Paul Fernandes

The age of the hominin fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, and the origins of the Middle Stone Age

The timing and location of the emergence of our species and of associated behavioural changes are crucial for our understanding of human evolution. The earliest fossil attributed to a modern form of Homo sapiens comes from eastern Africa and is approximately 195 thousand years old, therefore the emergence of modern human biology is commonly placed at around 200 thousand years ago. The earliest Middle Stone Age assemblages come from eastern and southern Africa but date much earlier. Here we report the ages, determined by thermoluminescence dating, of fire-heated flint artefacts obtained from new excavations at the Middle Stone Age site of Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, which are directly associated with newly discovered remains of H. sapiens. A weighted average age places these Middle Stone Age artefacts and fossils at 315 ± 34 thousand years ago. Support is obtained through the recalculated uranium series with electron spin resonance date of 286 ± 32 thousand years ago for a tooth from the Irhoud 3 hominin mandible. These ages are also consistent with the faunal and microfaunal assemblages and almost double the previous age estimates for the lower part of the deposits. The north African site of Jebel Irhoud contains one of the earliest directly dated Middle Stone Age assemblages, and its associated human remains are the oldest reported for H. sapiens. The emergence of our species and of the Middle Stone Age appear to be close in time, and these data suggest a larger scale, potentially pan-African, origin for both.

Land-Use Strategies, Related Tool-Kits and Social Organization of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic Groups in the South-East of the Massif Central, France Strategien der Landschaftsnutzung, Geräteinventare und soziale Organisation von alt- und mittelpaläolithischen Gruppen im südwestfranzösischen Zentralmassif

In the southern French Massif Central and on its southeastern border but at different altitudes, open-air sites, rock-shelters and caves have yielded artefacts ranging from isolated finds to abundant series that date from MIS 9 to at least MIS 3, representing Lower Palaeolithic (sensu Acheulean bifacial production) and diverse Middle Palaeolithic facies. From the upstream part of the gorges of the Allier and Loire Rivers to the Chassezac and Ardeche Rivers surveys, excavations and detailed analyses of the material from these sites offer data on subsistence behaviours including among others raw material acquisition, lithic reduction sequences, hunted species and carcass treatment. This information has been gathered during a Collective Research Program (PCR Espaces et subsistance au Paleolithique moyen dans le sud du Massif central) and enables discussion of the mobility of human groups, the size of the territory they occupied, duration of site occupation, landscape cognition and resource exploitation and allows some speculation about the way these humans perceived the landscape in which they lived and how these ethnographic perceptions may have changed over time. In this paper, we focus on results obtained from stratified sites dated from MIS 9 until MIS 4. Orgnac 3, Payre and Barasses II sites, Abri du Maras and Abri des Pecheurs are caves and shelters located on low plateaus on the right bank of the Rhone corridor while the cave of Sainte-Anne I and Baume-Vallee rock-shelter are located in the mid-mountains of the Velay. The lithic repertoires found in Payre, Saint-Anne I, Baume-Vallee, Abri du Maras, Abri des Pecheurs and Barasses II suggest that the stone knapping and retouching activities that took place in them were directed towards achieving different objectives at each of them. In the several human occupation phases at Payre, the main core technology closely parallels the discoid type that provides unstandardized flakes. A lack of hafted points and the importation into the site of large flakes made from various local stone types along with introduced flint flakes and nodules are related to the seasonal occupation of the site due to its location. The flint reduction sequences are quite complete but those on local stones are often partial, indicating mobility of the occupants and off-site manufacture of lithic tools. Lithic raw material imported into Sainte-Anne I originates from more than thirty different primary localities close to the site as well as from secondary and sub-primary colluvial and alluvial outcrops. The Neanderthals who used this cave obviously had an excellent knowledge of the occurrence and potential of local resources. The presence of some specific flint types suggests the use of exploitation or trade routes which crossed the borders of fluvial systems. If the duration of occupation events can be judged from the presence of a large number of artefacts produced on local volcanic rocks, quartz and types of flint, the absence of certain items like large-sized and retouched flakes from the reduction sequences, indicates that these products were used away from the site or removed when the occupants moved on through their territories. In the upper layers of Abri du Maras, the presence of flakes and pointed artefacts as well as the kind of retouch on them suggests that special equipment was being manufactured, possibly involved with hunting and butchering reindeer and horses during long-term residential occupation. Most of the Levallois lithic processing systems are complete but, judging from the size of the core-flakes, large un-retouched blades were being imported into the site suggesting that other tasks may have been undertaken there using these transported artefacts. At Abri des Pecheurs, irregular and thick broken flakes of quartz and small flakes of flint suggest an expedient lithic technology. This assemblage was probably the result of brief human occupation events in the shelter during which they processed some parts of a few cervids and ibex. The chaine operatoire is complete for quartz but incomplete for the flint assemblage which contains a higher ratio of tools to unmodified lithics. At Baume-Vallee, a range of flakes was produced by a variety of knapping techniques. Using different techniques to obtain different types of tool blanks from the same core was presumably a strategy of exploitation designed to conserve a precious resource that was available mainly as small pebbles. This assemblage indicates that multiple tasks were conducted simultaneously at a seasonal horse and cervid hunting camp. Microwear analysis shows that the stone artefacts were used to work soft or semi-hard materials, probably wood. The “Charentian” aspect of the assemblage is a reflection of intense edge reduction and appears identical to that identified at the Abri du Maras. Overall, faunal remains indicate that a diverse range of landscapes was exploited during its procurement. Also, the territorial perspective provided by the widely disparate sources of lithic raw materials indicates that the groups inhabiting the sites were mobile and undertook multidirectional and more or less long-distance forays into the surrounding landscapes. Despite the complexity of territorial exploitation strategies suggested by the importation of varied and remote resources into these three sites, at present these subsistence activities provide no evidence for the existence of planning strategies comparable to those observed elsewhere. Nor can we confirm a strictly bipolarized (summer-winter / highlands-lowlands) circulatory subsistence pattern. However, there are suggestions of exploitation routes that proceeded back and forth along the course of the Allier and more certainly along the Loire for Charentian groups. The locations of the more remote geo-resources indicate the existence of a widespread exploitation pattern radiating outwards from semi-residential camps. The dispersed locations visited or exploited by the groups of hunter-gatherers transiently occupying other camps that were brief stopping places also supports this patterning. Additionally, remote or semi-remote lithic outcrops may mark some territorial limit or perhaps they may be places where adjoining groups could meet for some unknown purpose or, such locations may even be the source of particular raw materials needed for special occasions if not for unique tasks. In the same vein, lithic artefacts abandoned in the landscape that are often categorized by archaeologists as isolates may just as easily have been left intentionally as markers for others to discover. Although a resource territory may well differ from a social territory, petro-archaeology may be able to contribute new methods through which to decipher more of the Neanderthals’ cognitive sphere. Among the exploitative itineraries we have identified are: collection of lithic resources; transportation of these lithic resources; their abandonment; seasonal hunting of selected target species; collection of other permanently available or seasonally abundant resources; processing these and other resources at a variety of stopping places and camps; the possibility of single gender as well as mixed-gender groups undertaking specific tasks; confirmation that, from MIS 9 until MIS 3, Neanderthals were not simply reacting to landscape characteristics, they were interacting with landscape features (geosymbols) and responding to environmental and bio-resource changes in a deterministic manner. These kinds of responses to landscapes and resource occurrence are very close to modern hunter-gatherer behaviour.

