Not only persons, but also objects have biographies, as they are integrated into interactions across time and space and were embedded and later removed from their original context.

As objects gather biographies for themselves they also acquire symbolic value. For example, an artifact found by F. Bordes at Combe Grenal that was lately incorporated into my collection has a high symbolic value for me. It becomes not only an object with a biography but also becomes a part of my own biography and identity. Because it is an item found at a key-site for the European Mousterian and was excavated by the leading Prehistorian of his time it becomes also of value for other persons sharing my interest.

Objects that are displayed in museums or enter collections change their qualities. In his 1988 book „origins of the museum“, Krzysztof Pomian argued that an artifact that was taken out of from the practical and economic sphere becomes a “semiophore” with no practical use. Such objects are brought into a new symbolic context and are charged with a different socio-cultural meaning. The collection and the exhibition of semiophores mediate between the visible and invisible world (the past, the future), making the invisible present through the arrangement of concrete tangible objects. The invisible represented in museum objects is frequently that of past times, persons, or places, but can also be interpreted as a sacrifice for future generations.

Although Pomian helps us to understand the metaphoric symbolism around semiophores, I disagree with Pomian on two major points. Firstly, semiophores are still part of an alternative economy (the collectors market, where more than 10000 EUR are payed for exceptional handaxes and Nordic daggers), and secondly do still have a practical or symbolic use also (the exhibition of Schliemann’s findings from Troy were always charged with national pride and helped visitors to be charged also).

There are Museums, which satisfy both the interest of specialists and the large public. At the best, the artifacts displayed in these museums and the form of their presentation preserve and enhance the aura of semiophores. The Musee National de Prehistoire, Les Eyzies-de-Tayac and the Landesmuseum Sachsen-Anhalt in Halle are the best European examples for such a strategy.

A deterrent example of how the European stone-age should not be presented is the Neue Museum in Berlin, reopened after many years of renovation, two years ago. Here you find a loveless presentation of artifacts, both from collections of French material from the early 20th century (Hausers looting operations in the Perigord) and the late Paleolithic / Mesolithic of the Brandenburg / Berlin area. Much stuff for a controversial debate about the proveniance of prehistoric artifacts- but the curators of the museum did not want to launch such a discussion….

http://www.musee-prehistoire-eyzies.fr/

http://www.lda-lsa.de/landesmuseum_fuer_vorgeschichte/

 Châtelperronian Points from the Pas-Estret site (Beune) near Les Eyzies excavated during a couple of days by Dr. Ampoullanges in 1911. Unfortunately many important stratigraphies (Le Mouster, Combe Capelle, Laussel) were “excavated” in this manner.

Consider a hypothetical scenario: In fall of the year 40341 BC a group of Neanderthals enter a rockshelter with wet, rocky and sandy bottom. Water is dripping from the ceiling. There is a small stream in the front of the abri. The group stops for a day and introduces some raw material for the production of discoid cores. They prepare some sharp flakes for cutting meat and produce some ad-hoc denticulates and scrapers. They roast their prey on a small fire. On the next day these people abandon the rockshelter and never return again. Hyenas gnaw on the remains of the meal. During several springs the stream repeatedly passes over its banks and floods the cave. Wind-blown fine Loess enters the shelter.

In the winter of 40122 BC another group of people with a fully-fledged Upper Paleolithic technology enters the shelter again. They clean the place, and make fire, trampling on the ground and prepare their prey and renovate their hunting equipment. They leaf some blades and retouched artifacts. Cryoturbation is altering the soil and displaces the remains of the primary and secondary stay.

It is easy to consider that an archaeologist in 2012 will find a single stratum with a” transitional industry”. Only in the lab, if ever, she or he will recognize that two different visits could have taken place 42000 years before.

The current paradigm favors a gradual succession of the type MTA A → MTA-B → Archaic “Castelperronian” → Châtelperronian in S/W France, where the archaic “Castelperronian” shows characteristics of both a middle Paleolithic and Leptolithic industry. The existence of several evolutionary phases in the Châtelperronian lithic technologies was originally proposed by Lévêque (1987). The oldest stage should be characterized by numerous side-scrapers, denticulates and a few bifaces associated with burins, end-scrapers on blades and backed pieces. During later stages a full Leptolithic industry should be present. This hypothesis was based on old excavations and collections and did not take into account the role of taphonomic factors.

