Microblade traditions in Eurasia：Homage to the late Professor Serizawa

Since the late professor Serizawa found microblade industry at Yadegawa in 1953, microblade industry has been discovered almost all over Japan, from Hokkaido to Kyushu. Moreover, microblade traditions originated during the African Middle Stone age, and were spread widely, not solely from Siberia to North America, but also to the Near East and Western Europe too (Kajiwara 2008). In Europe, some classical stone tool types like end scrapers or burins, and their biproducts have been drastically reclassified as bladelet cores (micro-nucléus, microcores) and bladelets (lamelles, microblades) since around the year 2000 (refer to a series of works by Le Brun-Ricalens et al.). Owing to the recent discovery of microblade assemblages with anatomically modern humans during the Middle Paleolithic Europe (Slimak et al.2022), it is necessary to provide a new hypothesis on the origin, and dispersal of microblade culture in Eurasia. As mentioned in the opening pages, I presented the current understanding of microblade culture in the Eurasian continent, and its details within Western Europe, in particular (fig.13). I also proposed a hypothesis on the reducing and exploiting process of microblade industries. The microblade tradition could have been the most appropriate and adaptive technical entity for moving groups by flexibly adopting the adequate skills at hand, according to the surrounding constrains as lithic resources, frequency and system of moves, lithic manufacturing techniques, cultural traditions, and natural environments etc., (fig.14). Traditionally, microblades were thought to be exploited as composite tools to insert microblades to wooden, or bone shaft grooves. This is evidenced by a kind of glue found from the middle stone age in Africa (Backwell, 2008), and a glued microblade from Lascaux (Djinjian et al.,1999). I suggested a new mounting method in which microblades were glued to the shaft at the initial stage of the developments (fig. 16). Finally, I pointed out that the manufacturing processes of the composite tool shaft from the Cervidae metatarsal were possibly same to those observed in Jomon (fig.17).