Modeling the Past: The Paleoethnological Evidence

This chapter considers the earliest Paleolithic, Oldowan (Mode 1), and Acheulean (Mode 2) cultures of the Old Continent and the traces left by the earliest hominids since their departure from Africa. According to the most recent archaeological data, they seem to have followed two main dispersal routes across the Arabian Peninsula toward the Levant, to the north, and the Indian subcontinent, to the east. According to recent discoveries at Dmanisi in the Caucasus, the first Paleolithic settlement of Europe is dated to some 1.75 Myr ago, which indicates that the first “out of Africa” took place at least slightly before this date. The data available for Western Europe show that the first Paleolithic sites can be attributed to the period slightly before 1.0 Myr ago. The first well-defined “structural remains” so far discovered in Europe are those of Isernia La Pineta in Southern Italy, where a semicircular artificial platform made of stone boulders and animal bones has been excavated. The first hand-thrown hunting weapons come from the site of Scho¨ningen in north Germany, where the first occurrence of wooden spears, more than 2 m long, has been recorded from a site attributed to some 0.37 Myr ago. Slightly later began the regular control of fire. Although most of the archaeological finds of these ages consist of chipped stone artifacts, indications of art seem to be already present in the Acheulean of Africa and the Indian subcontinent

Palaeolithic settlement in Bisnik Cave as derivedfrom anthropogenic biomarkers

Caves formed a crucial shelters for people of Palaeolithic times. Among many archaeological cave sites known from Poland, the Biśnik Cave is one of the best recognized, with 18 cultural horizons of Middle Palaeolithic. The paper's aim was to check if geochemical traces of Neanderthal people have survived in the cave sediments. The samples of late Middle and early Late Pleistocene layers were analyzed by GC-MS method. The results allow to state the presence of two zoosterols (coprostanol and cholesterol) in sediments and to establish the participation of each sterol in particular layers. The ratio of sterol contents indicates the important impact of human faeces on the sedimentation of final Saalian, Eemian and early Weichselian sediments, but shows no clear evidence of human activity in older layers (middle Saalian). Achieved geochemical data stay in accordancc with settlement intensity reconstructed on the basis of archaeological rccord

The site of Late Quaternary cave sediments : the Shelter above the Zegar Cave in Zegarowe Rocks (Częstochowa Upland)

The Shelter above the Zegar Cave (Shelter No 388) (N 50°25’41” E 19°40’27”) is located in the Zegarowe Rocks ridge in the Ryczów Upland (southern part of the Czêstochowa Upland), municipalityWolbrom, district Olkusz. In 2009, Mrs. Jadwiga and Mr. Lucjan Wodarz found an archeological flint artifact in a type of leaf point at the slope below the Shelter. This finding allowed suspecting the presence of Palaeolithic cultural layers inside or near the Shelter. The authors’aim was to recognize the geological context of the Palaeolithic settlement of the Shelter above the Zegar Cave and its neighborhood, and in further perspective of the entire southern part of the Ryczów Upland micro-region. Four layers were discovered in the Shelter during field works (downward): I – humic silty loam, Holocene; II – loess altered by secondary soil processes during the Holocene; III – unaltered loess, dated to MOIS 2; IV – silty cave loam with limestone rubble, dated to MOIS 3. The chronostratigraphy is based on lithostratigraphy and confirmed by radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating. An archaeological cultural level occurs in layer IV, most probably related to the shift from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic. The sequence of cave sediments may be well correlated with numerous profiles of cave sites from the Kraków-Czêstochowa Upland