The refittings and spatial analyses of old collections and renewed excavations show that the “transitional” aspect of the Châtelperronian industry is almost certainly the result of post-depositional disturbances.

Middle Palaeolithic technological components are absent or rarely found in the lithic series of Canaule, and other Châtelperronian open-air sites, such as Tambourets, la Cote, Grotte des Cottés, at the Grotte du Loup and in Labeko Koba level IX. The first results of a technological study of the Grande Roche at Quinçay sequence show that the lithic production associated with level Egc (Archaic Castelperronian) must be assigned, in fact, to the Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition and that levels Egf to Ejo both yielding homogenous Châtelperronian blade blanks for backed point production throughout are technologically fully upper Paleolithic. At another key-site, Saint-Césaire, the Ejop layer (Achaic Castelperronian ) contained two different sublayers, a Mousterian one Ejop INF, and a Chatelperronian one, Ejop SUP.

At the Bordes-Fitte rockshelter in Central France the archaeostratigraphic succession includes Châtelperronian artefacts, inter-stratified between Middle Palaeolithic and Aurignacian occupations. Refitting and spatial analysis by T. Aubry and coworkers revealed that the Châtelperronian point production and flake blanks retouched into denticulates, all recovered in the same stratigraphic unit, result from distinct and successive occupations and are not a ‘transitional’ assemblage. Therefore modern analysis of key-sites can not substantiate the hypothesis, that the Châtelperronian was a “transitional” industry

During the first half of the last century, the Châtelperronian was widely attributed to anatomically modern humans (AMH), based on the stratigraphical attribution of the Combe-Capelle burial by the notorious Otto Hauser (Hauser 1910). “Combe Chapelle Man” became an icon during these early days of prehistoric research and was sold by Hauser to the Berlin-Museum. In the chauvinistic atmosphere before WWI, this was the worst he could do in the eyes of French archaeologists. The skeleton survived WWII, but was suggested to have been lost during the Bombing raids of 1944/45. In 1990, the Combe-Capelle remains were rediscovered by A. Hoffmann and D. Wegner at the Museum für Vor und Frühgeschichte, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Recently, the remains of this skeleton were directly dated by C-14 AMS to the Mesolithic (Hoffmann et al., 2011).

Later the discovery of the Saint-Césaire Neanderthal human remains in a stratigraphical unit yielding Châtelperronian artifacts and the attribution of the teeth found in levels XeVIII of the Grotte du Renne at Arcy-sur-Cure to Neanderthals, led most of the researchers to the conclusion, that Neanderthals were the makers of for the Châtelperronian, but there remained some doubt (Bar-Yosef and Bordes 2010, Bailey et al.2009). Ironically a maxillary incisor recovered at the top of GFU D at the Bordes- Fitte rockshelter, bearing most of the Châtelperronian component but immediately overlain by an Aurignacian, seems to belong to an AMH. It should be taken into account that Neanderthals and AMH could be the makers of the Châtelperronian. Why should a technocomplex be invariable related to just one hominide? Think on the Levallois-Mousterian in the Levant……  

Suggested Reading (unfortunately I have no access to the paper-maybe someone can help?):

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618212002224

http://www.aggsbach.de/2011/05/how-old-is-the-chatelperronian-the-comeback-of-a-relative-chronology/

These artifacts come from the Magdalenian open air site of Gros-Monts I, Beauregard, village Nemours (Seine-Oise region of Paris) and are from the R Espitalié collection.  Espitalié was a close friend and collaborator of the excavator of this site, Raoul Daniel.

The forest of Fontainebleau, being a steppe environment during the late glacial,  is actually a mixed deciduous forest lying sixty kilometers southeast of Paris, France covering an area of 280 km². It is located primarily in the arrondissement of Fontainebleau in the southwestern part of the department of Seine-et-Marne. Sandstone has formed on its silty, sandy soil, throwback to the Stampian sea that covered it at the dawn of time: the grains of sand have cemented over millions of years, causing rockfalls and creating caves and boulder fields, gradually eroded by rain and wind. Paleolithic sites in the Nemours vicinity, such as Gros-Monts, Beauregard and the Cirque de la Patrie, are numerous, and most of them were excavated by enthusiastic amateurs during the first part of the last century. It was Raoul Daniel, who performed the first methodological excavations at the open air Magdalenian site of Gros-Monts, always in competition with very active looters, disturbing important contexts. He was the first one who identified Magdalenian habitation units in the Paris vicinity.

