Des steppes aux déserts, à l’Aurignacien. Les hommes modernes venus d’Asie

From east to west, Aurignacian populations and civilizations moved into Europe during dry and cold climatic conditions. The zones of origin in the Middle East at that time had a steppic environment with large fauna that were rich caloric resources. Alongside many other examples, this new cultural unit has strict parallels that are clearly evidenced at Jabrud (Syria) and Yafteh (Iran). Now a desert region, during the Aurignacian this vast geographic and ethnic region extended on both sides of the Central Zagros Mountains, towards Central Asia where immense steppes seem having formed the epicenter.     

Les tatouages d’Ötzi et la petite chirurgie traditionnelle

This paper takes a new look at the case of the tattoos worn by Ötzi, a late Neolithic man discovered in 1991 in a small glacier of the Southeast Alps, near the Italo-Austrian border. The Austrian and Italian teams have already advanced several hypotheses. The main one, which suggests that Ötzi was tattooed for therapeutic purposes, is not contested. Others, however, can be briefly invalidated (the “tibetan cauterization” alleged by L. Capasso), while still others call for more in-depth discussion (the Austrian team’s attempt to establish a link between the location of Ötzi’s tattoos and the topography of acupuncture-points). Questionable hypotheses as these result from a lack of knowledge about the ancient treatments using minor surgery. The aim of this paper is thus to assemble available ethnographical and historical data about therapeutic puncturing, tattooing and cauterization. Even though such material postdates Ötzi’s era, it constitutes an essential prerequisite to the formulation of any hypothesis about protohistorical therapeutic concepts and practices.     

Les Ostracodes et le Quaternaire d’Aigion (golfe de Corinthe, Grèce)

The Upper Pleistocene and the Holocene of Aigion have delivered an abundant microfauna with 35 ostracode species. The Pleistocene from Aigion borehole generally provides Ostracodes from oligohaline environment with Cyprideis torosa, Candona angulata and Tyrrhenocythere amnicola while, in the Holocene, marine infralittoral species dominate with Cytheridea neapolitana, Carinocythereis whitei, Loxoconcha ovulata and Cytherois frequens. The marine sedimentation occurred at depth from some meters to some tens of meters. In the Aghios Constantinos section, the lagoonal marls are characterised by Euxinocythere schuldtae and a dwarf species of Xestoleberis. Then, a drastic environmental change occurs around the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary and presumably affected the whole Corinth gulf.     

Les structures d’occupation gravettiennes en Europe centrale : le cas de Grub/Kranawetberg,Autriche

Grub/Kranawetberg, a multilayered Gravettian site in Lower Austria, is one of many Gravettian open-air sites of Central Europe. These sites are well-known since a long time for their settlement structures, but also rich lithic inventories as well as organic tools, personal adornments, and art objects (e.g., Pavlov, Dolní Vestonice). While old excavation and recording techniques do not allow a detailed intrasite spatial analysis of these sites, the ongoing fieldwork at Grub/Kranawetberg provides us with abundant and detailed information about spatial organization of a Gravettian open-air site in Central Europe. The site is excavated since 1993 and yielded four archaeological horizons with abundant finds (including numerous personal adornments) and some evident structures. The main focus of this paper is on the GIS-based methodology of intrasite spatial analysis, especially emphasizing the possibilities of recognizing formation processes, size-sorting and locating a possible dwelling. Application of various methods, among them piece-plotting, mapping of find quantities, application of kernel density estimates and ring and sector analysis, in the 1995 and 1996 excavation area showed latent structures which are interpreted as evidence for a dwelling in this area of the site. In the last part of the paper the evidence of Grub/Kranawetberg is discussed and compared with other European Gravettian sites.     

Les comportements funéraires au Néolithique en France méridionale : une vue d’ensemble

The research presented in this paper is based on geographical zone chosen as context for a general discussion centred on a critical inventory of graves, burial places and funeral traditions within Neolithic communities between about 6000 and 2200 B.C. It proposes to define the characteristics and the evolution of funeral behaviours during the Neolithic times in Southern France, between about 6000 and 2200 B.C. Southern France has been considered in an extended definition, from Atlantic Ocean to the Alps, a territory constituted of 26 departments. In view of the extent of the territorial limits, the study was directly all-encompassing. It bears on 150 years of archaeological discoveries unevenly distributed on the Neolithic times. The study takes into consideration all the documentation published. The funeral traditions have been considered in the wide sense, that is tomb architecture, laying out and treatment of cadavers, study of archaeological artefacts. The study leads on to an interpretative outline of the funeral traditions whose development was closely linked to the social evolution of southern Neolithic communities. It researchs a social evolution beyond funeral behaviours, a power more and more destined to an elite who prefigures the protohistory.     

Étude analytique d’une clavicule complète de subadulte d’Homo antecessor (site de Gran Dolina, Sierra d’Atapuerca, Burgos, Espagne)

This study reports on the skeletal remains of an infant clavicle - specimen ATD6-37 - belonging to the Homo antecessor species, unearthed at Lower Pleistocene level TD6 of the Gran Dolina site (Sierra de Atapuerca). Studied alongside a further adult specimen - ATD6-50 -, they provide us with significant information on two key paleobiological aspects of these early humans: body shape and development. Based on the analytical results, the paper proposes a more accurate proportional method for determining age at death is applied to the fossilized infant clavicle under study. It goes on to hypothesize on postcranial growth and body shape and discusses morphological patterns and age at death of these early humans through comparisons with a wide range of infant dental samples and clavicular specimens in early and modern humans.