Palaeolithic Archaeology Research Articles

Tall guys and fat ladies: Grimaldi's Upper Paleolithic burials and figurines in an historical perspective.

The importance of the Grimaldi complex of caves and rock shelters is twofold: scientific and historical. Scientifically, it is one of the major Upper Paleolithic sites, considering the variety of mobiliary and parietal art, the number of single and multiple burials and associated grave goods, and the abundant lithic and fauna remains. Historically, the documentation of activity that took place in this site starting from the second half of the 19 th century and the studies carried out on the materials that have been recovered in the decades between 1870s-1910s, provide instructive examples of methods and goals of Paleolithic archeology and anthropology of the epoch. This paper combines the scientific and the historic interest of the site through a chronicle of the events that took place during the period of the most sensational discoveries, i.e. beginning with the identification in 1872 of the first Upper Paleolithic burial and ending with the results of the excavations carried out in 1901 at Grotte des Enfants published in four volumes a few years later. The paper discusses early interpretations and modern views on the different findings and documents changes in perspectives and goals of paleoanthropological research in over a century, raising some of the major issues of contemporary Upper Paleolithic studies.

A stacked Late Quaternary fluvio-periglacial sequence from the Axe valley, southern England with implications for landscape evolution and Palaeolithic archaeology

The current model of mid-latitude late Quaternary terrace sequences, is that they are uplift-driven but climatically controlled terrace staircases, relating to both regional-scale crustal and tectonic factors, and palaeohydrological variations forced by quasi-cyclic climatic conditions in the 100 K world (post Mid Pleistocene Transition). This model appears to hold for the majority of the river valleys draining into the English Channel which exhibit 8–15 terrace levels over approximately 60–100 m of altitudinal elevation. However, one valley, the Axe, has only one major morphological terrace and has long-been regarded as anomalous. This paper uses both conventional and novel stratigraphical methods (digital granulometry and terrestrial laser scanning) to show that this terrace is a stacked sedimentary sequence of 20–30 m thickness with a quasi-continuous (i.e. with hiatuses) pulsed, record of fluvial and periglacial sedimentation over at least the last 300–400 K yrs as determined principally by OSL dating of the upper two thirds of the sequence. Since uplift has been regional, there is no evidence of anomalous neotectonics, and climatic history must be comparable to the adjacent catchments (both of which have staircase sequences) a catchment-specific mechanism is required. The Axe is the only valley in North West Europe incised entirely into the near-horizontally bedded chert (crypto-crystalline quartz) and sand-rich Lower Cretaceous rocks creating a buried valley. Mapping of the valley slopes has identified many large landslide scars associated with past and present springs. It is proposed that these are thaw-slump scars and represent large hill-slope failures caused by Vauclausian water pressures and hydraulic fracturing of the chert during rapid permafrost melting. A simple 1D model of this thermokarstic process is used to explore this mechanism, and it is proposed that the resultant anomalously high input of chert and sand into the valley during terminations caused pulsed aggradation until the last termination. It is also proposed that interglacial and interstadial incision may have been prevented by the over-sized and interlocking nature of the sub-angular chert clasts until the Lateglacial when confinement of the river overcame this immobility threshold. One result of this hydrogeologically mediated valley evolution was to provide a sequence of proximal Palaeolithic archaeology over two MIS cycles. This study demonstrates that uplift tectonics and climate alone do not fully determine Quaternary valley evolution and that lithological and hydrogeological conditions are a fundamental cause of variation in terrestrial Quaternary records and landform evolution.

Book review: Seeing Lithics: A Middle-range Theory for Testing for Cultural Transmission in the Pleistocene

Seeing Lithics represents a doctoral thesis submitted to Harvard University by Gilbert Tostevin in 2000. Tostevin is currently a professor of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota and has written extensively on human evolution, lithic technology, Old World archaeology, and Palaeolithic archaeology. These interests can be clearly seen in this book which develops a new theoretical and analytical approach to the study of cultural transmission in the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition.

