Late Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic Evidence from the East European Plain and Caucasus: A New Look at Variability,Interactions, and Transitions

This paper presents analyses of Late Middle Paleolithic (LMP) and Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) material from the East European Plain and Caucasus. Late Middle Paleolithic industries show a highly variable pattern, although they are formally ascribed to a limited number of technocomplexes. Many of the LMP industries, especially in the Crimea, survived to the time of the transition to the Upper Paleolithic, but data suggesting a local origin of EUP are extremely rare. The transition is generally dated between 32/30,000 and 26/24,000 years, while the most crucial changes coincide with the Stillfried B interstadial. Aurignacian (two variants), Gravettian, and Transitional industries are recognized in the EUP. The presence of Middle Paleolithic traits in the Aurignacian may indicate acculturation, while the Transitional industries might reflect either acculturation or independent local development of new technologies, raising the possibility of local transformation of some Middle Paleolithic into non-Aurignacian EUP industries.     

The origins of lithic projectile point technology: evidence from Africa,the Levant,and Europe

Projectile weaponry is a human cultural universal, but its origins and antiquity remain poorly understood. Stone- and bone-tipped projectile weapons have long been treated as emergent features of the "Upper Paleolithic" behavioral revolution. Recently it has been proposed that projectile technology was in widespread use among Homo sapiens populations in Africa during Middle Stone Age (MSA) times. One obstacle to researching the origins of projectile point technology is that the criteria archaeologists employ for recognizing plausible and implausible stone projectile points are largely subjective (overall tool shape, microwear traces). Tip cross-sectional area (TCSA) is a ballistically significant dimension that works well at discriminating North American stone projectile points (spearthrower dart tips and arrowheads) from spear points. This paper compares the TCSA values of ethnographic North American stone projectile points to hypothetical Middle and Upper Paleolithic stone projectile points from Africa, the Levant, and Europe. The results of this comparison do not support the hypothesis of widespread use of stone-tipped projectiles in Africa, the Levant, or Europe prior to 40 Ka. In the New World and in Australia, where we have the richest ethnographic record of stone projectile point use, these implements are largely employed in big-game hunting and in warfare. One or both of these factors may have played a role in the widespread adoption of stone projectile point technology after 40 Ka.     

Ungulates and the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition at Grotte XVI (Dordogne, France)

Grotte XVI (Dordogne, France) contains a rich archaeological sequence that begins during the Mousterian and continues through the Magdalenian and includes Châtelperronian and early Aurignacian assemblages. Analyses of the ungulates from this site show no significant change in skeletal part representation, butchering intensity (as measured by cut mark numbers and placement), degree of bone fragmentation, and intensity of carnivore damage across the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition. Relative taxonomic abundances of ungulates change significantly from the Mousterian to the early Aurignacian, but these changes are consistent with climatic forcing and continue throughout the sequence. Only the Magdalenian ungulate assemblage is clearly distinct from all others when examined in terms of these variables, perhaps because of altered predator/prey ratios on the local landscape. Cave bear relative abundances decline precipitously across the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition; this decline may reflect increased human residence times and/or group sizes during this interval, just as Kurtén observed many years ago.     

New radiocarbon dating of the transition from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic in Kebara Cave,Israel

The Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition (MP-UP transition) is considered a major technological and cultural threshold, at the time when modern humans spread “out of Africa”, expanded from the Levant into Europe and possibly into central and northern Asia. The dating of this techno-cultural transition has proved to be extremely difficult because it occurred sometime before 40,000 radiocarbon years before present (¹⁴C years BP), which is close to the end of the effective dating range of radiocarbon. Other dating methods such as Thermoluminescence (TL) or Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) are not sufficiently precise to date the recorded archaeological MP-UP transition in the Levant. Here we report a consistent set of stratified radiocarbon ages on freshly excavated charcoal from Kebara Cave, Mt. Carmel (Israel), that span the late Middle Paleolithic (MP) and Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) This study applied novel strategies to improve sample preparation techniques and data analysis to obtain high-resolution radiocarbon models. From this study it is proposed that the MP-UP transition for this site can be placed immediately after 45,200 ± 700 ¹⁴C years BP and before 43,600 ± 600 ¹⁴C years BP or from 49/48 to 47/46 radiocarbon calibrated years before present (years Cal BP).     