The Magdalenian occupations of Gros-Monts fit perfectly into the context of the regional late Magdalenian during the late Bölling and early Alleröd. The blades are usually long and very regular. Burins are present in large numbers, followed by large endscrapers. About 25% of the retouched artifacts are backed pieces. They are present in much higher numbers than in contemporaneous sites in the Paris basin (Etiolles, Pincevent, Verberie, Le Grand Canton, Tureau des Gardes and Marsangy) “Micropercoirs” and “becs” are also common, suggesting an activity specific composition of the lithic inventory.

Suggested Reading:

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/bspf_0249-7638_1961_num_58_11_3793

Personal ornaments act beyond a simply aesthetical function; instead they tie together individu­als, societies, and ethnic groups. Fundamentally, it is also an important part of our communication repertoire, acting as a visual mechanism to convey information important to social relationships or to store information in a similar way to writing. Adornments can be a mediator between the self and the other, a catalyst in the interplay between the inner and outer world, the hinge point between self and other. Adornments has something to do with culture in its most basic form, with the coexistence of individuals, the self-delimiting and classifying into and from a particular social context.

In many recent societies, personal ornaments act as an individual, social or ethnic marker, conveying information about the status of the individual visually. From their adornments, an individual’s life story can be read. In the nomadic Turkana of Kenya, the ostrich eggshell beads that the women wear vary depending on age, class, and marital status. Children wear the beads as a necklace, older girls wear them embroidered into their clothing, and married women wear them on their aprons.

Many ethnographically documented bead working traditions exclusively use unmodified beads or minimally modified elements of the natural word (feathers, shells, bone, teeth…). Marine shells were used as personal ornaments in North and South Africa and in the Near East beginning with the MSA of the last interglacial. Modified Shells have been recovered in stratigraphic context associated with Aterian / Mousterian lithic artifacts and were used as beads 82–85 ka ago at Taforalt, 82 ka ago at Ifri n’Ammar, and ≈80–70 ka ago at Rhafas. The dating of the Tabun B type Levallois-Mousterian at Skhul Layer B and  Qafzeh with perforated shells to approximately 100 ka may indicate a temporal gap between the Near East and the Moroccan early shell beads. The same applies when one compares the North African ages with those of the bead layers from Blombos (≈75 ka) and Sibudu (≈70 ka) from a Howison’s Poort context.

Dentalium is a common name used to refer to the long, white fossil and recent shells of certain marine mollusks. For ornaments / adornments, Dentalium shells are easy to handle, as they do not require perforation and are instead segmented through sawing or snapping the shell to create small tube beads, which can be readily used without further preparation. Some small tubes may have been selectively used for their size. For example, there appears to have been a selection for smaller specimens of Dentalium in the Magdalenian burial of a child from La Madeleine, France. The smaller shells were used to create more ‘miniaturized’ tube beads.

If Dentalium shells are found, it remains often unclear if these tubular shells were simply collected as curiosities or as a part of adornment. If they Dentalium tubes are unmodified, this does not exclude their use for decoration purposes. Normally their use for social / symbolic purposes can only be evidenced in the presence of clear modifications, e.g. intentional breaking and segmentation, or by their arrangement in the archaeological context.

The Châtelperronian of the Franco-Cantabrian region is characterized by the production of blade blanks transformed in curve-backed Châtelperron points and knives. Ornaments found at the Grotte du Renne but also at Quinçay, Caune de Belvis, St.-Césaire and other sites, include pierced and grooved pendants made up of teeth, bones and fossils, as well as ivory discs and Dentalium tubes. The Uluzzian of Italy and Greece is a flake-based industry, with some production of non-Levallois blade blanks, characterized by its standardized backed microliths, mostly lunates. Dentalium tubes are the only known possible ornaments associated with these two industries. Data about modifications / segmentations of Dentalium tubes and the archaeological context are not available and  it remains unclear if the tubes were really used as beads.

Dentalium beads are common ornamental taxa in the Ahmarian, Proto-, Early and Evolved Aurignacian assemblages around the Mediterranean (Riparo Mochi, Üçagızlı Cave, and Qadesh Barnea 9, Grotta del Fossellone at Monte Circeo) and in Central Europe during the Aurignacian and Gravettian (Krems-Hundsteig (AUR), Senftenberg [AUR], Willendorf II/5 [GRAV], Hohle Fels [GRAV], Dolni Vestonice III [GRAV] and during the upper Paleolithic of W -Europe.

