Jean-Guillaume Bordes

Who were the makers of the Châtelperronian culture

The demise of the Neanderthals and the colonization of western Eurasia by modern humans is a scholarly research topic that has attracted the interest of the public media. Generations of anthropologists and archaeologists, joined recently by archaeogeneticists, have been involved in solving this puzzle, which continues to stimulate heated debates (i.e., Zilhão and D’Errico, 2003; Mellars, 2004, 2005, 2006; Trinkaus, 2006; Zilhão et al., 2007; Teyssandier, 2008). The observation that the Neanderthals eventually disappeared and modern humans overtook their territories throughout western Eurasia between 45 and 35 ka has received support from ancient DNA and human fossil morphology studies. This population turnover was also marked by a major cultural change, defined in the early days of the 20th century as the “transition” from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic (Breuil, 1913). Abbé Breuil (1913) defined the tripartite early Upper Palaeolithic sequence in Western Europe by subdividing a so-called “Aurignacian” industry into three periods. Specifically, an “Early Aurignacian” which includes the Châtelperronian industry, followed by a “Middle Aurignacian” with the Aurignacian in current nomenclature, and an “Upper Aurignacian,” or today’s Gravettian culture. In Western Europe, several Initial Upper Paleolithic industries, such as the Châtelperronian, the Proto-Aurignacian and the Bachokirian, comprise not only lithics, but bone, teeth, ivory and antler objects. The answer to the question of who made these widely dispersed assemblages requires testing archaeological observations made in the field and deductions derived from archival material. As a result of the marked techno-typological changes expressed by these cultures as compared with the Mousterian industries, most

Analysis of Aurignacian interstratification at the Châtelperronian-type site and implications for the behavioral modernity of Neandertals

The Châtelperronian is a Neandertal-associated archeological culture featuring ornaments and decorated bone tools. It is often suggested that such symbolic items do not imply that Neandertals had modern cognition and stand instead for influences received from coeval, nearby early modern humans represented by the Aurignacian culture, whose precocity would be proven by stratigraphy and radiocarbon dates. The Grotte des Fées at Châtelperron (France) is the remaining case of such a potential Châtelperronian–Aurignacian contemporaneity, but reanalysis shows that its stratification is poor and unclear, the bone assemblage is carnivore-accumulated, the putative interstratified Aurignacian lens in level B4 is made up for the most part of Châtelperronian material, the upper part of the sequence is entirely disturbed, and the few Aurignacian items in levels B4-5 represent isolated intrusions into otherwise in situ Châtelperronian deposits. As elsewhere in southwestern Europe, this evidence confirms that the Aurignacian postdates the Châtelperronian and that the latter’s cultural innovations are better explained as the Neandertals’ independent development of behavioral modernity.

Within Projectile Range: Some Thoughts on the Appearance of the Aurignacian in Europe

The Aurignacian has long been interpreted as the culture that corresponded to the arrival of modern humans in Europe and, along with them, all the constituent elements of the Upper Paleolithic. In addition to noting the profound technological changes, we emphasize in particular the systematization and diversification of personal ornaments and the emergence of graphic arts. While not denying the impact of such transformations, and not questioning their close association with the Aurignacian, our objective here is to place them in their archaeological context in order to show that their development was not sudden but in fact more gradual than is usually considered. With respect to the internal chronology of the Aurignacian, we thus depict a more complex image of the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition, attenuating the impression of an abrupt and radical break that generally surrounds its interpretation.

No Reliable Evidence for a Neanderthal-Châtelperronian Association at La Roche-à-Pierrot, Saint-Césaire

The demise of Neanderthals and their interaction with dispersing anatomically modern human populations remain some of the most contentious issues in palaeoanthropology. The Châtelperronian, now generally recognized as the first genuine Upper Palaeolithic industry in Western Europe and commonly attributed to the Neanderthals, plays a pivotal role in these debates. The Neanderthal authorship of this techno-complex is based on reported associations of Neanderthal skeletal material with Châtelperronian assemblages at only two sites, La Roche-à-Pierrot (Saint-Césaire) and the Grotte du Renne (Arcy-sur-Cure). The reliability of such an association has, however, been the subject of heated controversy. Here we present a detailed taphonomic, spatial and typo-technological reassessment of the level (EJOP sup) containing the Neanderthal skeletal material at Saint-Césaire. Our assessment of a new larger sample of lithic artifacts, combined with a systematic refitting program and spatial projections of diagnostic artifacts, produced no reliable evidence for a Neanderthal-Châtelperronian association at the site. These results significantly impact current models concerning the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition in Western Europe and force a critical reappraisal of who exactly were the makers of the Châtelperronian.