East African 'Cordiform/Cleaver' Tradition

To the African Middle Acheulian biface tradition with its emphasis on the cordiform and cleaver pair, the Later Acheulians in East Africa added the functional, efficient ovate form. In spite of the functional specialization of the ovate, it appears that in this conservative region, homeland of the Acheulian peoples, the Middle Acheulian symbolic tradition with its cordiform and cleaver pair persisted into and through the Later Acheulian.

As I have indicated elsewhere [Notes On Middle Acheulian Spirituality: Stone Tool Logic Structures and Analogies of the Soul (2002)] the African Middle Acheulian cordiform/cleaver pair appears to have been used to symbolize: intercourse and the strengthening of 'the sheath' and the human spirit and its 'vehicle', the egg-within-the-egg, the finitude of the spirit and its offering -- and all of these as modes of reparation and restoration of the core essence, now duplex as ‘the One Who Presides Over the Processes of Birth and Death and Rebirth’ and ‘the One Who Gives Us Spirit Power.'

It appears that this semantic continued into the Later Acheulian in the East African area.

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