An important Gravettian burial that features distinct concentrations of ornaments is the male burial at Paviland, England. Although some of the finds from this site did not survive after excavation, specifically the shells that were associated with the body, their original position in relation to the body is well-documented. The shells that were documented throughout the excavation of the body disintegrated when removed from the ground. The 600 Dentalium shells were found clustered together near the hand of the individual, suggestive of a pocket or a bag. The large number of shells suggests that these were items that were of high importance to be buried with the deceased individual. The position of items in association with the deceased individual provides information as to what types of items were essential for the individual to be buried with. This includes bags, caps, necklaces, and clothing. The frequency of these complex ornaments in burials suggests that it was important for the individual to be decorated in death, possibly as a final representation of that individual.

In the Levant, Dentalium played an eminent role in rituals during the Natufian. Many of the graves were of people of varied ages and gender buried with garments decorated with shell beads, most often Dentalium shells, and in some cases with additional grave offerings. The most well-known grave is that of a physically-impaired woman at Hilazon Tachtit covered by more than 50 tortoise shells interpreted as a “shaman” (other interpretations are equally plausible or equally implausible). In this small cave the remains of the feasts represented by animal bones were also uncovered thus providing insights to Natufian rituals beyond the daily social activities.

One of the most remarkable Natufian ornaments is a collar from El Wad with twenty-five fragments of Dentalia separating a particular type of bone bead, bilobate, called “twin-pendants” by D. Garrod. The elements of the necklace were found massed below the mandible and on the chest of an adult male subject (H.23), lying face down, with his knees bent up to the left of the skull. This same individual wore a decoration of dentalia on his forehead and a band of dentalia round one of his femurs. He was accompanied by another adult in the same position. Beneath them lay a young child. The tomb had been filled with stones.

This is a simple end scraper and a burin from the Gare de Couze Magdalenian-site (Collection Paul Fitte).

The Couze is one of the left bank tributaries of the Dordogne river, has its source in the region of Belvès flows generally west and then northwest until it joins with the Dordogne at the small village of Port-de-Couze just in opposite of the late Magdalenian site Gare de Couze which is situated on the right bank of the Dordogne. Gare de Couze was known as a Paleolithic site since the late 1880ies.

In the 1950ies the huge site, which encompasses a small cave and two abris was partially excavated by P. Fitte and later analyzed and described by him in collaboration with D. de Sonneville-Bordes in the early 1960ies. A small excavation was carried out by F. Bordes, who detected the a slab with  engravings. Gare de Couze has been dated by C-14 to ca. 12000 k.a. BP (beginning of the younger Dryas).

The industry (Magdalenian VI) is characterized by the usual “trinity” of the Magdalenian (endscraper, burin, backed pieces) and by some Lancan burins, points de Laugerie, burins bec-de-perroquet, geometric microliths (triangles, rectangles..), denticulated blades and Azilian points. Fragments of bone harpoons with two lines of barbs also were present. From a Aquitanian point of view, the Gare de Couze ensemble was once suggested to represent the authochtonic “Aziliation” of the “Magdalenien VI”, but the taphonomy and possible mixing of differnt ensembles at the site have never been elucidated in detail. There are other sites in S/W and S/E France, that were excavated with up to date methods, and may indeed substantiate such an assumption. Like many classical terminal Magdalenian sites, Gare de Couze is a find spot a female figurine of the so-called “Lalinde / Gönnersdorf” type engraved in stone. ( http://www.aggsbach.de/2012/03/petersfels/). The engravings are now displayed at the   Musée National de Préhistoire, Les Eyzies:

http://donsmaps.com/couze.html

www.geo.uni-tuebingen.de/…/097-104_GFU_Mitteilung17.pdf

The Natufian can be recognized through its combined archeological attributes, including dwellings, graves, lithic and bone industries, ground stone tools, ornamentation, and art objects (most famous: The Ain Sakhri lovers and the handle of a sickle-blade haft carved as a young animal at El Wad). What you see here is an enigmatic object (3,5×2,3×1,1 cm), which may be a longitudinally grooved arrow-straightener and polisher, made of stone, which was found in the Natufian deposits at Kebara cave, Mt Carmel, Israel. I do not know an exact pendant from another site in the Levant, but very similar pieces in the Lutuami or Klamath Lake and Modoc Indians of northeastern California and southern Oregon may allow such a  functional interpretation . (http://www.craterlakeinstitute.com/online-library/klamath-modoc/comple80.jpg). There are similar Epipaleolithic items displayed by the Israel Museum in the web, interpreted as weights and sharpening stones (http://www.imj.org.il/imagine/galleries/viewRoomE.asp?case=1&rm=Settled%20communities)