The Middle Pleistocene tunnel valley at Schöningen as a Paleolithic archive

Schöningen represents one of the key sites for Lower Paleolithic archaeology in central Europe, where a Middle to Late Pleistocene sedimentary succession, locally up to 45 m thick, has been preserved in an Elsterian tunnel valley. After deglaciation, the tunnel valley remained underfilled and provided the accommodation space for Holsteinian interglacial deposition and also kept the artifact-bearing strata below base level for subsequent erosion. The Holsteinian (MIS 9) succession consists of laterally and vertically stacked lacustrine delta systems, which were controlled by repeated lake-level changes. In the face of changing climatic and environmental conditions the long-lived interglacial lake provided an attractive site for animals and early humans. Artifacts were deposited on the subaerial delta plain and became embedded during lake-level rise. Although the area was considerably affected by erosion and glacitectonic deformation during the subsequent Saalian glaciation, the artifact-bearing Holsteinian strata were preserved in the deeper part of the tunnel valley.Tunnel valleys should be regarded as potential archives for interglacial deposits, which may contain important Paleolithic sites. Tunnel valleys may provide accommodation space and also have a high preservation potential. Interglacial lakes situated within underfilled tunnel valleys represented attractive sites for animals and early human hunter-gatherers.

Remote sensing and GIS techniques for reconstructing Arabian palaeohydrology and identifying archaeological sites

Freshwater availability is critical for human survival, and in the Saharo-Arabian desert belt repeated fluctuations between aridity and humidity over the Quaternary mean the distribution of freshwater was likely a primary control upon routes and opportunities for hominin dispersals. However, our knowledge of the spatio-temporal distribution of palaeohydrological resources within Arabia during Mid–Late Pleistocene episodes of climatic amelioration remains limited. In this paper we outline a combined method for remotely mapping the location of palaeodrainage and palaeolakes in currently arid regions that were formerly subject to more humid conditions. We demonstrate the potential of this approach by mapping palaeochannels across the whole Arabian Peninsula, and palaeolakes and marshes for select regions covering c. 10% of its surface. Our palaeodrainage mapping is based upon quantitative thresholding of HydroSHEDs data, which applies flow routing to Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data, while our palaeolake mapping uses an innovative method where spectral classification of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery is used to detect palaeolake deposits within endorheic (closed) basins, before modelling maximum lake extents by flooding the basin to the level of the elevation of the highest detected deposit. Field survey in the Nefud desert and the Dawadmi and Shuwaymis regions of Saudi Arabia indicates accuracies of 86% for palaeodrainage mapping, and 96% for identifying former palaeolake basins (73% accuracy of classification of individual deposits). The palaeolake mapping method has also demonstrated potential for identifying surface and stratified archaeological site locations, with 76% of the surveyed palaeolake basins containing archaeological material, including stratified Palaeolithic archaeology. Initial examination of palaeodrainage in relation to archaeological sites indicates a relationship between mapped features and previously recorded Palaeolithic sites. An example of the application of these data for period-specific regional palaeohydrological and archaeological reconstructions is presented for a region of Northern Saudi Arabia covering the southern Nefud desert and adjacent lava fields.

Flake scar density and handaxe reduction intensity

Quantifying biface reduction is an important goal in Palaeolithic archaeology for determining the length of reduction sequences, and to contextualise interpretations of biface morphology. In particular there is contention as to whether or not Acheulean handaxes were resharpened. Here we test the flake scar density index (SDI), calculated using 3D laser scans of bifaces, as a measure of handaxe reduction. We experimentally reduced an assemblage of 57 handaxes tracking changes in their SDI and mass lost at each stage of reduction. We tested the effects of blank type, coarseness of the stone, and different protocols for reduction. Our results show that the SDI is indeed an effective measure of mass lost, although it is influenced by the blank type of the handaxe.We applied the SDI to two archaeological assemblages of Acheulean bifaces from East Africa: Kariandusi and Isenya; and two archaeological assemblages from India: Patpara and Bhimbetka. Exotic materials were more reduced at Kariandusi and Isenya. A relationship between SDI and volume, such that smaller handaxes have higher scar densities, and are thus likely small because they have been reduced more, suggests resharpening. Conversely, the lack of such a relationship may be taken as evidence that bifaces were not resharpened. Our results show that exotic handaxes from Kariandusi, local handaxes from Isenya, and bifaces in general from Patpara were resharpened. On the other hand neither local handaxes from Kariandusi, cleavers from Isenya, nor cleavers from Bhimbetka, were resharpened. The unretouched bit formed by the termination of the original flake blank on the Isenya and Bhimbetka cleavers provides independent evidence for the lack of resharpening.

