The Balkans in the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic: The Gate to Europe or a Cul-de-sac?

1992 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. K. KozŁowski
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Western Anatolia ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Last Interglacial ◽  
Danube Basin ◽  
The Balkans

During the Last Interglacial Middle Palaeolithic industries of Crvena Stijena-type rich in side-scrapers with Levallois technique of recurrent type are specific to the Balkans. These industries have analogies in Anatolia and the northern part of the Middle East (Zagros-Group), but are different from industries typical of the middle Danube basin (Taubachian) and northern Central Europe (Moustero-Levalloisian). In the period preceding and immediately following the Lower Pleniglacial the Balkans were dominated by typical Mousterian and Moustero-Levalloisian, frequently with leaf points, similar to the industries of the lower Danube and Dniester basins, but unknown in western Anatolia. During the same period Eastern Micoquian developed in the middle Danube basin and northern Central Europe. Moustero-Levalloisian with leaf points persisted until the Early Interpleniglacial, but only in exceptional cases developed some Upper Palaeolithic features, and always without typical Aurignacian forms. The Aurignacian, unless it appears as a first Upper Palaeolithic culture in the Balkans with earliest dates in Europe (>40,000 years BP), seems to be an intrusive unit without any roots in the local Middle Palaeolithic. After 30,000 years BP, parallel to the Late Aurignacian, the first industries with backed blades appear. In the early stage these developed independently from those of Central Europe. Only after 26,000/24,000 BP were they followed in the eastern Balkans by assemblages strongly linked both morphologically and by raw materials to the Gravettian of the middle Danube basin. In the western Balkans, after 20,000 years BP, assemblages with shouldered points appeared, also probably of middle Danube origin. During the Last Interglacial and Interpleniglacial the territory of Balkans played an important transitional role between Anatolia and Central Europe; in the two Pleniglacials of the Würm this territory became some kind of cul-de-sac as the refugium for population groups from the middle Danube and northern Central Europe.

scholarly journals A Late Middle Palaeolithic assemblage containing Levallois and bifacial objects from Saône-et-Loire, France: GH 3 at Grotte de la Verpillière II à Germolles

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Axel Frick
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Radiometric Dating ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Rock Shelter ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
Material Economy ◽  
High Level

The site of Grotte de la Verpillière II, a rock shelter and corresponding cave tunnel, is situated in a cliff face of an Oxfordian massive, around 10 km West of Chalon-sur-Saône in Eastern France. The excavation at this site has recovered Middle Palaeolithic assemblages in three stratified sedimentological units. The richest of these assemblages derives from Geological Horizon (GH) 3 and is discussed here. It is preliminarily attributed to a Late Middle Palaeolithic context of OIS 3 to 4 using radiometric-dating techniques.The assemblage combines Levallois reduction, bifacial objects and diverse ‘opportunistic’ reduction strategies. The Levallois reduction shows a high level of raw-material economy in the use of raw pieces and blanks whose morphology is close to the shape of desired configured cores. Other reduction strategies show a wider range of approaches to blank production. Bifacial objects include but are not limited to Keilmesser with tranchet blows. The condition of objects from GH 3 range from unused raw pieces, tested raw pieces, configured and exhausted cores, correction and central flakes, as well as some heated objects, frost shards, and debris. The majority of raw materials derive from sources nearby, but were clearly transported to the site. Only some pieces show evidence for transport of up to 100 km from source to site. The presence of specific reduction strategies on bifacial objects and the existence of tranchet-blow modification provide support for the attribution of the assemblage to the Keilmessergruppen assemblages from Central Europe.

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2012: the fifth season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 115-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme Barker ◽  
Paul Bennett ◽  
Lucy Farr ◽  
Evan Hill ◽  
Chris Hunt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Last Interglacial ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
South Wall ◽  
Southern Side ◽  
Worked Bone ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Deep Sounding