http://www.aggsbach.de/2010/11/insights-into-the-natufian/

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlights_search_results.aspx?searchText=natufian

http://www.aggsbach.de/2010/08/after-the-big-cold-kebaran-from-kebara-cave/

http://www.wesleyan.edu/archprog/collections/collection-highlights/mtcarmel.html

http://eu.art.com/products/p14266026-sa-i2893934/posters.htm

http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/foxweb/huntsearch/LargeImage.fwx?collection=all&catno=D.1931.4/4&mdaCode=GLAHM&filename=D1931_4_4a.jpg

http://donsmaps.com/neanderthalskeletons.html

This is a classic Ounan point from northern Mali (8cm long). The Ounanian point was first recognized by Breuil in 1930 at Ounan to the south of Taodeni in northern Mali from a surface collection of tools made from quartzite, which he ascribed to the Epi-Palaeolithic. Made on blades, these specialized tools have had the proximal end modified by steep retouch to form a narrow perfoir –like tang or shank and shoulders, or more usually a single shoulder. Very often, this tang is incurved towards the shouldered edge of the tool. Since the distal end is generally pointed, either naturally or by retouch, the tool is more probably a specialized form of projectile point rather than a perfoir, and the pointed tang would have served as an aid to hafting or perhaps in the case of the incurved examples as some kind of barb. Ounanian Points are the hallmark of the Epipaleolithic in the central Sahara, the Sahel and northern Soudan, and are dated between 10 and 6 k.a. BP.

Similar points were also recognized from Kharga Oasis where a small number were found with concentrations of the “Bedouin Microlithic” (Caton-Thompson, 1952:162). Although many points found in the Eastern Sahara are similar to “classic” Ounan points from Algeria and the Central Sahara , the eastern group has a wider variation. They seem to be shorter and broader, and their distal ends are often modified. Therefore, the name Ounan-Harif point was proposed for the Egyptian varieties at Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba and Abu Tartur  in relation to the Near Eastern Epipalaeolithic Harif point.

Numerous microlithic ensembles with tanged points, which sometimes displaying the characteristics of Ounan points, were found in the Azawagh basin in northern Niger, where they are dated to ca. 6 k.a. BC. At Adrar Bous and Greboun, Clark detected classic Ounanian points as a component of a non-microlithic Epipaleolithic; blade-based industry characterized by shouldered points, burins, scrapers and “meches de foret”which he called “Ounanian”. He proposed that the Ounanian represent the end of a general phenomenon of diffusion of northern blade industries throughout the Sahara, beginning sometime after 12 k.a years ago.

Overall it remains unclear if the Ounan point is the “fossil directeur” of a specific entity, and how the numerous tanged symmetric points from the central Sahara relate to this artifact type. The archaeological and chronological context of these points is often poorly defined and  it may be to early for reconstructing prehistoric migrations on the basis of such limited data

These are two broken shouldered points from the Willendorf-Kostenki complex (max. 3 cm long).

A Paleolithic entity can be defined by the presence of a common material culture, ideology and a common “lifestyle”, shared by the members of a group which is present over a defined area and during a defined period of time. In this respect the Willendorf-Kostenki complex is a Paleolithic entity which dates roughly between 25-20 k.a. BP. It has to be considered, that within the vast area between the middle Danube and the Don rivers, there were other contemporaneous sites with quite different cultural remains (Milovice, Kostenki 4, Kostenki 11, Sunghir and the Leaf point Gravettian at Trenčianske Bohuslavice). In this area the eastern Gravettian precedes the Willendorf-Kostenkian, which is in turn followed by some sort of “Epigravettian (s.l.) industries. While several summaries about the Aurignacian and Gravettian have been published during the last 10 years or so, we have no monograph about the Willendorf-Kostenkian, which is in part the consequence of language barriers, as most of the literature about the topic has been written in the Russian language. It would be a field of great interest! For me the connection between the eastern Gravettian and the Willendorf-Kostenkian, which is always presumed, is not beyond any doubt.  Kozlowski assumed that the C-14 dates allow reconstructing a migration of people, equipped with the Willendorf-Kostenkian toolkit, from west (Willendorf, Krakow) to the east (Kostenki). This remains an unproven hypothesis until a meta-analysis of these data is available.

