Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c6.s3.30

c6.s3.30

There remains, however, the overriding factor of geographical distribution. This has been discussed in general terms by Hallam Movius,²⁴ who is inclined to write off the near-handaxes of Java and Malaya for technical reasons as an independent development and to exclude both the Acheulian handaxe and the Levalloisian flake entirely from the Far East.* This leaves the pebble—or chopper—industries in dominant possession there, in contrast to India, Western Asia, Africa, and central, southern and western Europe, in all of which Acheulian handaxes and flake implements manufactured by the prepared striking-platform and tortoise-core technique are at home. But, as we have seen, the handaxe distribution is not exclusive. In North, East and South Africa, as in many parts of India, there is a basic or background pebble-chopper industry, the uncontaminated survival of which in the Far East may be due to the (alleged) failure of alien handaxe-elements to penetrate farther eastward than India. In other words, the differential distribution of choppers and handaxes on the wider map may seem to favour a cultural duality as the explanation of their differential distribution on the smaller map of the Indian subcontinent. If this inference be correct, Africa becomes the obvious centre of primary dispersal for the handaxe complex, and we are confronted with the diffusion of ideas on a vast scale.