The Upper Paleolithic in the Bistrița Valley (Northeastern Romania): a preliminary review

Abstract

The paper deals with the Upper Palaeolithic in the Bistrita Valley (northeastern Romania). In spite of the richness of the Palaeolithic sites from this Carpathian area, the Palaeolithic record has remained largely ignored by Western studies. Apart from the most obvious reason, the language barrier, another particularly important motive for this cautious attitude seems to have been the chrono-cultural framework proposed by Romanian archaeologists, which hardly fitted the accepted European evolutionary model for the Aurignacian and Gravettian technocomplexes. According to the first excavators, the Upper Palaeolithic industries in the Bistrita Valley display some original features, such as atypical techno-typological structure and the late chronology for the so-called Aurignacian assemblages, and the apparent geological contemporaneity between the two technocomplexes. However, a closer and critical look at the most important feature of the Upper Palaeolithic from this Carpathian area reveals quite a different picture. The Gravettian layers always overly the so-called Aurignacian industries and therefore there are no in situ stratigraphic grounds to sustain an argument of contemporaneity between the two technocomplexes, despite similar radiocarbon chronology between sites. On the other hand, the description and the published references of the Aurignacian assemblages strongly suggest that the original attribution was wrong. Most if not all of these industries belong rather to the Gravettian, which may also explain their late radiocarbon chronology (25,000-21,000 uncal. BP). The authors stress the need for a systematic reevaluation of all the old collections, even more imperative given the recent results from Mitoc-Malul Galben and Poiana Cire ului, which challenge once again the acknowledged cultural framework for the Upper Palaeolithic in the Bistrita Valley.