164 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



with microlithic blunted-back blades and rare Gravette points. Bontch- 

 Osmolovski considers that this sequence represents the earlier stages 

 which are absent in the South Russian plain, and places the stations of 

 Gagarino type immediately after the Upper Aurignacian of Syuren I. 

 Gordon Childe, however, suggests that this relative dating, based on 

 typology, may be misleading, and I am inclined to agree, on the ground 

 of the resemblance of the Crimean sequence with that of Palestine, which 

 is known to cover the whole of the Upper Palaeolithic. 



Not much is known so far of the blade-culture sequence in Trans- 

 caucasia, but the description given by Zamiatnin of finds made up to the 

 present suggests a general resemblance with the Crimea. This is what 

 we should expect, since it is presumably by this route that the blade 

 industries entered the peninsula. 



The next link in the chain is found in the Middle East. In 1928 

 I was associated with a joint expedition of the American School of 

 Prehistoric Research and the Sladen Memorial Fund to investigate the 

 Palaeolithic of Southern Kurdistan. In the caves of the Sulaimani 

 district we found a highly developed Aurignacian of Willendorf type, 

 with Gravette points, shouldered points, small notched blades, and 

 microlithic lunates and triangles — the last named, however, being con- 

 fined to the top of the layer. At the time of publication of these finds 

 information from Russia was very scanty, and I mentioned the Austrian 

 loess stations and the Grimaldi caves as the nearest comparable sites. 

 I now realise that the Kurdistan industry, though possibly later in time, 

 should be linked with that of Kostenki I and Gagarino, only 600 miles 

 away to the north. At the same time, the microlithic forms and small 

 round scrapers resemble those from the cave of Gvardzhilas Klde in 

 Transcaucasia, a site which must also date from the very end of the 

 Palaeolithic. 



The next region which has been investigated at all seriously is Palestine, 

 where the excavations of the Institut de Paleontologie Humaine under 

 Neuville and Stekelis, and the Joint Expedition of the American School 

 of Prehistoric Research and the British School of Archeology in Jerusalem 

 have established more or less clearly the sequence of blade cultures. 

 These begin with a lower Aurignacian whose most characteristic imple- 

 ment is a triangular point with bulbar face flaking at the base, which 

 occurs also sporadically in the Aterian of North Africa. Associated with 

 this are blunted back blades, more or less of Chatelperron type, burins 

 and end-scrapers. The industry as a whole, however, is more delicate 

 and less primitive in appearance than that of the Chatelperron level in 

 the West. It is followed by a Middle Aurignacian of primitive type 

 with rough keeled scrapers and microlithic points, which appears to 

 correspond with the earliest Upper Palaeolithic stage of the Crimea. 

 Next comes, as in the Crimea, a rich industry of classic Middle Aurignacian 

 type, with keeled scrapers, nose-scrapers and beaked burins. The 

 bulk of the Aurignacian of Palestine can be referred to this stage, and it 

 is clear that it must cover the whole of the period which in the West is 

 occupied by the Middle and Upper Aurignacian and the Solutrean. 

 The industry of Antelias and the Nahr el-Kelb, near Beirut, described 