Material culture: The “lithic common” is suggested to be the “shouldered point”. Indeed these points never comprise more than 6% of the inventories and show a considerable variability. On one end of the spectrum there are classic Kostenki points (large, broad with a high shoulder and often with flat retouches at the ventral side) at Kostenki I, Kostenki 21, Avdeevo, Berdyj, Zaraisk and Moravany for example. On the other end of the spectrum we find slender and elongated shouldered points (at Moravany Podkovica and Banka, in the east European plain["the Molodavian"] for example) with only marginal or steep retouches, which more resemble “Perigordian” shouldered points of S/W-France. It can be suggested, that these types are part of a continuum and represent different steps within reduction sequences as well as cultural traditions.

Gravette-Points may be common (Willendorf 2/9, Krakow Rue Spadzista,Molodova 5 ), or even absent (Kostenki I, most of the Moravany sites). Pen-knife points, resembling Azilian points have been observed at Kostenki 21. Burins are always of importance. At the Moravany sites a strong tendency for “burination” was explicitly described by Kozlowski et al. Kostenki knifes (truncations) are frequent at Kostenki I, Kostenki 21, Avdeevo, Krakow Rue Spadzista but virtually absent at other sites (Moravany, Willendorf).

In my view, the extremely rich archaeological record of the east European plain clearly supports the two-stage concept of an eastern Gravettian with occasional leaf point production, followed by a Gravettian with (Micro)-Gravettes, backed microliths and shouldered points (Mitoc Malu Galben in the Pruth valley; Molodova 5, layers VIII and VII; Molodova 1, lower layer; Korman’ 4, layers VII and VI; Voronovitsa 1, upper layer; and Babin I in the Dnester river basin, Khotylevo 2 in the Desna river basin).

Artifacts made of organic material like bone spatulas, bracelets, headband and diadems are common findings at Kostenki I, Kostenki 21, Avdeevo, Gagarino and Zaraisk. Many of these items exhibit geometric ornaments

Ritual and Art: The most famous aspect of the Willendorf-Kostenki complex is the presence of female (and some male?) figurines (Willendorf, Ostrava, Moravany, Kostenki I, Avdeevo, and Gagarino) made of stone or bone. The eastern sites also exhibit clay and stone animal figurines, very similar to the Pavlovian features at 28-26 k.a.BP.

Settlement structures: Settlement studies in the Kostenki-Borshchevo region and the Ukraine focused on two types of dwellings and settlements: huge dwellings at Kostenki 1 and Avdeevo before the LGM and relatively small roundish houses of the Anosovo-Mezinsk type made of large mammoth bones during the Epigravettian. The simultaneity of dwellings, the duration of their existence and the related organization of settlements are currently debated, as well as the issue how to reconstruct these complexes. At Kostenki I an oval-shaped settlement structure measuring 14 to 15 meters by 36 meters, was detected. It is possible that the living space was surrounded by some kind of walls. This area encompassed nine hearth pits, mostly down the center line of the structure, four large pits filled with deposits and twelve smaller storage pits which were used to keep bones in were present. If a building construction covered the whole area above ground, as Yefimenko, the initial excavator assumed, or if only a part of the area was covered, is the matter of debates.

There is almost no literature on the web about the Willendorf-Kostenki complex, but I strongly recommend the reading of Don’s Maps (Resources for the study of Paleolithic / Paleolithic European, Russian and Australian Archaeology / Archeology) with further links

http://donsmaps.com/lioncamp.html

The rich record of the Dnester river basin at:

http://www.uf.uni-erlangen.de/quartaer/pdfs/2009/2009_nuzhnyi.pdf

The initial report of L Zotz about the Vah-valley:

http://www.uf.uni-erlangen.de/quartaer/pdfs/1939/1939_05_zotz.pdf

Kostenki during the Gravettian:

http://paleo.revues.org/599

This is a paleolithic stray find from Chambonniere (Auvergne). If cordiform, triangular or small bifaces are found without a datable context, they are assumed being part of a “MTA”-ensemble, dated to OIS 3. Such assumptions represent a sort of circular reasoning and have been deconstructed during the last decades by findings of small bifaces in Europe within a secure stratigraphic context. Here are some random examples:

