Narrating Palaeolithic Human Settlement History : the case of the Imjin-Hantan River Area, Korea

Abstract

This article intends to furnish a narrative story-telling with the broad perspective on the human past rather than simply depending on the analytical examination of archaeological data. For the purpose of this task, Ferdinand Braudel’s concept of “la longue durée” is applied to parallel the environmental background and hominid’s life/land-use patterns based on the geological data and archaeological remains. The Imjin-Hantan River Area (IHRA), known for the discovery of Acheulian-like handaxe, was occupied from ca 0.23 mya to the final Pleistocene; the hominids continuously changed their residing patterns in the landscape with actively modifying the lithic technological organization as a response to the environmental change. Integrating the geological features, absolute dates and characteristics of lithic assemblages from individual sites, we can recognize six phases of environmental changes based on the development of river channel system. These six phases witness different patterns of hominid’s adaptation in this area and correspondingly yield different mode of raw material utilization and lithic procurement. While more accurate geological dates are yet to be published and the description of lithic assemblages may be changed by new data, it is prospecting that Braudel’s la longue durée is a useful concept for meaningfully narrating a long-term human occupation history in the discipline of prehistoric archaeology.

Keywords

• narrative
• the IHRA
• Acheulian
• la longue durée
• river channel system