Bernard Vandermeersch

The Excavations in Kebara Cave, Mt. Carmel

Resultats des fouilles recentes (1982-90) sur le site du Paleolithique moyen de Kebara, Israel. Synthese de la stratigraphie complexe du site et datation. Description des structures spatiales de foyers, cendres, concentrations dos et dartefacts. Resultats des etudes mineralogiques des sediments afin de determiner si la distribution spatiale des ossements animaux est le resultat dactivites humaines (charognage) ou de processus post-depositionnels. Synthese sur loutillage lithique mousterien axee sur la technologie de production et les chaines operatoires. Analyse taphonomique des mammiferes, en particulier des ongules. Inventaire des restes humains du Paleolithique moyen et etude de la sepulture intentionnelle dhomme adulte

Radiocarbon dates from the Grotte du Renne and Saint-Césaire support a Neandertal origin for the Châtelperronian

The transition from the Middle Paleolithic (MP) to Upper Paleolithic (UP) is marked by the replacement of late Neandertals by modern humans in Europe between 50,000 and 40,000 y ago. Châtelperronian (CP) artifact assemblages found in central France and northern Spain date to this time period. So far, it is the only such assemblage type that has yielded Neandertal remains directly associated with UP style artifacts. CP assemblages also include body ornaments, otherwise virtually unknown in the Neandertal world. However, it has been argued that instead of the CP being manufactured by Neandertals, site formation processes and layer admixture resulted in the chance association of Neanderthal remains, CP assemblages, and body ornaments. Here, we report a series of accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dates on ultrafiltered bone collagen extracted from 40 well-preserved bone fragments from the late Mousterian, CP, and Protoaurignacian layers at the Grotte du Renne site (at Arcy-sur-Cure, France). Our radiocarbon results are inconsistent with the admixture hypothesis. Further, we report a direct date on the Neandertal CP skeleton from Saint-Césaire (France). This date corroborates the assignment of CP assemblages to the latest Neandertals of western Europe. Importantly, our results establish that the production of body ornaments in the CP postdates the arrival of modern humans in neighboring regions of Europe. This new behavior could therefore have been the result of cultural diffusion from modern to Neandertal groups.

New Data on the Origin of Modern Man in the Levant

by 0. BAR-YOSEF, B. VANDERMEERSCH, B. ARENSBURG, P. GOLDBERG, H. LAVILLE, L. MEIGNEN, Y. RAK, E. TCHERNOV, and A.-M. TILLIER Institute of Archaeology, Mt. Scopus, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91905, Israel (Bar-Yosef, Goldberg)ILaboratoire dAnthropologie, Universite de Bordeaux I, 33405 Talence, France (Vandermeersch)/Department of Anatomy and Anthropology, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel (Arensburg, Rak)lInstitut de Quaternaire, Universite de Bordeaux I, 33405 Talence, France (Laville)/Centre de Recherches Archeologiques, Sophia Antipolis, 06565 Valbonne, France (Meignen)/Department of Zoology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel (Tchernov)/Laboratoire de Paleontologie des Vertebres, Universite de Paris VI, 4 Place Jussieu, 75006 Paris, France (Tillier). 5 iv 85 The origin of modern man in the Near East has been a controversial subject since the discoveries of human remains by Garrod, McCown, and Neuville in the caves of Tabuin, Skhtul, and Qafzeh, respectively (Garrod and Bate 1937, McCown and Keith 1939, Neuville 1951). Recent excavations at Tabuin (1967-72) by Jelinek (1982a) and at Qafzeh (1965-1979) by Vandermeersch (1981) refocused attention on this issue. The new excavations at Tabuin provided a detailed stratigraphy for the Mousterian sequence and some portion of the earlier deposits. This enabled Farrand (1979) to suggest a reconstruction of the paleoenvironmental events that were responsible for the accumulation of this remarkably thick (ca. 20 m) sequence. One of the key interpretations was the correlation of the lowermost part of the sandy sequence (which contained Acheulian and Acheulo-Yabrudian assemblages recently named the Mugharan tradition by Jelinek) with the Last Interglacial, or Isotope Stage 5. On the basis of this suggestion, Jelinek (1981, 1982a, b) plotted the results of his metrical ithic analysis, which showed a gradual decrease in the thickness of the flakes that accelerated markedly between the Early and Late Mousterian. Consequently, Jelinek suggested an orderly and continuous progression of industries . . . paralleled by a morphological progression from Neanderthal to modern man (Jelinek 1982a: 1374). At Qafzeh, originally excavated by Neuville and M. Stekelis (1933-35) and recently by Vandermeersch (1965-79), the large collection of skeletal remains emanating from the lower portion of the Mousterian sequence has been assigned to Homo sapiens sapiens (Vandermeersch 1981). The age of these deposits remains controversial (Bar-Yosef and Vandermeersch 1981). Paleontological analyses of the microvertebrates by Tchernov (1981) indicate close affinities of the levels that contained the burials with the Upper Acheulian levels of Oumm-Qatafa (Neuville 1951, Haas in Neuville 1951, Tchernov 1968) and greater similarity to Tabuin D than to Tabuin C and B. These levels have been ascribed to a single biozone that Tchernov calls the Lower Mousterian. Preliminary micromorphological analyses at Qafzeh yield the same conclusion (Goldberg 1980). At Hayonim Cave (western Galilee), the transition from the Lower Mousterian to the Upper Mousterian is also documented (Tchernov 1981). Jelinek (1982a) rejects the

