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20 pages
The Aurignacian, traditionally regarded as marking the beginnings of Sapiens in Europe, is notoriously hard to date, being almost out of reach of radiocarbon. Here the authors return to the stratified sequence in the Franchthi Cave, chronicle its lithic and shell ornament industries and, by dating humanly-modified material, show that Franchthi was occupied either side of the Campagnian Ignimbrite super-eruption around 40 000 years ago. Along with other results, this means that groups of Early Upper Palaeolithic people were active outside the Danube corridor and Western Europe, and probably in contact with each other over long distances.
Toward a Definition of the Aurignacian, 2006
This paper places the current research on the Aurignacian of the Upper and Middle Danube region in a broader European context. Technological and typological studies show that the Swabian Aurignacian, particularly as documented in the well-dated deposits from Geißenklösterle, closely resemble the assemblages of Peyrony’s Aurignacian I. We use the term Early Aurignacian in this context to distinguish the well-documented Swabian assemblages including Geißenklösterle, Hohle Fels, and Vogelherd from other early Upper Paleolithic cultural groups including the Proto-Aurignacian of southern Europe. Although the assemblage from Willendorf II, layer 3, is very small, it also appears to belong to the Early Aurignacian. The early phases of the Aurignacian date to about 35 000 radiocarbon years ago and about 40 000 calendar years ago based on TL measurements. These dates indicate a great antiquity of the upper and middle Danubian Early Aurignacian, but similar radiocarbon ages are also known from the Early Aurignacian of the Aquitaine region. Thus, for now, questions about the poly- or monocentric origin of the Aurignacian remain open. The available data, however, do not support the claims for an origin of the Aurignacian in the Balkans or other regions of eastern Europe.
During the 1983 UISPP congress in Liège, F. Mogoșanu presented the results of his earlier investigations on the Paleolithic in the Romanian Banat. The Upper Paleolithic of this area was viewed as a chronologically late manifestation of the Central European Krems-Dufour type Aurignacian. After a long break in research, new investigations in the settlements at Coșava, Româneşti-Dumbrăviţa and Tincova have been undertaken, leading to an improved knowledge of the regional Upper Paleolithic. The present contribution reports the first results of the comparative techno-typological and attribute analysis of the lithic assemblages at Tincova, Coșava and Româneşti-Dumbrăviţa, involving both old and recently excavated collections. Strengthening the conclusions reached by the lithic studies, the first chronometric assessments (TL and OSL) for the recently excavated open-air site of Româneşti-Dumbrăviţa I place the Aurignacian of this site into an early stage of this technocomplex. However, the attempt for incorporating the regional record into the European Early Upper Paleolithic context remains difficult and raises serious issues regarding the acknowledged divisions of the European Aurignacian and, consequently, the expansion of this cultural phenomenon across Europe.
Many lines of evidence point to the period between roughly 40 and 30 ka BP as the period in which modern humans arrived in Europe and displaced the indigenous Neandertal populations. At the same time, many innovations associated with the Upper Paleolithic -including new stone and organic technologies, use of personal ornaments, figurative art, and musical instruments -are first documented in the European archaeological record. Dating the events of this period is challenging for several reasons. In the period about six to seven radiocarbon half-lives ago, variable preservation, pre-treatment, and sample preparation can easily lead to a lack of reproducibility between samples and laboratories. A range of biological, cultural, and geological processes can lead to mixing of archaeological strata and their contents. Additionally, some data sets point to this period as a time of significant spikes in levels of atmospheric radiocarbon. This paper assesses these questions in the context of the well-excavated and intensively studied caves of Geißenklö sterle and Hohle Fels in the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany. We conclude that variable atmospheric radiocarbon production contributes to the problems of dating the late Middle Paleolithic and the early Upper Paleolithic. To help establish a reliable chronology for the Swabian Aurignacian, we are beginning to focus our dating program on short-lived, stratigraphically secure features to see if they yield reproducible results. This approach may help to test competing explanations for the noisy and often non-reproducible results that arise when trying to date the transition from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic.
