Technologie,typologie et analyses fonctionnelles de l’outillage lithique durant le néolithique ancien dans la Cueva de Murciélagos de Zuheros (Córdoba,Espagne) : réflexions sur la néolithisation du sud de la Péninsule Ibérique

The cave of Murciélagos de Zuheros (Cordoba, Spain) is one of the most important sites in Southern Iberian Peninsula. Its thick chronostratigraphic sequence includes occupations ranging from the Middle Palaeolithic to Roman times. Occupation levels corresponding to the earliest farming communities that established in modern-day Andalucia are remarkable due to its archaeological richness. This article focuses on the study of the lithic industry from these Early Neolithic levels, which is approached according to various tightly connected questions: raw material characterization, technical systems of production, and morphology and function of tools. Obtained results in their archaeological context are related to the questions on the origin of the Neolithic in Southern Iberian Peninsula.     

Hominin Dispersal into the Nefud Desert and Middle Palaeolithic Settlement along the Jubbah Palaeolake,Northern Arabia

The Arabian Peninsula is a key region for understanding hominin dispersals and the effect of climate change on prehistoric demography, although little information on these topics is presently available owing to the poor preservation of archaeological sites in this desert environment. Here, we describe the discovery of three stratified and buried archaeological sites in the Nefud Desert, which includes the oldest dated occupation for the region. The stone tool assemblages are identified as a Middle Palaeolithic industry that includes Levallois manufacturing methods and the production of tools on flakes. Hominin occupations correspond with humid periods, particularly Marine Isotope Stages 7 and 5 of the Late Pleistocene. The Middle Palaeolithic occupations were situated along the Jubbah palaeolake-shores, in a grassland setting with some trees. Populations procured different raw materials across the lake region to manufacture stone tools, using the implements to process plants and animals. To reach the Jubbah palaeolake, Middle Palaeolithic populations travelled into the ameliorated Nefud Desert interior, possibly gaining access from multiple directions, either using routes from the north and west (the Levant and the Sinai), the north (the Mesopotamian plains and the Euphrates basin), or the east (the Persian Gulf). The Jubbah stone tool assemblages have their own suite of technological characters, but have types reminiscent of both African Middle Stone Age and Levantine Middle Palaeolithic industries. Comparative inter-regional analysis of core technology indicates morphological similarities with the Levantine Tabun C assemblage, associated with human fossils controversially identified as either Neanderthals or Homo sapiens.     

Beyond the Levant: First Evidence of a Pre-Pottery Neolithic Incursion into the Nefud Desert,Saudi Arabia

Pre-Pottery Neolithic assemblages are best known from the fertile areas of the Mediterranean Levant. The archaeological site of Jebel Qattar 101 (JQ-101), at Jubbah in the southern part of the Nefud Desert of northern Saudi Arabia, contains a large collection of stone tools, adjacent to an Early Holocene palaeolake. The stone tool assemblage contains lithic types, including El-Khiam and Helwan projectile points, which are similar to those recorded in Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B assemblages in the Fertile Crescent. Jebel Qattar lies ∼500 kilometres outside the previously identified geographic range of Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures. Technological analysis of the typologically diagnostic Jebel Qattar 101 projectile points indicates a unique strategy to manufacture the final forms, thereby raising the possibility of either direct migration of Levantine groups or the acculturation of mobile communities in Arabia. The discovery of the Early Holocene site of Jebel Qattar suggests that our view of the geographic distribution and character of Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures may be in need of revision.     

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.     

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.     

Datations SMA et nouveaux regards sur l’archéo-séquence du Rond-du-Barry (Polignac,Haute-Loire)

A series of 36 radiocarbon AMS ages produced from separate bone fragments has prompted a new appraisal of the archaeological sequence of the Rond-du-Barry Cave (Polignac, Haute-Loire). A huge rock-fall of unknown age underlies Unit H, which contains evidence of the oldest human occupation of the site consisting of a Middle Palaeolithic assemblage dated to between 40 and 33 kyr. The first Upper Palaeolithic occupation of the Cave occurred later. In Unit F, three Badegoulian occupation sectors can be identified that are dated to between 20 and 17.5 kyr. The uppermost units, E and D yielded Middle and Upper Magdalenian dates of between 15.4 and 12.4 kyr. Within Unit E, a tephra related layer (E6) is likely to belong to a distal southern lobe of an eruptive event that was centred in the Chaîne des Puys, 100 km to the north. Unit D shows evidence of being re-worked at least during Mesolithic/Neolithic times, circa 6.5/4.9 kyr. The sum of this new evidence demonstrates the existence of a previously unrecognised stratigraphic and spatial complexity within the Rond-du-Barry archaeological deposits, which demands that new investigations be made in this cave.     