AbstractThe paper reports on the fifth (2012) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project. The primary focus of the season was the continuation of the excavation of the prehistoric occupation layers in the Haua Fteah cave. A small trench (Trench U) was cut into Holocene (Neolithic) sediments exposed on the south wall of Charles McBurney's Upper Trench. Below this, the excavation of Trench M was continued, on the southern side of McBurney's Middle Trench. In previous seasons we had excavated Oranian ‘Epipalaeolithic’ layers dating toc.18,000–10,000 BP (years before the present). In 2012 the excavation continued downwards through Dabban ‘Upper Palaeolithic’ occupation layers, one of which was associated with a post-built structure and likely hearths. There are indications of an occupational hiatus separating the oldest Dabban from the youngest Levallois-Mousterian (Middle Palaeolithic or Middle Stone Age) lithic material. The Deep Sounding excavated by Charles McBurney in 1955 was cleared of backfill to its base, and its south-facing wall was recorded in detail and sampled extensively for materials for dating and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. McBurney believed that he had reached bedrock at the base of the Deep Sounding, but a small sounding (Trench S) cut into the sediments below this level found further, albeit sparse, evidence for human occupation. Whilst the antiquity of ‘Pre-Aurignacian’ human occupation at the site still needs to be resolved, it seems likely to reach back at least to Marine Isotope Stage 5e, the beginning of the last interglacial (c.130,000–115,000 BP). Important finds from the 2012 excavations in terms of the behavioural complexity of the human groups using the cave include a possible worked bone point from a Pre-Aurignacian layer and a granite rubbing stone in a Dabban layer from a source over 600 km from the cave.

The Climate, Environment and Industries of Stone Age Greece: Part I

1964 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 199-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. I. Dakaris ◽  
E. S. Higgs ◽  
R. W. Hey ◽  
H. Tippett ◽  
P. Mellars
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Detailed Consideration ◽  
British School ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Of Greece

This paper is the result of a survey of a part of Macedonia and Epirus carried out in 1962 and sponsored by the British School of Archaeology at Athens. In 1963 under the aegis of S. I. Dakaris, ephor of Epirus, excavations were carried out to confirm some of the hypotheses resulting from the earlier survey. The cost of the work was defrayed partly by the British Academy and the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Cambridge, and partly by the members of the expeditions themselves. In this paper it is proposed to place on record some of the findings of these expeditions. A more detailed consideration of them will be published after further information has been acquired in 1964.Prior to 1962 little was known of the Stone Age industries of Greece. In contrast with the industrial successions established in Western Europe, Central Europe, Russia and the Levant, Greece had remained virtually a blank on the Palaeolithic map. As late as 1923 Jardé had written that not a single palaeolithic tool was known from Greek soil. Apart from three pieces of uncertain provenance attributed by Breuil to the Upper Palaeolithic, and one from Saloniki noted by Obermaier, no further progress seems to have been made until the German and Italian occupation of Greece and Albania. In 1941 Stampfuss dug the cave of Seidi between Thebes and Levadia. He discovered an industry which contained backed-blades, burins, shouldered points and thick scrapers. It is undated, but is a Gravettoid industry, possibly at a fully developed or even later stage. Mustilli also reported in 1941 the finding of a Middle Palaeolithic industry in Albania. Since that time Servais has noted the presence of apparently early flints in the Peloponnese, a fact subsequently investigated by Leroi-Gourhan in 1962. Byelor has also reported some flakes of Levallois type. The most important work, however, has been that of Milojčić, published in 1958, and arising out of the work in previous years of the German Thessaly Expedition.

Last Interglacial peopling of Siberia: the Middle Palaeolithic site Ust'-Izhul', the upper Yenisei area

Boreas ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 506-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
JIRI CHLACHULA ◽  
NIKOLAI I. DROZDOV ◽  
NIKOLAI D. OVODOV
Keyword(s):  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Last Interglacial

6600–6000 cal BC Abrupt Climate Change and Neolithic Dispersal from West Asia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Weninger ◽  
Lee Clare
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Abrupt Climate Change ◽  
Western Anatolia ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Farming Communities ◽  
Anatolian Plateau ◽  
Decadal Scale ◽  
Early Farming ◽  
New Hypothesis

