Aux origines de la Spiritualité : la notion de transcendance au Paléolithique

In a previous note we presented the expression of the late paleolithic spirituality (Welté and Lambert, 2004). A special analytic grid was used as a possible tool for a demonstration. We separeted rationality from metaphysic; notions which are linked with dialectic relations between necessity (daily constraints), thought, action and evolution in the paleolithic period. Starting from the no direct material activities like burials, funeral materials and art, we purpose now that such notions existed before the upper Paleolithic. We infer that a privilegious set of interactions between the animal and the human appeared early in the thought of the people, before the upper Paleolithic. A metaphysic univers forced itself upon them as an evident “anti-world” which is the symmetric shape of the real and tangible world. In such a context, the social system(s) could not discard these duality.     

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.     

L’exploitation non alimentaire des ressources animales pendant le Magdalénien au Nord-Est de la Peninsule Ibérique. L’exemple de la grotte du Parco (Alòs de Balaguer, Lleida, Espagne)

Parco cave, discovered in 1974, has yielded more than 50 objects fashioned of hard animal parts from levels dating to later phases of the Magdalenian. In the work described here, we have undertaken a technotypological analysis of this previously unstudied bone and antler assemblage. The osseous series from Parco are homogeneous and very similar to those from nearby sites of roughly the same time period; that is to say of the late Upper Magdalenian of the peninsular Mediterranean. The latter are composed primarily of hunting weapons dominated by antler projectile points, as well as eyed bone needles and a few shell ornaments. Technological analysis shows production in which there is a tight relationship between morphological type and raw material employed. The production schema saw the removal of blanks by means of groove and splinter technique, followed by shaping of pieces by scraping and finishing of them - in some cases by abrasion.     

L’Homme préhistorique et la Mort

What are the beginnings of the human conception of death? The graves and funeral rites which we find and the figurative representations may give us some indications to be interpreted with caution.     

L’humanisation au prisme des pierres taillées

Knapped stone tools constitute an interesting evidence of the mental abilities of their makers. Almost imperishable, they bear visible traces of the successive removals they come from, and of the flaking techniques used. On that basis, we present a few remarkable achievements along the evolution of prehistoric lithic technology, and discuss their capabilities. The tools of the oldest Palaeolithic already surpass the nut cracking from Chimpanzees. Some core reductions into flakes, as early as 2.3 My, show a repeated organization of the removals, and the capacity to prevent a problem. The regular and symmetrical hand-axes from Africa and Europe, appearing between 1 and 0.5 My, provide evidence of a mental template and hence a capacity of conceptualization. The Levalloisian core reduction, somewhat more recent, give evidence of a goal structured method: the technical actions were hierarchized and subordinate to morphological intentions.     

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.     

Les éléments de parure au Paléolithique supérieur en Belgique

Considering that body ornaments are, through the choice of the elements, good cultural markers, along with the transitional geographical position of Belgium in the Palaeolithic, an up-to-date study of the body ornaments has been undertaken to catch the diffusion and contact phenomenon next to the influences in the lithic industries between regions. Despite the fact that the observations made take cultural value once they are considered in a broader frame than the actual political boarders of the country, cultural and chronological tendencies in terms of “fashions” within the Belgian material have nevertheless confirmed their informational potential.     

L’industrie aurignacienne de la grotte de Šandalja II (Istrie, Croatie) dans le contexte de la région de l’Est de l’Adriatique

This paper presents the results obtained by lithic analysis of Early Upper Palaeolithic levels in Šandalja II Cave, Istria, Croatia. Technological and typological analysis of stone and typological analysis of bone artefacts have been carried out. Production of flakes in Aurignacian levels (G, F, E and E/F) is dominant, but blade and bladelets production is also present. Blades and bladelets were produced by direct soft hammer technique. Aurignacian people of Šandalja II produced their debitage mainly on local grey chert, which is often patinated. Šandalja II is one of the rare—if not the only—site with Aurignacian industry in eastern Adriatic region. The main reason for absence of such industry at other sites can be seen in scarce population or abandonment of some parts of this region.     

Chronostratigraphy and the Palaeoenvironment of the Bistrița Valley. New Interpretations and a Critical Retrospective Evaluation

The Carpathian Arch was certainly a difficult obstacle for the Palaeolithic communities of Eastern and Central Europe, at least during certain stages of the Upper Pleistocene glaciation, such as the Last Glacial Maximum. The density and perennity of the Palaeolithic occupations in the Bistri?a Valley were favoured by the propitious conditions of living and developing long-term survival strategies. The importance of the Bistri?a Valley lies in the fact that it is strongly embedded in the mountainous landscape, with a route extended in the Sub-Carpathian area and a generous opening towards the east to the plateau region and further towards the Great Russian Plain. The Bistri?a Valley is a landmark of the Romanian Palaeolithic due to the number of investigated Palaeolithic settlements, the wealth and variety of archaeological materials and the extensive interdisciplinary studies. All this has entailed a better assessment of the evolution of the palaeoenvironment and of the chronostratigraphy of the Palaeolithic occupations. In a matter of speaking, the Bistri?a Valley is to Romania what the Vézère Valley is to the Dordogne region in France.