Technical behaviours and subsistence patterns of lower middle palaeolithic men the case of the site of Payre in the Rhône valley (South-East of France)

Excavations at Payre, between 1990 and 1998, yielded lithic artefacts and bones in four levels. Men came during the isotopic stage 5 interglacial (Eemian) and isotopic stages 6 and 7. Sites of this age are not many in this part of the Rhône valley and this cave is an important element for the oldest Middle Palaeolithic and its diversity. The men lived in the cave before/after departure of bears and hyenas or wolves, probably for short occupations. Sedimentological, palynological, palaeontological and geochronological studies carry much informations about human life in this cave. The artefacts belong to the Lower Middle Palaeolithic culture, which shows originalities as compared to the South-West of France and also sites of the South-East for example Orgnac 3 dating to isotopic stage 9. The South-East of France shows more and more its important place in the knowledge of the Mousterians and could become in future a rich country for informations.     

Neanderthals and volcanic rocks. Opportunistic behaviour or optimized management?

The use of volcanic rocks by Neanderthals is frequently considered to be opportunistic, especially when good-quality stones were rare in the site neighbourhood. An analysis of the lithic series made of volcanic rocks discovered in the Middle Palaeolithic sites of Payre and Sainte-Anne I, located in the south part and at the southeastern margin of the Massif Central of France and dated back to MIS 7 up until the end of MIS 5, illustrates the capacity of Neanderthals to manage these raw materials and enables us to compare the strategies used in two different mineral environments. Shaping and flaking reduction sequences coexist in both sites in varying proportions, depending on the available rocks in the surroundings. At Payre, artefacts made of volcanic rocks are rarer in surroundings rich in flint while at Sainte-Anne I, the different series comprise a large quantity of artefacts made of different basalts and trachy-phonolites in an environment relatively poor in flint. Most of the reduction processes took place in situ. Activities outside the sites only appear to have concerned the shaping of some heavy-duty tools and some large flakes. It is likely that volcanic rocks were considered by Neanderthals as a geo-resource, either major or lesser in importance, to provide large flakes and both heavy-duty and light-duty tools, besides flint quartz and other rocks.     

Les assemblages lithiques des niveaux du Paléolithique moyen de l’Abri des Pêcheurs (Ardèche, Sud-Est de la France): Des occupations néandertaliennes récurrentes dans un « fossé »

The Abri des Pêcheurs has yielded an extraordinary sequence with Middle and Upper Palaeolithic levels. Humans came and stayed in a ditch-cave that has been filled in along time. During Middle Palaeolithic occupations, they used first quartz, and this site is the only case in this area. Assemblages show similar technological behaviour along time. Flint is few employed and arrived as flakes from different areas if we consider its geological variety. Functions of the site are not well established. The base of the sequence has yielded sediments with a mixing of ibex, carnivore bones and artefacts. The study of the lithic assemblages brings information on the processing systems used on quartz and flint during occupations which left few evidence and used local stones while flint is available not far from the site. Hypothesis on short and specialized occupations is discussed.     

Le site du Ranc-Pointu no 2 à Saint-Martin-d’Ardèche : une occupation du Paléolithique moyen ancien dans le Sud-Est de la France

New investigations conducted in 2008 at Ranc-Pointu No. 2, a small cave located along the Ardèche River, led to the complete revision of the infilling and assemblages, confirming at least one human occupation in this small cave. There may have been two periods of occupation, but only the main one located at the top of the sequence (level ‘c’) has been firmly established. Revision of the large mammal corpus and sedimentological data suggests climatic warming from the base to the top of the sequence. The OSL dating of sub-level ‘c1’ to 145 ka must be discussed in relation to the interdisciplinary results. It suggests that this cave was occupied at the end of MIS 6 and therefore that human populations were present in the Ardèche gorges at the end of the Middle Pleistocene. Ranc-Pointu No. 2 would thus represent older Middle Palaeolithic occupations than in other caves located along the Ardèche River, such as Le Figuier or Saint-Marcel. In the Ardèche French department, only the bottom of the Moula-Guercy sequence and the top of the sequence at the site of Payre, both of which are northern sites, have recorded MIS 6 deposits.     

