The Movius Line controversy: the state of the debate

Abstract Patterns of Palaeolithic variability between eastern Asia and western portions of the Old World continue to engender controversial discussion. Most famously, debate has focused on variability in the absence/presence of 'handaxes' east and west of the so-called 'Movius Line'. However, it is becoming equally apparent that cross-regional contrasts can be made using categories of data other than handaxe presence/absence alone. This, in turn, is leading to a reconfiguration of the archaeological patterns that demand explanation. Here, we outline the current state of the Movius Line controversy in these terms, and undertake a series of metric analyses of eastern and western biface samples. This leads us to highlight specific lines of enquiry that may be important for future attempts to address these enduring questions. Keywords: East AsiaSoutheast AsiaMovius LineAcheuleanhandaxes Acknowledgements For helpful conversations we are grateful to Parth Chauhan, John Gowlett, Jennie Jin and Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel. We are also grateful for helpful comments from two anonymous referees. Our work on the Movius Line is supported by funding from the British Academy (SG-52210), Wenner-Gren Foundation (ICRG #82) and the National Geographic Society (#8372-07). Stephen Lycett University of Kent S.J.Lycett@Kent.ac.uk Christopher Bae University of Hawaii Notes The authors contributed equally to this work. 'Early' Palaeolithic following the two-stage cultural model (Early/Late) proposed by Ikawa-Smith (1978 Ikawa-Smith, F. 1978. "Introduction". In Early Palaeolithic in South and East Asia, Edited by: Ikawa-Smith, F. 1–10. The Hague: Mouton. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Gao and Norton (2002 Gao, X. and Norton, C. J. 2002. A critique of the Chinese 'Middle Palaeolithic'. Antiquity, 76: 397–412. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Norton et al. (2009 Norton, C. J., Gao, X. and Feng, X. W. 2009. "The criteria defining the East Asian Middle Paleolithic reexamined". In Sourcebook of Paleolithic Transitions: Methods, Theories, and Interpretations, Edited by: Camps, M. and Chauhan, P. R. 245–54. Dordrecht: Springer. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Other lithic industry terms have since been added to describe the East and Southeast Asian material (e.g. Chongoknian, Hoabinhian, Lannathaian, Fingnoian, Tampanian; for a review, see Bae 1994 Bae, K. D. 1994. "Paleolithic tradition of East Asia: Chongoknian, presence of few bifaces in Paleolithic stone industries". In Paleolithic Culture of East Asia, Edited by: Bae, K. D. 193–211. Seoul: National Research Institute of Cultural Properties. [Google Scholar]; Pope and Keates 1994 Pope, G. G. and Keates, S. G. 1994. "The evolution of human cognition and cultural capacity: a view from the Far East". In Integrative Paths to the Past, Edited by: Corruccini, R. S. and Ciochon, R. L. 531–67. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. [Google Scholar]). It should also be noted that the term Patjitanian is now spelled Pacitanian, and since the time of Movius the site of Choukoutien has been renamed Zhoukoudian. Repeating this analysis using a larger sample size of handaxes from the Luonan Basin, China (n = 236) for the thickness (only) value reported by Petraglia and Shipton (2009) results in an identical statistical pattern (Luonan vs. Western Acheulean: df = 3159; t = 23.3125; p < 0.0001; IHRB vs. Luonan: df = 291; t = 0.90935; p > 0.05).