Ecological and physiological variability of Sr/Ca and Ba/Ca in mammals of West European mid-Würmian food webs

The Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition in Western Europe is characterized, from an ecological point of view, by large-ungulate communities adapted to cold climatic conditions. The aim of this study is to reconstruct the trophic relationships prevailing in these paleoecosystems which have no equivalent in the modern world. Bone and dentine remains representing five mammalian assemblages dated around 35 ka BP, one of which included a Neandertal specimen, are investigated for Sr/Ca and Ba/Ca of bioapatites. Examination of the N content and U+REE luminescence of bulk material, Ca/P ratios, and Mn and Ca contents of purified samples demonstrates that the Sr/Ca and the Ba/Ca ratios of bone and dentine samples are not significantly altered by diagenesis. As a consequence of the biological discrimination of Sr and Ba in relation to Ca, Sr/Ca and Ba/Ca values are impoverished with increasing trophic position and are strongly correlated within a trophic web. The slopes of the linear regressions between Sr/Ca and Ba/Ca are consistent with modern variability. Furthermore, a statistical difference was found between Ba/Ca of foregut and hindgut herbivores. When coexisting collagen is preserved, the Sr+Ba/Ca and δ15N are strongly correlated. The distribution of values suggests that the δ15N range is mainly controlled by the variability of soil conditions whereas the δ13C range may be related to resource availability.

Earliest Cranio-Encephalic Trauma from the Levantine Middle Palaeolithic: 3D Reappraisal of the Qafzeh 11 Skull, Consequences of Pediatric Brain Damage on Individual Life Condition and Social Care

The Qafzeh site (Lower Galilee, Israel) has yielded the largest Levantine hominin collection from Middle Palaeolithic layers which were dated to circa 90–100 kyrs BP or to marine isotope stage 5b–c. Within the hominin sample, Qafzeh 11, circa 12–13 yrs old at death, presents a skull lesion previously attributed to a healed trauma. Three dimensional imaging methods allowed us to better explore this lesion which appeared as being a frontal bone depressed fracture, associated with brain damage. Furthermore the endocranial volume, smaller than expected for dental age, supports the hypothesis of a growth delay due to traumatic brain injury. This trauma did not affect the typical human brain morphology pattern of the right frontal and left occipital petalia. It is highly probable that this young individual suffered from personality and neurological troubles directly related to focal cerebral damage. Interestingly this young individual benefited of a unique funerary practice among the south-western Asian burials dated to Middle Palaeolithic.

From number sense to number symbols. An archaeological perspective

How and when did hominins move from the numerical cognition that we share with the rest of the animal world to number symbols? Objects with sequential markings have been used to store and retrieve numerical information since the beginning of the European Upper Palaeolithic (42 ka). An increase in the number of markings and complexity of coding is observed towards the end of this period. The application of new analytical techniques to a 44–42 ka old notched baboon fibula from Border Cave, South Africa, shows that notches were added to this bone at different times, suggesting that devices to store numerical information were in use before the Upper Palaeolithic. Analysis of a set of incisions on a 72–60 ka old hyena femur from the Les Pradelles Mousterian site, France, indicates, by comparison with markings produced by modern subjects under similar constraints, that the incisions on the Les Pradelles bone may have been produced to record, in a single session, homologous units of numerical information. This finding supports the view that numerical notations were in use among archaic hominins. Based on these findings, a testable five-stage scenario is proposed to establish how prehistoric cultures have moved from number sense to the use of number symbols. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The origins of numerical abilities’.