Adults only. Reindeer hunting at the middle palaeolithic site salzgitter lebenstedt, northern Germany

The Middle Palaeolithic site Salzgitter Lebenstedt (northern Germany), excavated in 1952, is well known because of its well-preserved faunal remains, dominated by adult reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). The archaeological assemblage accumulated in an arctic setting in an earlier part of the last (Weichsel) glacial (OIS5-3). The site is remarkable because of the presence of unique Middle Palaeolithic bone tools and the occurrence of the northernmost Neanderthal remains, but this paper focuses on an analysis of its reindeer assemblage. The results indicate autumn hunting of reindeer by Middle Palaeolithic hominids. After the hunt, carcasses were butchered and in subsequent marrow processing of the bones a selection against young and sub-adult animals occurred. Adults were clearly preferred, and from their bones, again, poorer marrow bones were neglected. This focus on primeness of resources has been documented in other domains of Neanderthal behaviour, but Salzgitter Lebenstedt is the best example yet known in terms of systematic and routinized processing of game. The Salzgitter Lebenstedt assemblage displays some remarkable similarities to the Late Glacial reindeer assemblages from the Ahrensburg tunnel valley sites. The subsequent review of the evidence on subsistence strategies from earlier periods of the European Palaeolithic shows that hunting of large mammals may have been a part of the behavioural repertoire of the Middle Pleistocene occupants of Europe from the earliest occupation onwards. At the same time, it is suggested that these early hunting strategies were incorporated in ways of moving through landscapes ("settlement systems") which were different from what we know from the middle parts of the Upper Palaeolithic onwards.     

Le site de Nepryakhino sur la moyenne Volga (Russie)

The site is located East of the Saratov region, between the rivers Volga and Ural. The stratigraphy is the following: the 1st upper layer is Eneolithic and the bottom layers complexes belong to the Palaeolithic and yield numerous quartzite artefacts. The preliminary data allow to assign layer 2 to the Upper Pleistocene (Ostashkovo). Layer 7 matches the limit between Late Middle Palaeolithic and archaïc Upper Palaeolithic. The implement complexes are mainly represented by Mousterian tools and the typical Upper Palaeolithic ones are less numerous (cores and blades). Handaxes are numerous; so are bifacial subtriangular points. It is possible to assume a connection of the bottom layers from Nepryahino with the earliest complexes of Kostienky-Streletskaya culture.     

A new chronostratigraphic framework for the Upper Palaeolithic of Riparo Mochi (Italy)

The rockshelter of Mochi, on the Ligurian coast of Italy, is often used as a reference point in the formation of hypotheses concerning the arrival of the Aurigancian in Mediterranean Europe. Yet, the site is poorly known. Here, we describe the stratigraphic sequence based on new field observations and present 15 radiocarbon determinations from the Middle Palaeolithic (late Mousterian) and Early Upper Palaeolithic (Aurignacian and Gravettian) levels. The majority of dates were produced on humanly modified material, specifically marine shell beads, which comprise some of the oldest directly-dated personal ornaments in Europe. The radiocarbon results are incorporated into a Bayesian statistical model to build a new chronological framework for this key Palaeolithic site. A tentative correlation of the stratigraphy to palaeoclimatic records is also attempted.     

Gentelles-Le Mont de l’Evangile (département de la Somme,France) : un site de plateau occupé de l’Acheuléen au Micoquien

The palaeolithic site of Gentelles (Somme, France) is situated on a chalky plateau unlike most Lower and Middle Palaeolithic sites of the Somme basin, which are related to fluvial environments (alluvial and slope deposits). The archaeological material of the site excavated at Gentelles on several thousand square meters is recovered from the infilling of a dolina. The archaeological sequence is attributed to Late Middle and Upper Pleistocene (MIS 10 to MIS 5). The assignment of the loess infilling the dolina to MIS 6 is supported by ESR/U-Th dates obtained on teeth and the IRSL age of the sediment. All lithic assemblages include bifacial production and debitage with cores showing one or several surfaces of debitage. There is no evidence of Levallois flaking methods, which are very common in many Middle Palaeolithic industries of Northern France. The first steps of the reducing sequences are not present in most lithic assemblages. Some faunal remains (equids, bovids) have been discovered in the loess deposits. In most cases, the function of the site corresponds to short occupations of hunters moving on the plateau. In contrast, the CLG assemblage (MIS 8) which shows many phases of the reducing sequence suggests longer occupations.     

