The First Human Occupation of the Basque Crossroads

In the last 15?years, knowledge of the first human occupation of the Basque area has undergone important advances due to the excavation of new deposits and the application of new methodological approaches to previously known sequences. In this paper we present the state of knowledge of the Lower Palaeolithic in this region, outlining the difficulties encountered and the advances made in the last two decades.     

Dental Anomalies in the Mandible of Capra pyrenaica: Presence of Two Permanent Fourth Premolars in a Pleistocene Wild Goat from Arlanpe Cave (Bizkaia,Northern Spain)

In this study, we report a case of duplication of a lower fourth premolar (P₄) on an Iberian wild goat from the archaeological site cave of Arlanpe, (Lemoa, Bizkaia, Northern Spain). The preserved right mandible corpus displays two premolars and the first molar (M₁). Both premolars conform in size and general shape to fourth premolars (P₄) but the medialmost of the two is rotated 90° counterclockwise, and thus, its wear pattern is different. The comparative analysis to other bovids and the relative scarcity of this anomaly compared to other cases of polydontia and hypodontia suggest that it is a developmental defect consisting in the duplication of the tooth germ, and we doubt on the potential of this abnormality as a territorially based indicator of past wild populations as has been previously proposed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Collective Biography and Europe’s Cultural Legacy

From the 1990s onwards there has been growing interest in the study of biography. As opposed to those who are skeptical of the biographical method, we defend the historiographical importance of collective biographies by contrasting them with biographical collections. By discussing the historical background of biography as a branch of history, and by focusing on the aims, methodology and outcomes of collective biographies, we attempt to show how they both extend and deepen our concept of historical research.     

Defining and Characterising Clusters in Palaeolithic Sites: a Review of Methods and Constraints

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory - Spatial analysis studies in Palaeolithic archaeology arise as indispensable research tools for understanding archaeopalaeontological sites. In general...     

Archaeological Evidence for the Emergence of Language,Symbolism, and Music–An Alternative Multidisciplinary Perspective

In recent years, there has been a tendency to correlate the origin of modern culture and language with that of anatomically modern humans. Here we discuss this correlation in the light of results provided by our first hand analysis of ancient and recently discovered relevant archaeological and paleontological material from Africa and Europe. We focus in particular on the evolutionary significance of lithic and bone technology, the emergence of symbolism, Neandertal behavioral patterns, the identification of early mortuary practices, the anatomical evidence for the acquisition of language, the development of conscious symbolic storage, the emergence of musical traditions, and the archaeological evidence for the diversification of languages during the Upper Paleolithic. This critical reappraisal contradicts the hypothesis of a symbolic revolution coinciding with the arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe some 40,000 years ago, but also highlights inconsistencies in the anatomically–culturally modern equation and the potential contribution of anatomically pre-modern human populations to the emergence of these abilities. No firm evidence of conscious symbolic storage and musical traditions are found before the Upper Paleolithic. However, the oldest known European objects that testify to these practices already show a high degree of complexity and geographic variability suggestive of possible earlier, and still unrecorded, phases of development.