The Upper Palaeolithic in western Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 43-63
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic

New evidence for Upper Palaeolithic small domestic dogs in South-Western Europe

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (9) ◽  
pp. 2123-2140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maud Pionnier-Capitan ◽  
Céline Bemilli ◽  
Pierre Bodu ◽  
Guy Célérier ◽  
Jean-Georges Ferrié ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Domestic Dogs ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
New Evidence

Wrestling with Analogy: A Methodological Dilemma in Upper Palaeolithic Art Research.

1991 ◽  
Vol 57 (01) ◽  
pp. 149-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. Lewis-Williams
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Prehistoric Art ◽  
Scientific Opinion ◽  
Art Research ◽  
Analogical Argument ◽  
Palaeolithic Art

In 1902 Emile Cartailhac published hisMea Culpa d'un Sceptique. His acceptance of the high antiquity of prehistoric art in western Europe followed Capitan and Breuil's convincing discoveries in Font de Gaume and Les Combarelles and reflected a widespread change of opinion. Despite previous scepticism, researchers were beginning to allow that the parietal as well as the mobile art did indeed date back to the Upper Palaeolithic. But this swing in scientific opinion opened up an even more baffling problem: why did Upper Palaeolithic people make these pictures? In the year following Cartailhac's turn-about Salomon Reinach tried to answer this question by developing an analogical argument based on ethnographic parallels. He could see no other way of approaching the problem: ‘Our only hope of finding outwhythe troglodytes painted and sculpted lies in asking the same question of present-day primitives with whom the ethnography reveals connections’ (Reinach 1903, 259; my translation, his emphasis).

Light, Human Evolution, and the Palaeolithic

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Pettitt ◽  
Stefanie Leluschko ◽  
Takashi Sakamoto
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Human Perception ◽  
Evolutionary Significance ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Low Light ◽  
Light Production ◽  
Constituent Component ◽  
Palaeolithic Art ◽  
Cave Art

Human light-producing technology (i.e. the controlled use of fire) evolved during the Palaeolithic. Among its more obvious advantages to survival (heat, cooking, protection), fire-provided light in the form of hearths and lamps probably had considerable evolutionary significance. As human symbolic systems spread with the late Middle Palaeolithic and Upper Palaeolithic in Eurasia, it became a constituent component of European cave art. After reviewing the biological basis of human perception in low-light situations, we examine the existing evidence for the evolution of controlled use of fire (light production), and focus on its use in the performance of Upper Palaeolithic art and other activities in the deep caves of Western Europe.

The Lascaux Cave

1951 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 50-51
Author(s):  
Hallam L. Movius
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Forest Type ◽  
Phase 2 ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Art Galleries ◽  
Upper Pleistocene ◽  
The One ◽  
Lascaux Cave ◽  
Palaeolithic Art

The Lascaux Cave, one of the most important single sites of upper Palaeolithic art ever discovered, is located near Montignac (Dordogne), 16 miles up the Vézère River from the famous town of Les Eyzies. It was found in September 1940 by two French schoolboys out rabbit hunting. Called the “Versailles of Prehistoric Man,” Lascaux ranks among the world's oldest and most remarkable art galleries. It has been completely sealed off from the outside world since late upper Pleistocene times, and it is now generally believed that the majority of the paintings are upper Perigordian (Gravettian) in date—Phase 2 in the upper Palaeolithic art sequence of western Europe. That they were produced during a time of climatic amelioration, possibly the one known as the Achen retreat, is borne out by the fact that the animals depicted belong much more to a steppe and forest type of fauna, than they do to a colder tundra group. For example, there are no mammoths and no reindeer shown, but there are many horses, a considerable quantity of cattle, bison and several ibexes.

scholarly journals The First Anatomically Modern Humans from South-Eastern Europe. Contributions from the Buran-Kaya III Site (Crimea)

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 169-179
Author(s):  
S. Prat ◽  
S. Péan ◽  
L. Crépin ◽  
S. Puaud ◽  
D.G. Drucker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Post Mortem ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
Anatomically Modern Humans ◽  
South Eastern Europe ◽  
Potential Interactions