Mobility patterns and core technologies in the Middle Paleolithic of the Levant

Mobility is thought to be a significant source of Middle Paleolithic archaeological variability in the East Mediterranean Levant. However, models of Levantine Middle Paleolithic land-use have historically been based on rare and taphonomically sensitive evidence from a limited number of sites. Because lithic artifacts are the most ubiquitous archaeological remains available to the prehistorian, relationships between stone tool technology and mobility patterns can improve tests of hypotheses about prehistoric land-use strategies. This paper examines variation in Middle Paleolithic mobility strategies in the Levant from the perspective of core technology. A model linking expedient core reduction techniques and decreased mobility is adapted from one developed for late prehistoric contexts in the New World. Incorporating core data from numerous Levantine Middle Paleolithic assemblages, this study tests hypotheses about diachronic change, synchronic geographic variation, and possible hominin behavioral differences in mobility strategies.     

Approaches to Prehistoric Diet Breadth, Demography, and Prey Ranking Systems in Time and Space

Zooarchaeological data on small game use hold much potential for identifying and dating Paleolithic demographic pulses in time and space, such as those associated with modern human origins and the evolution of food-producing economies. Although small animals were important to human diets throughout the Middle, Upper, and Epi-Paleolithic periods in the Mediterranean Basin, the types of small prey emphasized by foragers shifted dramatically over the last 200,000 years. Slow-growing, slow-moving tortoises, and marine mollusks dominate the Middle Paleolithic record of small game exploitation. Later, agile, fast-maturing animals became increasingly important in human diets, first birds in the early Upper Paleolithic, and soon thereafter hares and rabbits. While the findings of this study are consistent with the main premise of Flannery's Broad Spectrum Revolution (BSR) hypothesis (Flannery, K. V. (1969). In Ucko, P. J., and Dimbleby, G. W. (eds.), The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals, Aldine Publishing Company, Chicago, pp. 73–100), it is now clear that human diet breadth began to expand much earlier than the Pleistocene/Holocene transition. Ranking small prey in terms of work of capture (in the absence of special harvesting tools) proves far more effective in this investigation of human diet breadth than taxonomy-based diversity analyses published previously. Our analyses expose a major shift in human predator–prey dynamics involving small game animals by 50–40 KYA in the Mediterranean Basin, with earliest population growth pulses occurring in the Levant. In a separate application to the Natufian period (13–10 KYA), just prior to the rise of Neolithic societies in the Levant, great intensification is apparent from small game use. This effect is most pronounced at the onset of this short culture period, and is followed by an episode of local depopulation during the Younger Dryas, without further changes in the nature of Natufian hunting adaptations. An essential feature of the diachronic and synchronic approaches outlined here is controlling the potentially conflating effects of spatial (biogeographic) and temporal variation in the faunal data sets.     

Shifts in Neandertal mobility,technology and subsistence strategies in western France

We propose a reassessment of Neandertal mobility strategies by crossing technological and zooarchaeological data. A broad comparative approach to the Middle Paleolithic series from western France shows that the Levallois and laminar flaking systems, the Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition (MTA) shaping system and the Quina and discoidal-denticulate flaking systems, vary significantly in terms of duration of reduction sequences, blank versatility and tool maintenance. These technological systems, which prevail in this context over different time periods, reflect distinct mobility strategies as a response to differing hunting practices. This new approach to Middle Paleolithic technologies and related mobility patterns gives new insights into Mousterian diversity. It also highlights the determinant role played by large game hunting strategies in the organization of late Neandertal societies.     

Lower and middle paleolithic of northern Asia: Achievements,problems, and perspectives

Considerable progress has been made in recent years in the study of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic of northern Asia. There is growing evidence for initial human occupation before 700,000 years ago—as early as elsewhere in Asia—and for a very early adaptation to the arctic desert environment. New models of Lower Paleolithic settlement involve expansion and reduction of occupation in response to climatic variation, rather than simple colonization followed by steady occupation. The Middle Paleolithic of northern Asia is better documented, including actual finds of archaicHomo sapiens. The transition to the Upper Paleolithic seems to involve the survival of earlier cultural traits, but the mechanisms and processes are not well understood. Further significant knowledge concerning these periods awaits the development of common methodologies for classification and analysis.     

Big Game and Small Prey: Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic Economy from Valencia (Spain)

This study analyzes the faunal assemblages corresponding to the Middle and Upper Paleolithic and the Early Epipaleolithic for the central Spanish Mediterranean Region dated from between 135,000 and 9,000 B.P. To interpret these data, we employ a zooarchaeological and paleoeconomic perspective. Human large and small game hunting systems are analyzed through the identification of the origins of faunal assemblages, bone breackage patterns, and prey selection patterns. Our study shows that hunting systems changed significantly through time, which may be related to the characteristics of the Mediterranean ecosystem and, above all, to cultural changes.     