Springer Nature, 2022
The Aurignacian is one of the first cultural-technological traditions commonly associated with the expansion of Homo sapiens in Europe. Early Homo sapiens demographics across the continent are therefore typically inferred using the distribution of Aurignacian assemblages. Western Romania has been used as a tie-point to connect the well-researched lithic assemblages from the eastern Mediterranean and Western Europe through its early Homo sapiens fossils. However, Romania's archeological record remains underexplored thereby hindering our ability to directly connect better understood regions through time and space. Here we report on excavations from the open-air Middle/ Upper Paleolithic site of Românești-Dumbrăvița I in southwestern Romania. Three stratified Paleolithic assemblages were extensively excavated within a 1-m-thick eolian-deposited sequence. Spatial, geochemical, raw material, techno-typological, and use-wear analysis of the site reveal patterns of artifact configuration, resource exploitation, fire history, knapping objectives, and functionality. Taken together, Românești-Dumbrăvița I is the first well-contextualized archeological site in close spatiotemporal proximity to many early, well-preserved human fossils and in East-Central Europe.
Quaternary International 560-561, 2020
The pivotal role of the western Carpathian basin in the transmission of key inventions of food production towards central Europe is an accepted fact in Neolithic research. Southern Transdanubia in western Hungary may serve as a unique ‘laboratory’ for targeted investigations, as north Balkan and central European characteristics overlap in the region. Site-based studies of recently excavated late 6th millennium cal BC Neolithic settlements provide insights into possible patterns in the development of longhouse architecture and settlement layout, different combinations of material culture and their alterations, and technology transfer on a regional scale. In order to gain a more complex view of these themes, three micro-regions have been selected around key sites for further study of different vantage points between Lake Balaton and the Dráva/Drava river. The southernmost one is located in the Southern Baranya Hills, the second along the Danube on the northern fringes of the Tolna Sárköz and in the adjacent section of the Sárvíz valley, while the third lies in the central section of the southern shore of Lake Balaton. Field surveys including the systematic collection of surface finds complemented by geomagnetic prospections can contribute significantly to the reconstruction of settlement clusters. Absolute chronology has become an important research focus due to larger sets of radiocarbon dates interpreted within a Bayesian framework. The two dominant scenarios for the start of the westward expansion of the LBK are hard to harmonise with each other. An approach that estimates the beginning of the process around 5500 cal BC at the latest gains support from a west-central European perspective. In contrast, recent radiocarbon dating programmes with formal modelling of AMS series within a Bayesian framework estimate the appearance of the LBK west of the Carpathian basin hardly before 5350–5300 cal BC. The latter view provides the potential of harmonising the Neolithisation of central Europe with the emergence of the Vinča culture, at least in its northernmost region. Beyond this debate, ancient DNA analyses have enriched the discussions on migration, demic diffusion and the scale of hunter-gatherer contribution to the process with fresh arguments.
Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology
For decades, the relationship of pre-modern hominins to anatomically modern humans (AMH) and the transition from mode 3 to mode 4 industries remain topics of ongoing scientific debate. Over the last 20 years, different disciplines have added new data and much detail to these questions, highlighting the demographic and social and cultural complexity underlaying these major changes or turnovers in human evolution. As with most other regions outside Africa, archaeologists faced long-lasting discussions whether or not the central European archaeological record is to be understood as a regional transition from the Middle Palaeolithic (MP) to the Upper Palaeolithic (UP) or if it is characterised by the replacement of Neanderthal MP techno-complexes by industries of overall UP character imported by modern humans. These debates have been re-fuelled by the discoveries of new sites, of new hominin fossil remains and by aDNA studies pinpointing towards the arrival of AMH in Europe several mill...