Demography and the Palaeolithic Archaeological Record

Demographic change has recently re-emerged as a key explanation for socio-cultural changes documented in the prehistoric archaeological record. While the majority of studies of Pleistocene demography have been conducted by geneticists, the archaeological records of the Palaeolithic should not be ignored as a source of data on past population trends. This paper forms both a comprehensive synthesis and the first critical review of current archaeological research into Palaeolithic demography. Within prevailing archaeological frameworks of dual inheritance theory and human behavioural ecology, I review the ways in which demographic change has been used as an explanatory concept within Palaeolithic archaeology. I identify and discuss three main research areas which have benefitted from a demographic approach to socio-cultural change: (1) technological stasis in the Lower Palaeolithic, (2) the Neanderthal-Homo sapiens transition in Europe and (3) the emergence of behavioural modernity. I then address the ways in which palaeodemographic methods have been applied to Palaeolithic datasets, considering both general methodological concerns and the challenges specific to this time period. Finally, I discuss the ability of ethnographic analogy to aid research into Palaeolithic demography.

Science, the Media, and Interpretations of Upper Paleolithic Figurines

Using the recent discovery of the Hohle Fels figurine as a catalyst, in this article we briefly review the history of scholarship regarding Upper Paleolithic figurines that are often referred to as “Venus” figurines. We integrate this review with a critical examination of the assumptions underlying the “Venus hypothesis”—the perspective that these artifacts are best understood as sexual objects—based on the available data from both inside and outside of the field of Paleolithic archaeology. We suggest that interpreting the figurines in a purely sexual context obstructs their objective, scientific study and has unintended social consequences. Following from this, we consider why the Venus hypothesis persists in the popular media and scholarly research despite decades of reflexive critiques. Finally, building on these critiques, we argue for the importance of contextualization in the study of Upper Paleolithic figurines and discuss new approaches to their study.

A place in time: Situating Chauvet within the long chronology of symbolic behavioral development

Since the discovery of the Grotte Chauvet (Ardèche, France) in the mid-1990s, there has been a debate regarding the accuracy of assigning this site to the Aurignacian period. The main argument stems from a perceived lack of agreement between the radiocarbon age of the imagery (>32,000 years BP [before present]) and its stylistic complexity and technical sophistication, which some believe are more typical of the later Upper Paleolithic. In this paper we first review the evidence for symbolic behavior among modern humans during the Aurignacian in order to explore the question of whether Chauvet's images are anachronistic. Then, using a database of non-figurative signs found in Paleolithic parietal art, we undertake a detailed comparison between Chauvet's corpus of signs and those found in other French Upper Paleolithic caves. While we conclude that there is substantial evidence to support an Aurignacian date for Grotte Chauvet, we also suggest that it may be time to revisit some of the cultural boundaries that are currently in use in Paleolithic archaeology.

Chronological and typo-technological perspectives on the Palaeolithic archaeology in Lantian, central China

Lantian, a well-known place for its early discovery of China's Homo erectus, is located in the northern piedmont of the Qinling Mountains, where the Bahe River flows from west to east. The well-preserved river terrace sequences are composed of fluvial sediments and overlying eolian loess-palaeosol deposits, embedding Palaeolithic artefacts and occasionally hominin fossils. Field investigation revealed more than 40 Palaeolithic localities in the region. Prior to the 1980s, there were 27 Middle Pleistocene open-air sites identified from which more than 200 stone artefacts, and nine Late Pleistocene open-air sites with more than 400 stone artefacts, were collected. Xishuidong is the only cave site to yield both mammalian fossils and stone artefacts in the region. Since 2009 new field surveys have added several open-air sites with more than 700 lithic artefacts from surface collections, which cover a time from the Middle Pleistocene to the Late Pleistocene.This paper provides a general review of the Palaeolithic sites in the Lantian region. The newly discovered lithic artefacts were found in both the loess deposits of the Middle Pleistocene and the Malan loess deposit of the Late Pleistocene. Analyses of the lithic assemblage suggest that the retouched tools comprise both heavy-duty tools, which were made of pebbles and large flakes, such as choppers, heavy-duty scrapers, hand-axes, picks, cleavers and spheroids, and small tools, which were made of small flakes, such as scrapers and points. There were no fundamental changes from the late Early to Late Pleistocene. The recent archaeological discovery of lithic artefacts embedded within the Malan loess deposit suggests that the Acheulian assemblage most likely lasted to the Late Pleistocene in this area. This investigation has shown that the Lantian region is an important area of study on the development of Acheulian technology in East Asia.