The Lower Palaeolithic assemblage of Layers 15–18 (Unit G) at Hummal. An exemplary case addressing the problems placing undated,archaic-looking stone tool assemblages in the Early and Lower Palaeolithic record by techno-typological classification

The site of Hummal is situated in the region of El Kowm in central Syria. The site comprises an archaeological sequence covering the entire Pleistocene epoch, and encompasses all major Palaeolithic complexes currently known in the Middle East. At the base of the site, 14 m below today's ground level, several layers with a lithic assemblage attributed to the Lower Palaeolithic have been excavated over the past years. At present, the collection recovered from this lowest succession at Hummal contains more than 700 stone artefacts and more than 3000 bone fragments. The lithic assemblage is characterized by a simple flaking technique and the presence of different pebble tools, such as choppers, hammerstones and sphaeroids. Additionally four handaxes were recovered, which have a symmetric shape, are clearly bifacial and rather flat. The lithic assemblage from the lowermost layers of the Hummal excavation largely resembles an Archaic, Lower Palaeolithic assemblage, belonging to the so-called Oldowan or Mode 1 stage. However, the presence of well-shaped and symmetric handaxes sheds doubt on the validity of this attribution to a Mode 1, Oldowan or the Early Acheulean Stage. It can, therefore, be debated, whether the common classifications of lithic industries are adequate for describing the archaeological record from the period in question in the Middle East.     

L'espace minéral au Paléolithique moyen dans le Sud du Massif central : premiers résultats pétroarchéologiques

The Middle Palaeolithic mineral environment in the South of the Massif Central: preliminary petroarchaeological results. Five Middle-Palaeolithic assemblages coming from archaeological sites in the Haute-Loire and Ardèche dated to isotopic stages 7 to 5 have been studied using a petroarchaeological method based on the optimization of observation techniques at different scales with respect to genetic and postgenetic characteristics of flint raw materials. The method reveals a relatively large collection area for the middle mountain sites (Sainte-Anne I, Baume-Vallée, Le Rond-de-Saint-Arcons, Rochelimagne), but apparently a smaller one for the site of Payre, located nearby the side of the Rhône Valley. For all sites, gathering is predominantly local, but some distant sources are utilised too. The rare exogenous materials, for example the Bedoulian flint from Ardèche identified in the Velay assemblages (Sainte-Anne I, Baume-Vallée) are in fact located in the heart of the massif as well as in secondary deposits and thus do not allow one to establish firm circulation routes for, or certain contact between the relevant human groups. To cite this article: P. Fernandes et al., C. R. Palevol 5 (2006).     

Geographic views of human development

Human development can be divided into three stages: human ancestors (Lower Palaeolithic), early human races (Middle Palaeolithic) and modern humans (Upper Palaeolithic). Regional differentiation has been detected in the Lower Palaeolithic and is strongly developed in the Middle Palaeolithic but continues into the Upper Palaeolithic less marked. Clearly mixture at all levels accounts for this. Early humans absorbed the pre-existing regionalizations even as they further differentiated. Modern humans resulted from Upper Palaeolithic people spreading across the world and again absorbing the previous differentiations.     

La Grotte des Félins, site paléolithique du Pléistocène supérieur à Dar Bouazza (Maroc)

In the continental sediments filling a cave that developed in Middle Pleistocene deposits near Casablanca, Morocco, a very rich mammal fauna from the last climatic cycle was discovered. It was associated with a Middle Palaeolithic poor and atypical lithic assemblage manufactured on blocks and pebbles. The lower fossiliferous layer contained abundant carbonized remains of felids. Unfortunately, the site was destroyed by quarrying before adequate excavations could be carried out.     

Circulations sur plusieurs centaines de kilomètres durant le Paléolithique moyen. Contribution à la connaissance des sociétés néandertaliennes

In the Middle Palaeolithic of western Europe, raw material circulations seemed limited to a hundred of kilometres. This paper focuses on the circulation of flints on more than 250 km (minimal distances) in the Mousterian site of Champ Grand, France. Real distances are longer than 400 km. Modalities of circulation are exposed. The analyses of these products demonstrate an important anticipation concerning the mobile raw materials’ management. These data demonstrate that this Mousterian site is a point in a complex and ramified settlement of the landscape. Diachronic relations with behavioural aspects of Upper Palaeolithic societies are exposed.     

The Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition in Cova Gran (Catalunya, Spain) and the extinction of Neanderthals in the Iberian Peninsula

The excavations carried out in Cova Gran de Santa Linya (Southeastern PrePyrenees, Catalunya, Spain) have unearthed a new archaeological sequence attributable to the Middle Palaeoloithic/Upper Palaeolithic (MP/UP) transition. This article presents data on the stratigraphy, archaeology, and ¹⁴C AMS dates of three Early Upper Palaeolithic and four Late Middle Palaeolithic levels excavated in Cova Gran. All these archaeological levels fall within the 34-32 ka time span, the temporal frame in which major events of Neanderthal extinction took place. The earliest Early Upper Palaeolithic (497D) and the latest Middle Palaeolithic (S1B) levels in Cova Gran are separated by a sterile gap and permit pinpointing the time period in which the Mousterian disappeared from Northeastern Spain. Technological differences between the Early Upper Palaeolithic and Late Middle Palaeolithic industries in Cova Gran support a cultural rupture between the two periods. A series of 12 ¹⁴C AMS dates prompts reflections on the validity of reconstructions based on radiocarbon data. Thus, results from excavations in Cova Gran lead us to discuss the scenarios relating the MP/UP transition in the Iberian Peninsula, a region considered a refuge of late Neanderthal populations.     

The fragmented character of Middle Palaeolithic stone tool technology

The importance of the transport of stone artefacts in structuring Neandertal lithic assemblages has often been addressed, but the degree to which this led to fragmentation of lithic reduction over Middle Palaeolithic landscapes has not been explicitly studied thus far. Large-scale excavations of Middle Palaeolithic open-air sites and refitting studies of the retrieved assemblages have yielded new, high-resolution data on the mobile aspects of Neandertal stone tool technology. In this paper, we integrate lithic technology and raw material data from recent studies of Middle Palaeolithic open-air and rock shelter sites in Western Europe. We demonstrate that the results of a variety of typological, technological (especially refitting), and lithological studies have important consequences for our knowledge of the acquisition of raw materials and subsequent production, usage and discard of stone artefacts in the Middle Palaeolithic. Neandertal production and use of stone tools was fragmented in three domains: the spatial, the temporal and the social domain. We show that this versatile segmentation of stone artefact handling strategies is a main determinant of the character of the Neandertal archaeological record. Our data testify to ubiquitous and continuous transport of stone artefacts of a wide variety of forms, picked by Neandertals using selection criteria that were sometimes far removed from what archaeologists have traditionally considered, and to some degree still consider, to be desired end products of knapping activities. The data presented here testify to the variability and versatility of Middle Palaeolithic stone tool technology, whose fragmented character created very heterogeneous archaeological assemblages, usually the product of a wide variety of independent import, use, discard and/or subsequent transport events.     

Les occupations humaines du Nord du Maroc,du Paléolithique Moyen et du Paléolithique Supérieur. Nouvelles données sur la base des recherches archéologiques des projets de 2005 à 2020

In this work, we present a synthetic panorama of the human occupations of northern Morocco, with an emphasis on the association of anthropological with cultural records, within the framework of the Middle Palaeolithic (MSA) and the Upper Palaeolithic. We also present the projects developed over the past 15 years and the most interesting results we have obtained. And we conclude bay providing some reflections on the cultural and historical evaluation of the archaeological records from the Tetouan region in the Middle and the Upper Palaeolithic phases.     

A new discovery of Neanderthal settlements in Turkey: Sürmecik open-air campsite in Western Anatolia

Western Anatolia is the poorest region in terms of Turkey's Palaeolithic finds. In the past years, only a few Palaeolithic artefacts were known from the surface in the provinces of İzmir, Manisa, Kütahya and Afyonkarahisar in western Anatolia. After the fossil Homo erectus skull fragment was found in the travertine deposits in Kocabaş (Denizli) in 2002, the importance of the region more increased. After this important discovery, Dr. Kadriye Özçelik started a Palaeolithic survey in Denizli and found a large number of chipped stone tools from the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic periods. Nevertheless, the last important Palaeolithic discovery in the region was made in Sürmecik (Banaz-Uşak) in 2015. This is an open-air campsite belonging to the Middle Palaeolithic period. Here is also a mining area where a mining operation is conducted. The chipped stone artefacts of the Sürmecik Palaeolithic open-air campsite come from a clay layer between hematite and limonite deposits under a travertine layer of about 4.5–5 meters in thickness. Faunal remains represent mostly by equids species. All stages of Mousterian culture are clearly visible in this open-air campsite. Sürmecik is the richest middle Palaeolithic open-air campsite in Turkey. The 83,002 lithic pieces were collected in the excavations carried out in 2016 and 2017. It is thought that the lithic assemblage will exceed 100,000 with the ongoing studies. The group of bifacial leaf points in this collection is seen in Turkey for the first time. Four master thesis studies started on the lithic material of Sürmecik. It is planned to take some samples for dating analysis along with ongoing studies.     