Anatomy,behavior, and modern human origins

The fossil record suggests that modern human morphology evolved in Africa between 150,000 and 50,000 years ago, when the sole inhabitants of Eurasia were the Neanderthals and other equally nonmodern people. However, the earliest modern or near-modern Africans were behaviorally (archaeologically) indistinguishable from their nonmodern, Eurasian contemporaries, and it was only around 50,000-40,000 years ago that a major behavioral difference developed. Archaeological indications of this difference include the oldest indisputable ornaments (or art broadly understood); the oldest evidence for routine use of bone, ivory, and shell to produce formal (standardized) artifacts; greatly accelerated variation in stone artifact assemblages through time and space; and hunting-gathering innovations that promoted significantly larger populations. As a complex, the novel traits imply fully modern cognitive and communicative abilities, or more succinctly, the fully modern capacity for Culture. The competitive advantage of this capacity is obvious, and preliminary dates suggest that it appeared in Africa about 50,000 years ago and then successively in western Asia, eastern Europe, and western Europe, in keeping with an African origin. Arguably, the development of modern behavior depended on a neural change broadly like those that accompanied yet earlier archaeologically detectable behavioral advances. This explanation is problematic, however, because the putative change was in brain organization, not size, and fossil skulls provide little or no secure evidence for brain structure. Other potential objections to a neural advance in Africa 50,000-40,000 years ago or to the wider Out-of-Africa hypothesis, include archaeological evidence (1) that some Neanderthals were actually capable of fully modern behavior and (2) that some Africans were behaviorally modern more than 90,000 years ago.     

Building a tephrostratigraphic framework for the Paleolithic of Central Anatolia,Turkey

The Central Anatolian Volcanic Province (CAVP) in Turkey preserves widespread deposits of Quaternary tephra, presently associated with a small but growing number of Paleolithic archaeological sites. We use multivariate analyses of the abundances of a suite of nine major and minor element oxides determined by electron probe microanalysis. From these data, we construct a classificatory model for correlating distal tephra to one of five volcanic edifices or eruptive phases within the CAVP. Application of this model to distal deposits of primary tephra-fall and reworked tuffaceous sediments from the archaeological sites of Körkuyu and Kaletepe Deresi 3 indicates Late to possibly Early Pleistocene ages for the artifact assemblages there, and provides a fundamental tephrostratigraphic framework to examine spatial and temporal variation in hominin behavior comparable to that of other regions, such as eastern Africa.     

Middle paleolithic scraper reduction: Background,clarification, and review of the evidence to date

The hypothesis that the principal varieties of Middle Paleolithic scrapers reflect varying degrees of resharpening and rejuvenation, rather than discrete emic types, has generated considerably controversy over the past decade. While there have been certain misunderstandings surrounding the proposed models of scraper reduction, this controversy also reflects different approaches taken by prehistorians in interpreting lithic artifacts. Placing the notion of scraper reduction in the context of lithic processes generally known as the Frison Effect, this article presents the background and intellectual context of this interpretation and attempts to clarify the models themselves and their test implications. It also reviews and summarizes data generated by several independent tests of the hypothesis and presents new data bearing on this question.     

Two sides of the same coin—rocks, bones and site function of Picareiro Cave, central Portugal

The issue of site function rarely has been a main focus in the study of Portuguese Upper Paleolithic. This fact may be related to a lack of interest in this research area. More likely, however, it is due to the fact that there are relatively few Paleolithic sites with data that allow a serious study of site function. At Picareiro Cave, central Portugal, there are various data sets from level F/G dated to the latter Magdalenian that are adequate for this type of research. These are habitat structures, lithic artifacts, macro- and mesofauna, as well as 3D location of all artifacts and fauna larger than 1 cm. Based on the interpretation of the analytical results of each data set, it is possible to reconstruct site function of this particular level of Picareiro Cave. The morphology of one of the hearths, being very large in size, with the base prepared and a pavement surrounding it, as well as the condition and diversity of fauna, indicates that it was used for processing the meat of rabbits, red deer, and wild boar, probably through smoking and grilling. All of the evidence from the different types of data (lithic artifacts, habitat structures, use of space, and fauna) indicate that Layers F/G of Picareiro Cave are the result of a specific task, that of processing animal carcasses of rabbits, red deer, and wild boar.     

Upper Paleolithic raw material economies at Üçağızlı cave, Turkey

This paper addresses variation in lithic raw material economy within the early Upper Paleolithic at Üçağızlı cave (south-central Turkey). The stratigraphic sequence documents some 12,000 years of the early Upper Paleolithic, entailing changes in lithic technology, raw material exploitation, and game use. Although the same lithic raw materials were exploited throughout the sequence to make quite similar ranges of products, there are marked changes in the ways raw materials from different source areas were treated, including patterns of transport and raw material consumption. The concept of technological provisioning is used to understand changing strategies for procuring and managing supplies of flint from different source locations. Shifts in raw material economy are argued to represent responses to changes in residential mobility and the scale/duration of occupations at the cave itself: data on cultural features and foraging strategies provide independent evidence for these shifts in land use. Results have implications for more nuanced approaches to investigating of lithic raw material economies and the significance of “raw material transfers.”     