Cordiform bifaces together with an advanced Levalloisian technology have been detected at Petit-Bost near Neuvic-sur-l’Isle (Dordogne), securely dated to early OIS 8 (300 k.a. BP)

The site of Ranville (near Caen) lies at the confluence of the Orne and Aiguillion and is dated early OIS 7. The fauna reflects a mix of forested and open environments, but is dominated by red deer (Cervus elaphus) and a horse typical of semi-arid conditions (Equus hydruntinus). The assemblage consists of ad hoc core working (with only one Levallois core), handaxe manufacturing flakes, and very few cordiform handaxes. The site as a whole is interpreted as a butchery location during autumn.

Pontnewydd Cave (Clwyd, Wales) has produced a rich Levallois and handaxe assemblage primarily from the Lower Breccia. This is interpreted as a debris flow and it has been suggested that the artifacts derive from outside the cave. TL and U-series dates indicate a minimum age of 220 k.a. for the Lower Breccia.

See also Katzmans discussion about convergence in prehistory: http://www.aggsbach.de/2011/05/convergence-in-prehistory/

This is a double end-scraper and a burin from the Aurignacian I at Abri Castanet (Castelmerle), already introduced during an earlier post

The Vallon des Roches (also called Vallon de Castelmerle) in Sergeac is a side valley of the Vézère, located just 9 km south of Montignac-Lascaux on the left bank of the Vézère. The “Vallon” seems to have been a favorite place in the early Upper Paleolithic. More than 10 different rock shelters under limestone abris, which were inhabited during the last glacial are known and were partially excavated during the beginning of the last century.

Studies on Aurignacian inventories from the greater Aquitaine have shown a great industrial homogeneity that characterizes the early stages (Aurignacian I). In short, the assemblages of “domestic” tools are for the most part made on blades, with some tools made on flakes as well. The range of domestic tools is dominated by endscrapers and retouched blades, but includes also some burins and splintered pieces in variable proportions. Blade debitage is mostly performed on unipolar cores using soft hammer percussion technique. The production of bladelets corresponds to a separate chaîne opératoire, and is mostly carried out through the reduction of “carinated scrapers”, which in fact are bladelet cores.

At Abri Castanet, first systematic excavations were performed by D. Peyrony and yield Aurignacian I and II-levels. Excavations conducted by a Franco-American team from New York University and CNRS at Nanterre outside Paris, at the southern extremity of the Abri Castanet from the 1990ies concerned a dense, perhaps repetitive, occupation of Early Aurignacian ( Aurignacian I) with antler split based points, such as those described by Denis Peyrony in the northern half of this site. Six C-14 dates on bone date this stratum to an age of 34 to 32 k.a. BP. Charcoal and pollen samples indicate a cold, open environment. Reindeer largely dominate the faunal remains. Analysis of reindeer teeth showed that they were hunted during the winter and spring months.

The lithic assemblage is rather homogeneous and simple  and typical of the Aurignacian I of the Aquitaine region. Raw materials were imported from the nearby Périgord and the Charente (Turonian flint, “grain de mil” flint). 75 % of the 200 tools collected are simple or double end-scrapers, similar to the double end-scraper shown in this post, retouched blades and scrapers on retouched blades. Next in abundance are 21 carinated scrapers, all with wide fronts, followed by a few pointed blades, becs, denticulates and pièces esquillées, and only two burins.

It has to be assumed, that numerous bladelets were produced from the carinated scrapers, but only around ten retouched or altered bladelets could be detected during the modern excavations. This suggests that this important class of artifacts could have been used as armatures, “exported” from the site and lost / discarded elsewhere. Similar bladelets or fragments were recovered from the back dirt of ancient excavations. According to the Peyrony collections, most are attributable to this same Aurignacian I with split based points.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sergeac_Castel_Merle_Castanet_(5).jpg

Suggested Reading:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/05/08/1119663109.full.pdf+html

http://paleo.revues.org/2077

http://www.aggsbach.de/2010/12/quina-scraper-from-abri-de-merveilles-vallon-des-roches-at-sergeac/

http://www.pole-prehistoire.com/index.php?S=e3k&IS=1&TC=B&I=11

http://donsmaps.com/castanet.html