Palaeolithic Personal Ornaments: Historical Development and Epistemological Challenges

Since the 1990s, archaeological publications concerned with Palaeolithic personal ornaments have diversified. This proliferation has resulted in an intense exploration of the multiple roles, whether symbolic, cultural or social, that these items might have played in prehistoric groups. As a result of this process, there is now a broad consensus that these body adornments are important for exploring the origins of cognitive, artistic and symbolic behavior from an evolutionary perspective. This view contrasts with the conceptualization of Palaeolithic ornaments prevalent during the greater part of the twentieth century. At that time, these objects were rarely considered in debates concerning human evolution, art and symbolism. To explain this shift in the understanding of beads, pendants and other similar artifacts, we explore in this paper the history and the epistemology of the concept of ‘ornament’ in the field of Palaeolithic archaeology. In particular, we analyse the factors underlying why the same kinds of objects have been historically described in very diverse ways. We conclude by pointing out some of the epistemological challenges posed by the current revalorization of personal ornaments.

Against Chauvet-nism. A critique of recent attempts to validate an early chronology for the art of Chauvet Cave

We are in complete agreement with the new paper (2014) by Jean Combier, the foremost specialist in the Palaeolithic archaeology and imagery of the Ardeche region, and Guy Jouve, a physicist specializing in radiocarbon dating, as well as with their earlier article on this subject (Combier and Jouve, 2012). After nearly two decades of objections to the proposal that Chauvet’s black series art is Aurignacian, an honest scientific debate is surely overdue. The Chauvet research team have so far completely failed to address any of the varied problems that have been highlighted in a number of publications in peer-reviewed journals. We raise more of these here. Discovered in 1994, the >420 figurative and non-figurative images in the Chauvet Cave (Ardeche, France) constitute some of the finest examples of Upper Palaeolithic cave art known to science (Chauvet et al., 1996). The images were initially attributed on the basis of style, content and technique to the Mid and Late Upper Palaeolithic (Gravettian, Solutrean and Early Magdalenian), but the results of a very preliminary radiocarbon dating program led to the rather hasty reassignment of many of the cave’s impressive ‘black series’ charcoal drawings to the Early Upper Palaeolithic (Aurignacian). If this assessment is valid, our whole understanding of the development of more than 25,000 years of Upper Palaeolithic art would be shown to be incorrect. www.em-consulte.com Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

Late Pleistocene Geology and Paleolithic Archaeology of the Shimaki Site, Hokkaido, Japan

Here, we assess geochronological, sedimentological, stratigraphic, and stone tool data from Shimaki, an Upper Paleolithic site in southeastern Hokkaido, Japan. Overall, we find that Shimaki's landscape context and flaked‐stone assemblage are similar to sites in Hokkaido that date to just before or at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Based on several numerical ages, we suggest that the artifact‐bearing layer, including a wedge‐shaped core morphologically similar to post‐LGM specimens from Siberia, formed during the LGM, and sites like Shimaki with clear stratigraphy, relatively undisturbed cultural material, and what appear to be transitional artifact forms, may be key to answering questions about the origins of microblades, but, without human fossil remains for ancient DNA comparison, are inadequate to address the fate of Late Pleistocene Siberians.

Sink the Mousterian? Named stone tool industries (NASTIES) as obstacles to investigating hominin evolutionary relationships in the Later Middle Paleolithic Levant

The Later Middle Paleolithic lithic archaeological record for the East Mediterranean Levant has been invoked to support competing and contradictory models for the evolutionary relationships between Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis. The lithic evidence has not helped paleoanthropology achieve a conclusive resolution about this issue because archaeologists continue to structure inter-assemblage lithic variability in terms of stone tool industries such as the “Mousterian”. This paper explores the problems that named stone tool industries (or “NASTIES”) cause for Paleolithic archaeology, and it explores alternatives to them.

Late Middle Palaeolithic surface sites occurring on dated sediment formations in the Thar Desert

The dominance of erosional sedimentary processes in desert regions results in Palaeolithic records rich in surface scatters. Engaging with this abundant archaeological resource, including incorporating them within absolute chronologies or schemes of environmental variability, is critical to understanding hominin habitation in arid landscapes. Extensive archaeological surveys in the Thar Desert of India and Pakistan over the past 60 years have identified a large number of Palaeolithic surface sites in a diverse range of geographic contexts. In the past twenty years, a rich Upper Pleistocene palaeoenvironmental record has been developed within the region due to the application of chronometric dating techniques. However, as yet there have been few attempts by archaeologists to survey previously dated sediment formations in the Thar Desert and capitalise upon the potential to attribute preliminary terminus post quem dates to surface sites. Surface survey has been undertaken targeting sediment deposits that may preserve evidence for hominin behaviour between Marine Isotope Stage 5 and 3, a period in which technological and demographic overhauls in hominin populations appear to occur in South Asia. Following brief review of the Palaeolithic archaeology and palaeoenvironmental history of the Thar Desert, the results of recent archaeological survey of dated sediments at Chamu, Karna and Shergarh Tri-Junction are presented. The results offer tentative evidence for the presence of late Middle Palaeolithic populations in the region, which are evaluated and discussed within the context of contemporary occupations across southern Asia.

