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.Projekt DEALinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Identifying the unidentified fauna enhances insights into hominin subsistence strategies during the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition

Understanding Palaeolithic hominin subsistence strategies requires the comprehensive taxonomic identification of faunal remains. The high fragmentation of Late Pleistocene faunal assemblages often prevents proper taxonomic identification based on bone morphology. It has been assumed that the morphologically unidentifiable component of the faunal assemblage would reflect the taxonomic abundances of the morphologically identified portion. In this study, we analyse three faunal datasets covering the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition (MUPT) at Bacho Kiro Cave (Bulgaria) and Les Cottés and La Ferrassie (France) with the application of collagen type I peptide mass fingerprinting (ZooMS). Our results emphasise that the fragmented component of Palaeolithic bone assemblages can differ significantly from the morphologically identifiable component. We obtain contrasting identification rates between taxa resulting in an overrepresentation of morphologically identified reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) and an underrepresentation of aurochs/bison (Bos/Bison) and horse/European ass (Equus) at Les Cottés and La Ferrassie. Together with an increase in the relative diversity of the faunal composition, these results have implications for the interpretation of subsistence strategies during a period of possible interaction between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in Europe. Furthermore, shifts in faunal community composition and in carnivore activity suggest a change in the interaction between humans and carnivores across the MUPT and indicate a possible difference in site use between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. The combined use of traditional and biomolecular methods allows (zoo)archaeologists to tackle some of the methodological limits commonly faced during the morphological assessment of Palaeolithic bone assemblages

Recurrent Network for the Detection of Salient Structures in Remote Sensed Images

International audienceThis paper defines the perceptive phenomenon behind the identification of salient linear structure and establishes the reasons for using Gestalt laws to find spatial relation factors. The recurrent model is presented and the initialization of the cells and the links is explained. An example of the processing on an aerial photography is given

Un modèle de l'illusion perceptive : simulation versus expérimentation

A model of perceptive illusion : experimentation versus simulation. This paper presents an experimentation where the computer has the role of subject and simulation tool. The computer has been used for the elaboration and validation of an operating model of a few structural principles of human visual perception. This model is based on the Gestalt theory. The studied structural process is considered as a dynamic system. Wich is emulated by the computer with recurrent networks. Different experiments on a specific class of primary perceptive illusion images allowed the conception and the validation of a model of perception. The principle of this model have been re-used as the basis for the conception of a program for identification of global linear structures in landscape aerial images.Cet article présente une expérimentation où l'ordinateur a le double rôle de sujet et d'outil de simulation. L'ordinateur a été utilisé pour l'élaboration et la validation d'un modèle de fonctionnement de certains principes de structuration de la perception visuelle humaine. Ce modèle est basé sur la théorie de la forme ou Gestalt. Le processus de structuration étudié est considéré comme un système dynamique. Ce système dynamique est émulé sur ordinateur grâce à des réseaux récurrents. Cette simulation a permis de concevoir et de valider le modèle par expérimentation sur des classes d'images à illusion perceptive primaire. Les acquis ont été ensuite réinvestis dans la conception d'un module d'identification des structures linéaires prégnantes sur des photographies aériennes.Gaio Mauro, Madelaine Jacques. Un modèle de l'illusion perceptive : simulation versus expérimentation. In: Intellectica. Revue de l'Association pour la Recherche Cognitive, n°22, 1996/1. L’expérimentation et l’intelligence artificielle. pp. 67-91

La pendeloque magdalénienne gravée d'un « Equus hydruntinus » de la grotte du Putois II, commune de Montmaurin (Haute-Garonne)

The acquisition by the national Museum of prehistory of the collection Cammas, gathered in the region of Montmaurin, allow to present here a remarkable pendant/ smoother engraved with a Equus hydruntinus, besides a general idea of the stratigraphy and of the archaeological material of the cave Putois II. A short recalling of the paleontological knowledge of this species and its rare representations in the paleolithic art show the great value of this artefact. Its chronological attribution at the end of the middle Magdalenian period makes it the oldest known chattel representation of hydruntinus.L'acquisition par le Musée National de Préhistoire de la collection Cammas rassemblée dans la région de Montmaurin permet de présenter ici, outre un aperçu de la stratigraphie et du matériel archéologique de la grotte du Putois II, une remarquable pendeloque/lissoir gravée d'un Equus hydruntinus. Un bref rappel des connaissances paléontologiques de l'espèce et des ses rares figurations dans l'art paléolithique montrent l'intérêt que l'on doit porter à cette pièce ; son attribution chronologique à la fin du magdalénien moyen en fait la plus ancienne représentation mobilière d'hydruntin connue.Cleyet-Merle Jean-Jacques, Madelaine Stéphane. La pendeloque magdalénienne gravée d'un « Equus hydruntinus » de la grotte du Putois II, commune de Montmaurin (Haute-Garonne). In: Paléo, n°3,1991. pp. 119-129

Improving Retrieval Effectiveness by Automatically Creating Multiscaled Links between Text and Pictures

International audienceThis paper describes a method to improve retrieval of composite documents (text and graphic) by creating a set of internal links. We propose the concept of granularity to add structure for this given set of typed semantic links. That is obtained by a multi-scaling processing. We propose three major classes based on the capacity of a link to include or to be included by others one. Global links are obtained with a classical IR methods. A computational model allows an automatic extraction of the textual information units contained in the text source of the global links. In our geographic corpus the units denotes georefenced entities. A semantic representation of these entities is proposed that allows further cooperation with processing of the graphical part of the document

Construction d'une application vocale pour la sélection d'objets à l'aide d'un modèle basé sur les hypergraphes

@inproceedings{CN-BAZIN-2006, author = {Bazin, C. and Chuffart, F. and Madelaine, J.}, title = {Construction d'une application vocale pour la sélection d'objets à l'aide d'un modèle basé sur les hypergraphes}, booktitle = {9eme Conférence Internationale sur le Document Électronique (CIDE'07)}, address = {Fribourg, Switzerland}, month = {September}, year = {2006}, pages = {43-58} }National audienc

Dynamic Construction of Geographical Hyperdocuments

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