Anthropologie最新文献

The lighting witnesses left by Neanderthals, tell us about the interest and curiosity of Neanderthals for the cavities around them. Three grease lamps unearthed in the deep part of the Grotte du Bison document us lighting. Placed in a strategic location, they are easily identifiable for occasional use. These lamps are mostly made on already hollow stalagmitic flows. It should however be noted that no stalagmitic flows exist in the cave of the Bison, the men therefore sought the material in the surrounding caves.

Flint was the most widely used lithic raw material in Europe in Prehistory and, more specifically, was a fundamental resource in the economic and social networks of hunter-gatherer groups in the Cantabrian Spain during the Upper Palaeolithic. The undeniable preference for it compared with other resources was due to a series of factors, such as its easy availability because of its abundance and wide distribution of outcrops, and its excellent qualities for knapping. This summary of the available information about flint and other raw materials used by hunter-gatherers is framed in the context of Upper Palaeolithic occupations in Cantabrian Spain. First, it presents the studies focusing on the provenance of the different types of flint that are found in those occupations; their quantitative representation at each of the sites; their preference, if that is the case, over other raw materials; and the model of their diffusion across the territory. Then other resources are considered, such as quartzite, ochre and different metamorphic, sedimentary and igneous rocks, as well as some materials of biological origin, such as amber, jet/lignite and fossils of animal origin. However, the information available about the use of the latter raw materials in Cantabrian Spain during the Upper Palaeolithic is quite limited and studies of their characterisation are very recent.

All but one of the published radiocarbon dates from the 1991–1992 excavations of Strata 3 and 2 at le Trou Magrite are considered too recent because the dating was done with then-standard chemical pretreatment protocols. This study re-dates Stratum 2 using the same, then-pioneering, XAD-2 purification method on bone collagen as had been used for the 44,650 cal BP date from Stratum 3. The results are two averaged dates that are in stratigraphic order between themselves and in relation to the Stratum 3 date: 43,400 and 43,500 cal BP, according to the IntCal20 curve. These dates are very similar to recently published dates for the earliest Aurignacian in SW Germany and the latest Neanderthal remains in Belgium and they are associated with artifact assemblages that, without obvious evidence of mixture (other than that which was highly localized), include Upper Paleolithic stone tools and blades/bladelets together with numerous sidescrapers, denticulates and notches which are not exclusively Mousterian artifacts. Nineteenth-century excavations in the cave of le Trou Magrite yielded unambiguously diagnostic Aurignacian artifacts and works of portable art that could conceivably have been from a deposit equivalent in age to these strata on the contiguous terrace. It is clear that the first blade(let)-rich assemblages in the site were created on the cusp of the transition from the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition and replacement of the Neanderthals in NW Europe.

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 Bistrița Valley were favoured by the propitious conditions of living and developing long-term survival strategies. The importance of the Bistrița 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 Bistrița 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 Bistrița Valley is to Romania what the Vézère Valley is to the Dordogne region in France.

The Acheulean of the southern Iberian Peninsula is markedly similar to the north African Acheulean. However, the characteristics of the stone tool assemblages are heterogeneous and represent complex cultural phenomena. From MIS 15, the lithic assemblages in fluvial (Guadiana, Guadalquivir and Guadalete rivers), fluvio-lacustrine (Solana del Zamborino) and karstic (Cueva del Ángel, Bolomor, Cueva Negra del río Quípar, Cueva Horá and Santa Ana) contexts exhibit analogies and technical differences representative of a phenomenon of multiplicity. Contributing to this phenomenon is the perception of technological stasis or conservatism of the Acheulean technocomplex and the different technical responses articulated by hominins to achieve equivalent results. These equivalences generate the uniformity that allows us to recognise typologies of large cutting tools (LCTs) regardless of the lithic materials used or the organisational structures of the operational sequences. These diversified typologies include handaxes, picks, and cleavers, which maintain a consistent presence despite innovations such as the Levallois flaking method. In some cases, the presence of cleavers and spheroids affects the range of represented typologies. Beneath the uniformity of the handaxes, lie organisational differences in the operational sequences. The changes and differences in the use of flakes to shape handaxes, the representation of cleavers and diversification of shaped-tool typologies all suggest differential cultural behaviours linked in part to divergent contexts. These aspects indicate that this multiplicity is related to diffusion, adaptation and cultural changes produced at the margins of the conservatism of this technocomplex. Observed changes could indicate inter-group cultural replacements, most of which retained a similar techno-typological diversity to that seen in the north African Acheulean until MIS 5. Cyclical climate change during the Middle Pleistocene affected the Strait of Gibraltar, regulating its function and conditioning the circulation of hominins and affecting cultural interactions between southern Iberian groups.