Behavioral inferences from Early Stone artifact assemblages: an experimental model

A methodological approach for assessing the nature and palaeographic distribution of early stone artifact assemblages is presented, modeled after an approach originally used for faunal analysis. By combining experimental replicative studies with careful analysis of Palaeolithic archaeological occurrences, it is potentially possible to reconstruct entire technological systems and to assess what stages of lithic reduction may be preferentially represented at high density artifact concentrations that we normally call archaeological “sites”, and what stages of reduction are found in lower density (“off site”) scatters.Based upon the results of this approach, alternative explanations for certain stages of lithic reduction being preferentially represented at a number of Plio-Pleistocene archaeological sites at Koobi Fora, Kenya are considered and evaluated with regard to early hominid organizational patterns. It appears that hominid stone technology was a relatively complex system by 1·9 to 1·4 million years B.P., involving significant transport and carrying of stone artifacts representing various stages of reduction and suggesting more foresight and planning than observed among extant nonhuman primates.The application of this approach to other Palaeolithic occurrences should enable anthropologists to obtain a better understanding of the organizational patterns of tool-making hominids throughout the course of human evolution.     

Modelling Mediterranean oak palaeolandscapes using the MaxEnt model algorithm: The case of the NE Iberia under the Middle Holocene climatic scenario

The Mediterranean Basin is a global biodiversity hotspot, and oak tree species play an important role in it. Since the beginning of the Holocene (∼11.4 kyr BP), the distribution of forests has not occurred uniformly, resulting in diverse types of vegetation landscapes. In this study, we used a maximum entropy algorithm (MaxEnt) to obtain the ecological niche model (ENM) of two sub-Mediterranean oak species, Quercus pubescens Willd. (pubescent oak) and Quercus ilex subsp. ilex (holm oak), both in the present day in the Iberian Peninsula and within a Middle Holocene (8.2–4.2 kyr BP) climatic scenario in the NE Iberian Peninsula. Moreover, we used the locations of Neolithic archaeological sites containing anthracological data to analyze the relationship between human occupations and oak habitats. Our results suggest that the two oaks have responded differently to the climatic conditions that have occurred, and show changes in both potential distributions. The palaeolandscape vegetation map shows a denser vegetation cover in the lowlands and a more open landscape in the highlands, with a higher dominance of Quercus pubescens in the septentrional areas, while Quercus ilex was more restricted to certain coastal areas. Temperature and precipitation factors, mainly seasonal climatic conditions, have had a greater impact on the distribution of vegetation than other factors. We found a good overlap between the ENM of the two oaks and the locations of the Neolithic sites analysed, and determined that the distribution of Neolithic archaeological sites is not random. The Neolithic populations in the study area depended heavily on the resources of the deciduous and evergreen sub- Mediterranean forest, although they also exploited the resources of the mountain pine forest. Neolithic sites distribution suggests that Neolithic human groups were aware of the potential of forests and probably gathered woody resources in their surroundings.     

Site Distribution at the Edge of the Palaeolithic World: A Nutritional Niche Approach

This paper presents data from the English Channel area of Britain and Northern France on the spatial distribution of Lower to early Middle Palaeolithic pre-MIS5 interglacial sites which are used to test the contention that the pattern of the richest sites is a real archaeological distribution and not of taphonomic origin. These sites show a marked concentration in the middle-lower reaches of river valleys with most being upstream of, but close to, estimated interglacial tidal limits. A plant and animal database derived from Middle-Late Pleistocene sites in the region is used to estimate the potentially edible foods and their distribution in the typically undulating landscape of the region. This is then converted into the potential availability of macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, fats) and selected micronutrients. The floodplain is shown to be the optimum location in the nutritional landscape (nutriscape). In addition to both absolute and seasonal macronutrient advantages the floodplains could have provided foods rich in key micronutrients, which are linked to better health, the maintenance of fertility and minimization of infant mortality. Such places may have been seen as ‘good (or healthy) places’ explaining the high number of artefacts accumulated by repeated visitation over long periods of time and possible occupation. The distribution of these sites reflects the richest aquatic and wetland successional habitats along valley floors. Such locations would have provided foods rich in a wide range of nutrients, importantly including those in short supply at these latitudes. When combined with other benefits, the high nutrient diversity made these locations the optimal niche in northwest European mixed temperate woodland environments. It is argued here that the use of these nutritionally advantageous locations as nodal or central points facilitated a healthy variant of the Palaeolithic diet which permitted habitation at the edge of these hominins’ range.     

Bioarchaeological research in Croatia--a historical review

The study of human skeletal remains from archaeological sites gives us the opportunity to answer important questions about the lifestyle of past populations. The discipline that studies human skeletal remains is known as bioarchaeology. This paper provides a historical review of bioarchaeological research in Croatia. It is based on the available published material that analyzes human skeletal remains from archaeological sites located on the Croatian territory covering time span from the Neolithic period to the late Middle Ages.     