Quaternary International, 2014
BOOK Adrián Nemergut, Ivan Cheben, Jaroslava Ruttkayová, Katarzyna Pyżewicz (eds.) NITRA 2019 16th SKAM Lithic Workshop “Fossil directeur” - A phenomenon over time and space 21–23 of October 2019, Nitra, Slovak Republic, 2019
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2016
Although best known for its spectacular Gravettian features and art, the open-air site of Kostenki 1 (located near Voronezh on the Don River [Russian Federation]) also has played an important role in the study of the early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) of Eastern Europe. New excavations at Kostenki 1 were undertaken in 2004-2012 with a focus on the EUP layers (Layers III-V), which represent temporal zones of recurring occupation, buried in low-energy slope deposits (5% slope). Soils formed during periods of increased surface stability. A new set of radiocarbon estimates on wood charcoal indicates that Layer III dates between 33,000 and 38,000 cal BP. Layer V underlies the CI tephra (~40,000 cal BP), which is redeposited and identified only by microscopic analysis of sediment samples in most of the (downslope) areas of the site excavated during 2004-2012. Large and medium mammal remains recovered from the EUP layers include mammoth, horse, reindeer, arctic fox, and wolf, and taphonomic analyses indicate that carcasses were processed at the site. All EUP layers yielded artifacts typical of the East European Strelets industry (e.g., bifaces, side-scrapers), but earlier excavation (1948)(1949)(1950)(1951)(1952)(1953) of Layer III also produced diagnostic Aurignacian artifacts (e.g., carinated scrapers, retouched bladelets). The new chronology for Layer III suggests an association between the Aurignacian of the central East European Plain and the warm intervals (GI 8-GI 7) following the HE4 cold period (~38,000-40,000 cal BP).
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Antiquity, 2011
The Aurignacian, traditionally regarded as marking the beginnings of Sapiens in Europe, is notoriously hard to date, being almost out of reach of radiocarbon. Here the authors return to the stratified sequence in the Franchthi Cave, chronicle its lithic and shell ornament industries and, by dating humanly-modified material, show that Franchthi was occupied either side of the Campagnian Ignimbrite super-eruption around 40000 years ago. Along with other results, this means that groups of Early Upper Palaeolithic people were active outside the Danube corridor and Western Europe, and probably in contact with each other over long distances.
Willendorf II is a key site for understanding the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition in the Middle Danube Region due to the presence of well stratified EUP and Early Aurignacian deposits. Here we report on new excavations at this site by the Willendorf Project. The aim of these excavations is to collect samples for dating and other geoarchaeological analyses, as well as to recover well stratified artefacts for technological and typological analysis. Six weeks of excavation in 2006 resulted in the discovery of the northwestern corner of the 1909 excavation, which allows the precise correlation of the old and modern site plans. The Early Aurignacian Layer 3 could be also relocated, and numerous samples for 14 C and OSL dating, as well as for malacological, micromorphology, microtephra and magnetic susceptibility analyses were collected from the entire stratigraphy. The excavations show that find-bearing areas are still preserved throughout the Willendorf II sequence.
Aurignacian assemblages in northwestern Europe, here defined as Britain, Belgium, Luxembourg and France north of c. 47°N, are relatively meagre, most often undated and, in comparison with those farther south, incompletely understood. An overview of published accounts of the region’s Aurignacian sites and material is presented here. Lacking Aurignacian assemblages found in stratigraphic association with one another, the archaeological record for the entire region is presently not conducive to the construction of a chrono-cultural framework built on local evidence. However, the typological variation evident between sites and within some of the larger assemblages clearly has chrono-cultural significance. Here, making explicit reference to the better understood framework farther south, it is suggested that much of this variation may be chronological. Based upon this consideration of lithic evidence, the earliest Aurignacian of the region probably pre-dates the small number of currently published radiocarbon dates. A few thoughts as to the relative prevalence of Recent Aurignacian lithic material are also offered.
Analele Banatului XXVII 2019, 2019
Romania has thousands of karstic caves in the Carpathian and Dobrudja regions, some of which have yielded important early prehistoric finds including human fossils and cave art. However, despite over a century of exploration and systematic archeological investigations, cave excavations have yet to produce large, well-stratified Pleistocene artifact assemblages that are known in neighboring regions. "is article explores possible reasons for the low number of significant assemblages and discusses the ramifications for the Paleolithic record while making future recommendations for research.