Accelerator C dates for early upper paleolithic (basal Aurignacian) at El Castillo Cave (Spain)

Three fragments of charcoal taken from different parts of the lowermost bed containing Aurignacian artifacts at El Castillo Cave yielded AMS dates of 37·7 (± 1·8) ka bp, 38·5 (± 1·8) ka bp, and 40·0 (± 2·1) ka bp (average 38·7 ± 1·9 ka bp). These dates are almost identical to new AMS dates from l'Arbreda cave in Catalunya on the same cultural horizon (average 38·5 ± 1·0 ka bp) and are significantly older than the earliest dates for Aurignacian industries in the Aquitaine and in other parts of Central and Western Europe.     

The Upper Paleolithic of Northern Asia: Achievements,problems, and perspectives. III. Northeastern Siberia and the Russian Far East

Research into the Upper Paleolithic of northeastern Asia began in the 1940s. Recent work has led to the discovery of numbers of sites, some of them more than 30,000 years old, which are assigned to the D'uktai culture. The material recovered from these sites indicates relationships between the D'uktai culture and other cultures in Europe, Japan, Korea, China, and North America. For the most part, however, these similarities do not result from a spread of cultural traits from Europe into Asia. Instead, most of them reflect local development of the Upper Paleolithic, within both Asia and Europe, out of local Middle Paleolithic industries, which were themselves originally similar in technology and typology.     

Comments on Graf, Journal of Archaeological Science 36, 2009 “ “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”: evaluating the radiocarbon chronology of the middle and late Upper Paleolithic in the Enisei River valley, south-central Siberia”

Here I present a critical evaluation of the analysis conducted by Graf [Graf, K.E., 2009. “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”: Evaluating the radiocarbon chronology of the middle and late Upper Paleolithic in the Enisei River valley, south-central Siberia. Journal of Archaeological Science 36, 694–707] of the Paleolithic radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dataset for the Upper Paleolithic sites in the Yenisei River basin of Central Siberia. Graf applied a rating system to the corpus of existing ¹⁴C data for the region, and announced some new ¹⁴C dates. The results obtained, however, are highly biased due to several factors, including prejudice concerning the higher accuracy of the AMS technique in ¹⁴C dating and that ¹⁴C dates from the same cultural component should overlap with plus–minus two sigmas; ambiguities with the subdivision of the Lateglacial period; artificially high sample selection criteria; incomplete factual material; and unjustifiable and misleading statements on the ¹⁴C dating of fossil bones and the issue of Last Glacial Maximum human presence in Siberia. As a result, the conclusions made by Graf [Graf, K.E., 2009. “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”: Evaluating the radiocarbon chronology of the middle and late Upper Paleolithic in the Enisei River valley, south-central Siberia. Journal of Archaeological Science 36, 694–707] are unconvincing. New analysis is necessary in order to improve the quality of treatment of the original data for the Upper Paleolithic ¹⁴C chronology in the Yenisei River basin.     

The Art of Taphonomy and the Taphonomy of Art: Layer IV,Molodova I,Ukraine

Level IV of Molodova I, an open-air Middle Paleolithic site in the Ukraine has been described by some researchers as a possible source of evidence for early symbolic behavior. We examined bone objects from this layer that were identified by Ukrainian researchers as exhibiting possible Neandertal produced engravings including two anthropomorphic figures. While we have determined that there is no evidence of symbolic activity at Molodova I, the database we have created, with its systematic recording of traces left by taphonomic agents on faunal remains, provides a better understanding of the overall site taphonomy.     

Upper Paleolithic Net-Hunting, Small Prey Exploitation, and Women's Work Effort: A View from the Ethnographic and Ethnoarchaeological Record of the Congo Basin

Recent interest in Upper Paleolithic small prey acquisition focuses on the significance of fiber-based hunting technologies. Some researchers believe the advent of these technologies and presence of small faunas reflect efficient communal net-hunts driven by women's labor. We evaluate different small prey hunting techniques, using ethnographic data from foragers in the Congo Basin. These and other ethnographic data suggest that net-hunting is a high risk endeavor that often has high opportunity costs. We argue that the high costs associated with net-hunting have profound implications for human technological choice, and we evaluate the circumstances that would favor the use of different small prey hunting technologies in the Upper Paleolithic.