Middle palaeolithic lithic assemblages in western Mediterranean Europe from MIS 5 to 3

Abstract

This paper focuses on an overview of the sites featuring lithic industries ascribed to Middle Palaeolithic based upon a raw materials, technological organization and toolkit management. This is a synthetic analysis of the Western Mediterranean area where sites featuring broad stratigraphic sequences are abundant and enable an adequate assessment of the available record. Presenting all the data organized according to geographical regions contributed to the homogeneity of the results and allowed us to contextualize a regional synthesis, from a broad territorial and chronological point of view. This perspective was compared to other distant European spheres which in turn enabled establishing a framework that consolidates the study area as a different cluster, independent from the remainder of the territories. This paper shows how the various Neanderthal populations had diverse cultural traditions throughout Europe; these are reflected by the archaeological record with the existence of diverse regional clusters that show a significant variability during the Middle Palaeolithic. Therefore it seems reasonable to conclude that even though the previously referred technical traditions persisted throughout the entire Middle Palaeolithic, arguably even more so than during more recent time periods, it seems pretty obvious that the idea of the Middle Palaeolithic being an homogenous period is wrong and should be disregarded as far as Europe and the Western Mediterranean in particular are concerned.