Beyond the Movius Line

This study uses evidence from a number of recently excavated palaeolithic sites in the Imjin-Hantan River area of Korea to rethink current research paradigms on East-Asian Acheulian assemblages. Movius suggested in the 1940s that a line could be established seperating western and eastern palaeolithic cultures and beyond which eastward hand axes could not be found. Yongwook Yoo argues that efforts to disprove this theory have skewed research, with finding handaxes becoming almost an obesession to the exclusion of more nuanced research strategies. To this end he concentrated on creating a typology of small lithic tools, on the chronology of assemblages as a whole and on the geological context of the Imjin-Hantan River Area.