Human and Animal Individuals in the Middle Magdalenian

International audienceThe category of "animal species" is at the heart of traditional interpretations of Palaeolithic art. In this context, animal depictions have traditionally been conceptualized in terms of the "animal species" they are supposed to represent. Moreover, the relationships between humans and animals have been discussed in similar terms. In this paper, I examine some innovative ways in which this relationship can be considered. In particular, I explore the possibility of interpreting animal images as representations of individuals, rather than just of species. Focusing on a number of pieces of rock art and portable images, and examining other kinds of activities (animal butchery, body adornment, treatment of human corpses, etc.) from the Middle Magdalenian (19,000-16,000 cal BP), I seek to demonstrate how the concept of the "individual" offers a number of interpretive possibilities beyond the traditional category of "species". I argue that the focus on the head and face can reflect this interest in individualized animals. I also highlight the existence of practical techniques employed to create a relationship between human and animal individuals

Journal of veterinary parasitology

North Africa is quickly emerging as one of the more important regions yielding information on the origins of modern Homo sapiens. Associated with significant fossil hominin remains are two stone tool industries, the Aterian and Mousterian, which have been differentiated, respectively, primarily on the basis of the presence and absence of tanged, or stemmed, stone tools. Largely because of historical reasons, these two industries have been attributed to the western Eurasian Middle Paleolithic rather than the African Middle Stone Age. In this paper, drawing on our recent excavation of Contrebandiers Cave and other published data, we show that, aside from the presence or absence of tanged pieces, there are no other distinctions between these two industries in terms of either lithic attributes or chronology. Together, these results demonstrate that these two \u27industries\u27 are instead variants of the same entity. Moreover, several additional characteristics of these assemblages, such as distinctive stone implements and the manufacture and use of bone tools and possible shell ornaments, suggest a closer affinity to other Late Pleistocene African Middle Stone Age industries rather than to the Middle Paleolithic of western Eurasia

Out of the Cave and into the Light: Perspectives and Challenges of Radiocarbon Dating an Open-Air Aurignacian Site (Régismont-le-Haut, Mediterranean France)

International audienceThis article presents the methods and results regarding the radiocarbon (AMS) dating of the site of Régismont-le-Haut. This site is one of the very few well-preserved Aurignacian open-air sites in southern France. It is also one of the only Aurignacian sites in France and Europe, more generally, to have conserved evident features, including many in situ fire-related structures. We selected charcoal and bone from all the major occupation sectors excavated so far, as well as from others which were important for understanding site formation. Considering difficulties faced when comparing the lithic industry of a site located in a poorly documented area with those belonging to the Aquitaine basin, where the "classical" definition of the Aurignacian was outlined, dating was conducted to accurately place the site within this technocomplex's internal chronology. In total, 19 charcoals (identified to Pinus sp. or gymnosperm) and 3 bones were submitted for AMS radiocarbon dating, each to one of three laboratories. We implemented a strict charcoal screening protocol for radiometric dating that required genus-identified individual charcoals that were well-associated with the fire-related structures. Despite this careful selection , most of the charcoals and all of the bones contained insufficient carbon for dating. Of the 19 charcoal dates attempted, 5 produced dates, from two loci. All fall in the span between the Middle Aurignacian and the Recent Aurignacian (between around 32,500 and 28,000 uncalibrated 14 C BP). An older subset of the dates (32.5-32 ka BP, ca. 37.5-35.5 ka cal BP) appears to be the most reliable. These results represent the first AMS dates ever performed on an Aurignacian open-air site in the Mediterranean area. The dates are compared to other recently dated southwestern France sites to establish which ones might be useful for future detailed archaeological comparisons. They are also instructive from a methodological point of view, in order to better appreciate the resolution of radiocarbon in this context. The focus of this article is on presenting the dating work, especially the protocol used in the selection of samples, the laboratory methods used for obtaining the dates and the challenges faced at this site. Among these, the divergence of dates between loci contrasted with geomorphological and archaeological evidence, with the latter two strongly pointing to one living floor, and either a single occupation or a few very close in time. This forced a reassessment of the chronological dating evidence. This article serves to show the importance of multi-prong approaches to archaeological dating, comparing and contrasting both contextual evidence and actual dates