Abstract
The 1980s have witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of published prehistories proporting to explain events that occurred in Europe during the Upper Pleistocene. These prehistories usually comprise models for how the Paleolithic record was formed. In constructing these models, several theoretical positions have been invoked to provide interpretive frameworks. But nearly all recent prehistories, regardless of approach, are phrased exclusively in terms of past human behavior. Rarely do they take into account the myriad nonbehavioral and historical factors that might have contributed to patterns observed today in the Paleolithic record. In this chapter, we discuss some of the generative processes that make European Paleolithic data problematic for the reconstruction of past behavioral events; furthermore, we suggest that Paleolithic archaeologists resist the urge to interpret the record using behavioral models before assessing other formation processes.
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