The arrival of modern humans into Europe, their dispersal and their potential interactions with Neanderthals are still in debate. Whereas the first appearance of anatomically modern humans in Western Europe seems to be well understood, the situation is quite different for Eastern Europe, where data are more scarce. The Buran-Kaya III site in Crimea is of key importance to understand the colonization of Europe by anatomically modern humans and their potential contemporaneity with the last Neanderthal occupations. The new radiocarbon dated sequence shows that no Neanderthal settlement existed after 39 ka cal BP and casts doubt on the survival, as previously proposed, of Neanderthal refuge zones in Crimea 28 ka BP ago (34-32 ka cal BP). The human remains from Buran-Kaya III, directly dated to 32450 +250/-230 BP (layer 6-2) and 31900+/-220 BP (layer 6-1) (37.1-35.7 ka cal BP and 36.3-35.2 cal BP respectively), represent some of the oldest evidence of anatomically modern humans in Europe in a unique welldocumented archaeological context (Gravettian). Furthermore, the specimens from layer 6-1 represent the oldest Upper Palaeolithic modern humans from Eastern Europe with evidence of post-mortem treatment of the dead.

Trou du Renard and the Belgian Aurignacian

2016 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Dinnis ◽  
Damien Flas
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Lithic Assemblage ◽  
The North ◽  
Lithic Assemblages ◽  
C 32 ◽  
North And South ◽  
North Western ◽  
Early Upper

A wealth of cave sites makes southern Belgium the most important area for understanding the north-western European Early Upper Palaeolithic. However, despite their abundance, the interpretation of many assemblages remains problematic. Here we present a new study of lithic material from layer B of Trou du Renard (Furfooz, Namur Province) and consider its place in the Belgian Aurignacian. The assemblage is typical of Late Aurignacian assemblages found across western Europe, underscoring the contrast between the Aurignacian and the periods that pre- and post-date it, when we instead see profound differences between north and south. The assemblage is apparently unmixed, distinguishing Trou du Renard from other key Belgian Aurignacian cave sites. A large proportion of the site’s lithic assemblage documents the production of small bladelets from carinated/busquéburin cores, suggesting that Trou du Renard served as a short-term hunting camp. Radiocarbon dating cannot pinpoint the assemblage’s age, though here it is argued to be c. 32–33,000bp(c. 36–37,000 calbp) on the basis of its similarity to the well-dated Aurignacian assemblage from Maisières Canal (Atelier de Taille de la Berge Nord-Estarea). For the same reason a third assemblage – Trou Walou layer CI-1 – is also argued to be contemporaneous. Trou du Renard, Maisières Canal and Trou Walou may represent three points in the same Late Aurignacian landscape. Differences between their lithic assemblages can be explained by the acquisition and transport of flint, and by a desire to produce small bladelets of highly standardised form irrespective of the size and shape of available blanks.

Art as information: Explaining Upper Palaeolithic art in western Europe

1994 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Michael Barton ◽  
G. A. Clark ◽  
Allison E. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Palaeolithic Art

Skeletons in Motion, Ancestors in Action: Early Mesolithic Collective Tombs in Southern Belgium

2001 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Cauwe
Keyword(s):  
Characteristic Feature ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Neolithic Transition ◽  
Form Part

Collective tombs are a characteristic feature of Neolithic societies of Western Europe. Some recent studies have suggested that they originated from an earlier tradition of individual burials at the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition. The concept of collective burial involving movement and manipulation of bodies and body parts is, however, entirely different. The former tries to preserve the integrity of the bodies and does not acknowledge the stages of metamorphosis of the corpse. The latter by contrast involves observation and assistance in the dissolution of the body. Recent discoveries of Early Mesolithic collective tombs in southern Belgium have underlined the fact that collective burials are far from restricted to Neolithic contexts in Western Europe. They themselves, however, are not merely a potential point of origin for Middle and Late Neolithic collective tombs but form part of a long-standing tradition reaching back into the Upper Palaeolithic.

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