Reconstructing Late Pleistocene paleoclimate at the scale of human behavior: an example from the Neandertal occupation of La Ferrassie (France).

Exploring the role of changing climates in human evolution is currently impeded by a scarcity of climatic information at the same temporal scale as the human behaviors documented in archaeological sites. This is mainly caused by high uncertainties in the chronometric dates used to correlate long-term climatic records with archaeological deposits. One solution is to generate climatic data directly from archaeological materials representing human behavior. Here we use oxygen isotope measurements of Bos/Bison tooth enamel to reconstruct summer and winter temperatures in the Late Pleistocene when Neandertals were using the site of La Ferrassie. Our results indicate that, despite the generally cold conditions of the broader period and despite direct evidence for cold features in certain sediments at the site, Neandertals used the site predominantly when climatic conditions were mild, similar to conditions in modern day France. We suggest that due to millennial scale climate variability, the periods of human activity and their climatic characteristics may not be representative of average conditions inferred from chronological correlations with long-term climatic records. These results highlight the importance of using direct routes, such as the high-resolution archives in tooth enamel from anthropogenically accumulated faunal assemblages, to establish climatic conditions at a human scale.

Issues of theory and method in the analysis of Paleolithic mortuary behavior: A view from Shanidar Cave.

Mortuary behavior (activities concerning dead conspecifics) is one of many traits that were previously widely considered to have been uniquely human, but on which perspectives have changed markedly in recent years. Theoretical approaches to hominin mortuary activity and its evolution have undergone major revision, and advances in diverse archeological and paleoanthropological methods have brought new ways of identifying behaviors such as intentional burial. Despite these advances, debates concerning the nature of hominin mortuary activity, particularly among the Neanderthals, rely heavily on the rereading of old excavations as new finds are relatively rare, limiting the extent to which such debates can benefit from advances in the field. The recent discovery of in situ articulated Neanderthal remains at Shanidar Cave offers a rare opportunity to take full advantage of these methodological and theoretical developments to understand Neanderthal mortuary activity, making a review of these advances relevant and timely.

The age of three Middle Palaeolithic sites: Single-grain optically stimulated luminescence chronologies for Pech de l'Azé I, II and IV in France.

Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) measurements were made on individual, sand-sized grains of quartz from Middle Palaeolithic deposits at three sites (Pech de l'Azé I, II and IV) located close to one another in the Dordogne region of southwest France. We were able to calculate OSL ages for 69 samples collected from these three sites. These ages reveal periods of occupation between about 180 and 50 thousand years ago. Our single-grain OSL chronologies largely support previous age estimates obtained by thermoluminescence dating of burnt flints at Pech IV, electron spin resonance dating of tooth enamel at Pech I, II and IV and radiocarbon dating of bone at Pech I and IV, but provide a more complete picture due to the ubiquitous presence of sand-sized quartz grains used in OSL dating. These complete chronologies for the three sites have allowed us to compare the single-grain ages for similar lithic assemblages among the three sites, to test the correlations among them previously proposed by Bordes in the 1970s, and to construct our own correlative chronological framework for the three sites. This shows that similar lithic assemblages occur at around the same time, and that where a lithic assemblage is unique to one or found at two of the Pech sites, there are no deposits of chronologically equivalent age at the other Pech site(s). We interpret this to mean that, at least for these Pech de l'Azé sites, the Mousterian variants show temporal ordering. Whether or not this conclusion applies to the wider region and beyond, the hypothesis that Mousterian industrial variation is temporally ordered cannot be refuted at this time.

Climate-mediated shifts in Neandertal subsistence behaviors at Pech de l'Azé IV and Roc de Marsal (Dordogne Valley, France).

Neandertals disappeared from Europe just after 40,000 years ago. Some hypotheses ascribe this to numerous population crashes associated with glacial cycles in the late Pleistocene. The goal of this paper is to test the hypothesis that glacial periods stressed Neandertal populations. If cold climates stressed Neandertals, their subsistence behaviors may have changed-requiring intensified use of prey through more extensive nutrient extraction from faunal carcasses. To test this, an analysis of Neandertal butchering was conducted on medium sized bovid/cervid remains composed of predominately red deer (Cervus elaphus), reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), and roe deer (Capreolus caprelous) deposited during global warm and cold phases from two French sites: Pech de l'Azé IV (Pech IV, Bordes' excavation) and Roc de Marsal (RDM). Analysis of surface modification on high survival long bones and proximal and middle phalanges demonstrates that skeletal elements excavated from the cold levels (RDM Level 4, Pech IV Level I2) at each cave have more cut marks and percussion marks than elements from the warm levels (RDM Level 9, Pech IV Level Y-Z) after controlling for fragment size. At both sites, epiphyseal fragments are rare, and although this pattern can result from carnivore consumption, carnivore tooth marks are almost nonexistent (<0.1%). Alternatively, processing epiphyseal ends for bone grease may have been a Neandertal survival strategy, and epiphyses were more intensively percussed in cold levels than in warm levels at both RDM and Pech IV. The exploitation of low marrow yield elements such as phalanges does not show a consistent pattern relating to climate, but may have been a general Neandertal behavioral characteristic, suggesting that these hominids were regularly on the edge of sufficient nutrient availability even during interglacials. Overall, the faunal assemblages from Roc de Marsal and Pech IV provide some support for the hypothesis that Neandertals were processing faunal remains more heavily during glacial periods, suggesting a response to increased nutritional stress during colder time periods.

The Roc de Marsal Neandertal child: a reassessment of its status as a deliberate burial.

Whether Neandertals buried their dead has considerable bearing on the debate concerning the nature of their cultural behavior. Among the claims for intentional Neandertal burial in Europe, the child from Roc de Marsal has long been one of the less contentious examples because its articulated skeleton was found in what has become widely accepted as an intentionally excavated pit. However, what is known about the context of the Roc de Marsal remains from the original descriptions, coupled with new stratigraphic, sedimentological, and archaeological data on the site from recent excavations, cast serious doubt on this interpretation.