Technological variability during the Early Middle Palaeolithic in Western Europe. Reduction systems and predetermined products at the Bau de l'Aubesier and Payre (South-East France)

The study of the lithic assemblages of two French sites, the Bau de l’Aubesier and Payre, contributes new knowledge of the earliest Neanderthal techno-cultural variability. In this paper we present the results of a detailed technological analysis of Early Middle Palaeolithic lithic assemblages of MIS 8 and 7 age from the two sites, which are located on opposite sides of the Rhône Valley in the south-east of France. The MIS 9–7 period is considered in Europe to be a time of new behaviours, especially concerning lithic strategies. The shift from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Early Middle Palaeolithic is “classically” defined by an increase in the number of core technologies, including standardized ones, which are stabilized in the full Middle Palaeolithic (MIS 5–3), associated with the decline of the “Acheulean” biface. Applying a common technological approach to the analysis of the two assemblages highlights their technological variability with respect to reduction systems and end products. Differences between Payre and the Bau de l’Aubesier concerning raw material procurement and faunal exploitation only partially explain this multifaceted technological variability, which in our opinion also reflects the existence of distinct technological strategies within the same restricted geographic area, which are related to distinct traditions, site uses, and/or as yet unknown parameters.

The Urgonian chert from Provence (France): the intra-formation variability and its exploitation in petro-archeological investigations

Understanding details of stone tool procurement and transfers is for a major research avenue in improving our knowledge about prehistoric societies. The accuracy of the provisioning sources identifications is based on the establishment of large regional repositories. Recent studies show that specific investigations on the evolution of cherts were effective in distinguishing primary sources from the various secondary sources of a raw material. In this paper, we focus on another difficulty that is the distinction between different primary sources of the same geological layers.We consider the specific case of the Bedoulian cherts from southeastern France. This chert was exploited and circulated over large distances during the whole prehistoric record. It is particularly known to have been heat-treated during Late Chassey culture (Neolithic). We show in this paper that paleogeographical variability exists due to variations in the bioclastic and detrital components. With the support of foraminifera data, the granulometry of detrital quartz grain provides the possibility to distinguish between different primary sources. A first test in archeological contexts illustrates the efficiency of the method as well as indicates major changes in provisioning practices between upper Paleolithic and Neolithic groups.

Réseau de lithothèques en Rhône-Alpes

En 2007, ce projet collectif de recherche (PCR) entrait dans sa deuxieme annee de fonctionnement. Il a pour objectifs de realiser un bilan cartographique, geologique et photographique actualise des ressources siliceuses (silex essentiellement) en Rhone-Alpes en federant les acteurs de ce domaine de recherche (professionnels, amateurs). La creation d’une base de donnees regionale permettra a terme de coordonner les operations de prospection des gites siliceux en harmonisant et en ameliorant le...