generally is older than 500,000 years (Fiedler 1998). While the contextual age estimates for the Tan-Tan deposits have yet to be subjected to scientific testing, there is no expectation that this would result in dramatic revisions of these preliminary datings. In the absence of sedimentary analyses and further ex-