Garden of Eden or Desert Exile: The Mousterian of Hummal in context

Our view of MP cultural variability is blurred by site-specific problems as well as inadequate research concepts. The former are inherent in current fieldwork methodology and in the archaeological record itself. Excavation of Palaeolithic sites generally catches only parts of the entire archaeological record and thus leaves us with the sample size problem. Moreover, resolution of the archaeological record is often limited by the palimpsest problem which is especially given in spatially restricted sites (e.g. caves) coupled with a low sedimentation rate. Many research concepts not only neglect the resolution problem but also lack the consideration of scale when it comes to archaeological interpretation. Our aim is not to reinterpret the Levantine Middle Palaeolithic in the light of these challenges as this is outside the scope of this paper. Archaeological resolution and scale are nevertheless taken as guidelines for the integration of the Hummal Mousterian in a broader context. In doing so, we give a short review of current knowledge and show how a scale-sensitive approach can inform us about various aspects of the Levantine Middle Palaeolithic.     

Satsurblia: New Insights of Human Response and Survival across the Last Glacial Maximum in the Southern Caucasus

The region of western Georgia (Imereti) has been a major geographic corridor for human migrations during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic (MP/UP). Knowledge of the MP and UP in this region, however, stems mostly from a small number of recent excavations at the sites of Ortvale Klde, Dzudzuana, Bondi, and Kotias Klde. These provide an absolute chronology for the Late MP and MP–UP transition, but only a partial perspective on the nature and timing of UP occupations, and limited data on how human groups in this region responded to the harsh climatic oscillations between 37,000–11,500 years before present. Here we report new UP archaeological sequences from fieldwork in Satsurblia cavein the same region. A series of living surfaces with combustion features, faunal remains, stone and bone tools, and ornaments provide new information about human occupations in this region (a) prior to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) at 25.5–24.4 ka cal. BP and (b) after the LGM at 17.9–16.2 ka cal. BP. The latter provides new evidence in the southern Caucasus for human occupation immediately after the LGM. The results of the campaigns in Satsurblia and Dzudzuana suggest that at present the most plausible scenario is one of a hiatus in the occupation of this region during the LGM (between 24.4–17.9 ka cal. BP). Analysis of the living surfaces at Satsurblia offers information about human activities such as the production and utilisation of lithics and bone tools, butchering, cooking and consumption of meat and wild cereals, the utilisation of fibers, and the use of certain woods. Microfaunal and palynological analyses point to fluctuations in the climate with consequent shifts in vegetation and the faunal spectrum not only before and after the LGM, but also during the two millennia following the end of the LGM.     

A Human Deciduous Tooth and New 40Ar/39Ar Dating Results from the Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Site of Isernia La Pineta,Southern Italy

Isernia La Pineta (south-central Italy, Molise) is one of the most important archaeological localities of the Middle Pleistocene in Western Europe. It is an extensive open-air site with abundant lithic industry and faunal remains distributed across four stratified archaeosurfaces that have been found in two sectors of the excavation (3c, 3a, 3s10 in sect. I; 3a in sect. II). The prehistoric attendance was close to a wet environment, with a series of small waterfalls and lakes associated to calcareous tufa deposits. An isolated human deciduous incisor (labelled IS42) was discovered in 2014 within the archaeological level 3 coll (overlying layer 3a) that, according to new ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar measurements, is dated to about 583–561 ka, i.e. to the end of marine isotope stage (MIS) 15. Thus, the tooth is currently the oldest human fossil specimen in Italy; it is an important addition to the scanty European fossil record of the Middle Pleistocene, being associated with a lithic assemblage of local raw materials (flint and limestone) characterized by the absence of handaxes and reduction strategies primarily aimed at the production of small/medium-sized flakes. The faunal assemblage is dominated by ungulates often bearing cut marks. Combining chronology with the archaeological evidence, Isernia La Pineta exhibits a delay in the appearance of handaxes with respect to other European Palaeolithic sites of the Middle Pleistocene. Interestingly, this observation matches the persistence of archaic morphological features shown by the human calvarium from the Middle Pleistocene site of Ceprano, not far from Isernia (south-central Italy, Latium). In this perspective, our analysis is aimed to evaluate morphological features occurring in IS42.     

The archaeological results of Prehistoric societies obtained in the Archaeological Map of North Morocco Project

This paper presents the results of the “Archaeological Map in Northern Morocco” project, which has been carried out by researchers from the University of Cadiz, University of Abdelmalek Essaadi and INSAP of Rabat. Four seasons of archaeological survey have taken place in the Tetouan region as well as excavations in the Cave El Hafa and the rock-shelter of Marsa. This study includes geomorphological data and a petrographic study to pinpoint of the origins of raw material used by the different human groups that duelled in the area. Lastly, this paper presents settlement patterns of the studied groups, most importantly, this is an updated study of the relevant occupations that correspond to Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer societies, Neolithic tribal societies and also, of human settlements associated to Recent Prehistory stages.     