François Bordes and the Old Stone Age

<p class="p1">This is a highly personal description of the character and work of the great French archaeologist François Bordes, with whom Sackett worked for over twenty years. A native of France’s Perigord region, the prehistory of which he explored for most of his career, Bordes regarded himself as a ‘journeyman field worker’ or ‘homme de terrain’. However his contributions to Palaeolithic archaeology had an impact on the whole of the prehistory of Eurasia and beyond. This was the result of his innovative approaches to excavation and to the analysis of stone tool assemblages. Bordes participated in, and enjoyed debating the controversies between archaeological method and theory – and unfortunately, he also promoted factionalism within the French archaeological community.

François Bordes and the Old Stone Age

<p class="p1">This is a highly personal description of the character and work of the great French archaeologist François Bordes, with whom Sackett worked for over twenty years. A native of France’s Perigord region, the prehistory of which he explored for most of his career, Bordes regarded himself as a ‘journeyman field worker’ or ‘homme de terrain’. However his contributions to Palaeolithic archaeology had an impact on the whole of the prehistory of Eurasia and beyond. This was the result of his innovative approaches to excavation and to the analysis of stone tool assemblages. Bordes participated in, and enjoyed debating the controversies between archaeological method and theory – and unfortunately, he also promoted factionalism within the French archaeological community.

Measuring the Complexity of Lithic Technology

Assessments of the complexity of lithic technologies coming from different time periods, regions, or hominid species are recurrent features of the literature on Paleolithic archaeology. Yet the notion of lithic complexity is often defined intuitively and qualitatively, which can easily lead to circular arguments and makes difficult the comparison of assemblages across different regions and time periods. Here we propose, in the spirit of Oswalt’s techno-units, that the complexity of lithic technology can be quantified by counting the procedural units involved in tool manufacture. We define procedural units as mutually exclusive manufacturing steps that make a distinct contribution to the finished form of a technology. As a proof of concept, we use the procedural-unit approach to measure the complexity of 13 Paleolithic assemblages. While preliminary, these results provide a quantitative benchmark confirming that lithic technological complexity increased throughout the Paleolithic period. The method to measure lithic complexity outlined here will allow us to revisit several claims made about change in technological complexity during human evolution.

John Lubbock, caves, and the development of Middle and Upper Palaeolithic archaeology

John Lubbock's Pre-Historic Times (1865) was the first publication to use the terms ‘Palaeolithic’ and ‘Neolithic’ to define major periods of early prehistory. Because of this he has come to be seen as one of the most influential figures in the history of prehistoric archaeology. We examine this image here, in terms of his influence on contemporaries both in Britain and in France, where early excavations were providing materials that came to form the basic periodization of the Palaeolithic that is still in use today. We show how Lubbock contributed to this emergence of a professional Palaeolithic archaeology, and what he did and did not achieve in the critical decades of the 1850s and 1860s before his interests moved elsewhere.

Revisiting the Palaeolithic site of Kulbulak (Uzbekistan): First results from luminescence dating

Kulbulak has been considered as a key site for the Palaeolithic archaeology in Central Asia. Its significance, however, is under debate. Our analysis of the lithics provides no evidence for a Lower Palaeolithic industry, and challenges the existence of the “Denticulate Mousterian” as a particular Middle Palaeolithic facies in Western Central Asia. One limitation to interpreting the record preserved at Kulbulak, has been the lack of a chronological framework. In this paper, we report on the first age results that we have obtained for the sedimentary sequence using luminescence signals from potassium feldspar.We applied a conventional approach, which consists of stimulating single-aliquots of feldspar with infrared at 50 °C after a preheat of 250 °C for 60 s. The characteristics of this luminescence signal are documented, and it is shown to suffer from anomalous fading. The fading rates measured in the laboratory are used for correcting the ages. In general, the fading-corrected ages are stratigraphically consistent and agree with the archaeological evidence; they bracket the upper 6 m of the sequence in between 39 ± 4 ka and 82 ± 9 ka. These are among the first dates for human occupation during the Upper and Middle Palaeolithic in the region, but should be interpreted with caution owing to the limitations of the fading-correction model.