Recent advances in palaeoclimatological and meteorological research, combined with new radiocarbon data from western Anatolia and southeast Europe, lead us to formulate a new hypothesis for the temporal and spatial dispersal of Neolithic lifeways from their core areas of genesis. The new hypothesis, which we term the Abrupt Climate Change (ACC) Neolithization Model, incorporates a number of insights from modern vulnerability theory. We focus here on the Late Neolithic (Anatolian terminology), which is followed in the Balkans by the Early Neolithic (European terminology). From high-resolution 14C-case studies, we infer an initial (very rapid) west-directed movement of early farming communities out of the Central Anatolian Plateau towards the Turkish Aegean littoral. This move is exactly in phase (decadal scale) with the onset of ACC conditions (~6600 cal BC). Upon reaching the Aegean coastline, Neolithic dispersal comes to a halt. It is not until some 500 years later—that is, at the close of cumulative ACC and 8.2 ka cal BP Hudson Bay cold conditions—that there occurs a second abrupt movement of farming communities into Southeast Europe, as far as the Pannonian Basin. The spread of early farming from Anatolia into eastern Central Europe is best explained as Neolithic communities’ mitigation of biophysical and social vulnerability to natural (climate-induced) hazards.

scholarly journals Pleistocene sediment DNA reveals hominin and faunal turnovers at Denisova Cave

Nature ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena I. Zavala ◽  
Zenobia Jacobs ◽  
Benjamin Vernot ◽  
Michael V. Shunkov ◽  
Maxim B. Kozlikin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Contact Zone ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Environmental Context ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Mt Dna ◽  
Southern Siberia ◽  
Sediment Samples ◽  
Pleistocene Sediment

AbstractDenisova Cave in southern Siberia is the type locality of the Denisovans, an archaic hominin group who were related to Neanderthals1–4. The dozen hominin remains recovered from the deposits also include Neanderthals5,6 and the child of a Neanderthal and a Denisovan7, which suggests that Denisova Cave was a contact zone between these archaic hominins. However, uncertainties persist about the order in which these groups appeared at the site, the timing and environmental context of hominin occupation, and the association of particular hominin groups with archaeological assemblages5,8–11. Here we report the analysis of DNA from 728 sediment samples that were collected in a grid-like manner from layers dating to the Pleistocene epoch. We retrieved ancient faunal and hominin mitochondrial (mt)DNA from 685 and 175 samples, respectively. The earliest evidence for hominin mtDNA is of Denisovans, and is associated with early Middle Palaeolithic stone tools that were deposited approximately 250,000 to 170,000 years ago; Neanderthal mtDNA first appears towards the end of this period. We detect a turnover in the mtDNA of Denisovans that coincides with changes in the composition of faunal mtDNA, and evidence that Denisovans and Neanderthals occupied the site repeatedly—possibly until, or after, the onset of the Initial Upper Palaeolithic at least 45,000 years ago, when modern human mtDNA is first recorded in the sediments.

scholarly journals Identifying Heated Rocks Through Feldspar Luminescence Analysis (pIRIR290) and a Critical Evaluation of Macroscopic Assessment

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Pop ◽  
F. H. Reidsma ◽  
T. Reimann ◽  
M. J. Sier ◽  
C. E. S. Arps ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Method ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Last Interglacial ◽  
Luminescence Analysis ◽  
Thermal Alteration ◽  
Concept Study ◽  
Visual Identification ◽  
Visual Assessments

AbstractThroughout (pre)history, non-flint rocks have been used to structure fireplaces, to retain heat, to boil liquids, and to cook food. Thus far, the identification of heated non-flint rocks in archaeological contexts largely depends on a visual (macroscopic) assessment using criteria thought to be diagnostic for thermal alteration. However, visual identification can be subject to observer bias, and some heat-induced traces can be quite difficult to distinguish from other types of weathering or discolouration. In this paper, we present feldspar luminescence analysis as an independent, objective way to identify heated non-flint rocks and to evaluate the results against the established visual macroscopic method for the identification of such pieces. This is done by submitting manuported rocks with and without inferred macroscopic characteristics of heating, originating from the Last Interglacial, Middle Palaeolithic site Neumark-Nord 2/2 (Germany), to feldspar luminescence analysis (pIRIR290). Results of the feldspar luminescence analysis are compared with the visual assessments. This proof of concept study demonstrates the potential of luminescence analyses as an independent, quantitative method for the identification of heated rocks—and their prehistoric applications like hot-stone cooking, specifically for cases where macroscopic assessment cannot provide reliable determinations.

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