Earliest Cranio-Encephalic Trauma from the Levantine Middle Palaeolithic: 3D Reappraisal of the Qafzeh 11 Skull,Consequences of Pediatric Brain Damage on Individual Life Condition and Social Care

The Qafzeh site (Lower Galilee, Israel) has yielded the largest Levantine hominin collection from Middle Palaeolithic layers which were dated to circa 90–100 kyrs BP or to marine isotope stage 5b–c. Within the hominin sample, Qafzeh 11, circa 12–13 yrs old at death, presents a skull lesion previously attributed to a healed trauma. Three dimensional imaging methods allowed us to better explore this lesion which appeared as being a frontal bone depressed fracture, associated with brain damage. Furthermore the endocranial volume, smaller than expected for dental age, supports the hypothesis of a growth delay due to traumatic brain injury. This trauma did not affect the typical human brain morphology pattern of the right frontal and left occipital petalia. It is highly probable that this young individual suffered from personality and neurological troubles directly related to focal cerebral damage. Interestingly this young individual benefited of a unique funerary practice among the south-western Asian burials dated to Middle Palaeolithic.     

Nouvelles données sur la chronologie des sites paléolithiques en contexte lœssique du Nord-Est et du Sud-Est de la Roumanie (Périphérie orientale des Carpates)

In the present study, the chronology of several intraloessic Upper and Middle Palaeolithic sites, located in Moldova, Dobrogea and the eastern Danube Plain, is re-examined and better defined on the basis of new chronological data (IRSL ages on loess, ESR/U-Th ages on teeth) and also biostratigraphic and pedostratigraphic evidence. Middle Palaeolithic occupations have been identified in the MIS 6 loess L2 (interstadial episode), the MIS 7 pedocomplex S2 and the red soils S3 presumably assigned to MIS 9. These results are questioning the chronological extension of the Middle Palaeolithic in Romania which until early 2000 (Păunescu, 1999 a, b; Cârciumaru, 1999) was restricted to the Upper Pleistocene (short chronology: 130–35 ka; MIS 5-MIS 3). Hence, we demonstrate herein that Humans were already present during the Middle Pleistocene at the eastern periphery of the Carpathian Mountains, along the Danube valley and its tributary, the Prut River.     

New chronometric data from Ifri n'Ammar (Morocco) and the chronostratigraphy of the Middle Palaeolithic in the Western Maghreb

In addition to South Africa, the Northwestern corner of the African continent is providing a wealth of data for the understanding of the behaviour of early modern humans. In NW Africa, this modern behaviour is associated with a technocomplex called 'Aterian'. However, its definition as well as chronological position is heavily debated. As a common notion, the 'Aterian' is placed as the (more or less) last technocomplex of the Middle Stone Age/Middle Palaeolithic. However, the stratigraphy of the Moroccan site of Ifri n'Ammar provides evidence that the 'Aterian' cannot serve as a chronostratigraphic entity because of its presence in a stratigraphical sequence before as well as after Middle Palaeolithic industries lacking tanged tools. These should supposedly all occur beneath any layer containing tanged lithic objects, which are, at present, the main criteria for assigning an assemblage to the 'Aterian'. According to the sequence of Ifri n'Ammar, the relative chronostratigraphical position of tanged tools is therefore shown not to be a single unit. Thermoluminescence (TL) dating of heated artefacts from the main layers of Ifri n'Ammar provides a first chronostratigraphic backbone for the site and for the Maghreb. Layer 'Upper OS', which contains tanged items as well as personal ornaments is dated to 83.3 ± 5.6 ka (n = 10), while the underlying 'Lower OS', which is lacking tanged pieces, is dated to 130.0 ± 7.8 ka (n = 9). The following layer (Upper OI), which again contains tanged items, and thus provides the earliest appearance of the technique of tanging is dated to 145 ± 9 ka. The base of the sequence is formed by a Middle Palaeolithic layer (Lower OI) again lacking tanged objects and dated to 171 ± 12 ka by TL on heated lithic artefacts. These data significantly push back in time the earliest occurrence of tanged tools and the sequence calls for a complete revision of the Maghreb chronostratigraphy.