Ancient DNA from an Early Neolithic Iberian population supports a pioneer colonization by first farmers

The Neolithic transition has been widely debated particularly regarding the extent to which this revolution implied a demographic expansion from the Near East. We attempted to shed some light on this process in northeastern Iberia by combining ancient DNA (aDNA) data from Early Neolithic settlers and published DNA data from Middle Neolithic and modern samples from the same region. We successfully extracted and amplified mitochondrial DNA from 13 human specimens, found at three archaeological sites dated back to the Cardial culture in the Early Neolithic (Can Sadurní and Chaves) and to the Late Early Neolithic (Sant Pau del Camp). We found that haplogroups with a low frequency in modern populations-N* and X1-are found at higher frequencies in our Early Neolithic population (～31%). Genetic differentiation between Early and Middle Neolithic populations was significant (F(ST) ～0.13, P<10(-5)), suggesting that genetic drift played an important role at this time. To improve our understanding of the Neolithic demographic processes, we used a Bayesian coalescence-based simulation approach to identify the most likely of three demographic scenarios that might explain the genetic data. The three scenarios were chosen to reflect archaeological knowledge and previous genetic studies using similar inferential approaches. We found that models that ignore population structure, as previously used in aDNA studies, are unlikely to explain the data. Our results are compatible with a pioneer colonization of northeastern Iberia at the Early Neolithic characterized by the arrival of small genetically distinctive groups, showing cultural and genetic connections with the Near East.     

La macrofaune du Pléistocène supérieur d’El Harhoura 2 (Témara, Maroc) : données préliminaires

The El Harhoura 2 cave is situated in the commune of El Harhoura in the Temara region (Morocco). The entrance faces west, towards the ocean, around 200 m away from the current shoreline and about 16 m above sea level. The stratigraphy has currently 11 levels numbered from top to bottom. Level 1 is attributed to the early Neolithic. The archaeological material from level 2 places it within the Upper Palaeolithic (Iberomaurusian). Levels 3 to 11 are assigned to the Middle Palaeolithic (Aterian). Since 1977, a surface of 37 m² has been excavated, yielding particularly abundant remains of a large mammal fauna study in this paper.     

Les principales étapes de l’occupation humaine en bordure de l’Himalaya occidentale

Lithic industries attest that Western Himalayas, Hindu Kush and Pamir as well as the sub-Himalayan belt that is the Siwalik range, were inhabited during the prehistoric times. However, in thin transition zone between plains and high mountains, distinction is to be kept between low-middle altitude regions and high altitude regions (above 2000 m). In the former regions, the first human occupation tenuously appears around 2 Ma. In the Middle Pleistocene, the Lower Palaeolithic industries belong to two technological facies, the Acheulian and the Early Soanian. In the North-Western Siwaliks, the Soanian occurs in plenty on the river terraces, which were all built after 0.4 Ma, and the Acheulian appears between 0.5 and 0.7 Ma. The Middle Palaeolithic is still rich in cobble tools and therefore named Late Soanian. The Upper Palaeolithic is missing, perhaps due to climatic factors and the Neolithic is characterised by polished axes/adzes, but actually many of the cobble tools usually considered as Early Soanian may well belong to the cobble tool technical tradition common in South-East Asia during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. In the north of the mountain range, the entire Palaeolithic sequence yielded by the loess in Southern Tajikistan is characterised, right from the late Lower Pleistocene, by lithic industries mainly compose of flakes, sometimes with cobble tools. In the high altitude zones, prehistoric sites are unknown before the Holocene and therefore they are contemporaneous with the Neolithic but some technological facies display particular features. The question is to know whether the originality of the industries, observed at different periods of time, is linked to techno-cultural adaptations to particular environments or to the isolation of the mountain 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.     

Le site de la baume Flandin (commune d’Orgnac-l’Aven) : nouvelles données sur ce gisement du Paléolithique moyen

The Baume Flandin, located in the Middle Rhone valley, yielded in the 1950s an archaeological level attributed to the Middle Palaeolithic, with abundant elongated flakes. This feature is rare in southern Europe before MIS 4. The cave was totally excavated and little evidence existed to confirm the date of this level, which was attributed to the ‘Riss–Würm’ according to the fauna remains and the sediments. New fieldwork took place in 2005, in front of the cave entrance, on the terrace. The study of the archaeological level that has been discovered brings new information on the age of the sequence of this site. The human occupation took place in the latest interglacial, at the end of isotopic stage 5e. This date leads us to revive the debate on the first evidence of the laminar debitage between northern and southern Europe.     

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.