The Châtelperronian conundrum: Blade and bladelet lithic technologies from Quinçay, France - PubMed

The Châtelperronian conundrum: Blade and bladelet lithic technologies from Quinçay, France

M Roussel et al. J Hum Evol. 2016 Jun.

Abstract

The discovery of an almost complete Neanderthal skeleton in a Châtelperronian context at Saint-Césaire 35 years ago changed our perspective on the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic in western Europe. Since then, the Châtelperronian has generally been considered a "transitional" industry rather than an Upper or a Middle Paleolithic industry because of its chronological position, and the association of Neanderthal remains with blades, bone tools and personal ornaments. Several competing hypotheses have been proposed to explain the association between Neanderthals and these types of artefacts including post-depositional mixing, acculturation from anatomically modern human populations, or an independent technological evolution by local Neanderthal populations. Quinçay Cave is the only Châtelperronian site where personal ornaments have been found that does not contain an overlying Upper Paleolithic layer. This means that the post-depositional mixing of later elements into the Châtelperronian may not be used as an explanation for the presence of these materials. We report here on a detailed technological analysis of lithic artefacts from the three Châtelperronian layers at Quinçay Cave. We compare our results with the technology of Mousterian blade industries dating to OIS (oxygen isotope stage) 5, the Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition type B, and the Proto-Aurignacian. We show that the Châtelperronian is sufficiently divergent from the Middle Paleolithic to be classified as a fully Upper Paleolithic industry, with a focus on blade and bladelet production. We also show that the Quinçay Châtelperronian includes retouched bladelets that resemble those found in the Proto-Aurignacian, but were produced in a different manner. We argue that a technological convergence cannot account for these behaviors, since the specific type of retouched bladelet associated with the Châtelperronian was also regularly used by Proto-Aurignacian of neighboring regions. We suggest that the idea of retouched bladelets may have diffused from the northern Proto-Aurignacian to the Quinçay Châtelperronian and that the transmission of the morphology of this desired end-product without the transmission of its manufacturing process may point toward a low degree of social intimacy between these groups. We conclude that the apparent paradox of the Châtelperronian is the result of the complexity of interaction between Neanderthal and anatomically modern human groups in western Europe between 45,000 and 40,000 years ago.

Keywords: Blade/bladelet technology; France; Idea-diffusion; Middle/Upper Paleolithic transition; Neanderthal.

Similar articles

• On the local Mousterian origin of the Châtelperronian: Integrating typo-technological, chronostratigraphic and contextual data.

  Ruebens K, McPherron SJ, Hublin JJ. Ruebens K, et al. J Hum Evol. 2015 Sep;86:55-91. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.06.011. Epub 2015 Aug 13. J Hum Evol. 2015. PMID: 26277304

• Thermoluminescence dating of the late Neanderthal remains from Saint-Césaire.

  Mercier N, Valladas H, Joron JL, Reyss JL, Lévêque F, Vandermeersch B. Mercier N, et al. Nature. 1991 Jun 27;351(6329):737-9. doi: 10.1038/351737a0. Nature. 1991. PMID: 2062366

• New electron spin resonance (ESR) ages from Geißenklösterle Cave: A chronological study of the Middle and early Upper Paleolithic layers.

  Richard M, Falguères C, Valladas H, Ghaleb B, Pons-Branchu E, Mercier N, Richter D, Conard NJ. Richard M, et al. J Hum Evol. 2019 Aug;133:133-145. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.05.014. Epub 2019 Jul 1. J Hum Evol. 2019. PMID: 31358177

• The Middle/Later Stone Age transition and cultural dynamics of late Pleistocene East Africa.

  Tryon CA. Tryon CA. Evol Anthropol. 2019 Sep;28(5):267-282. doi: 10.1002/evan.21802. Evol Anthropol. 2019. PMID: 31621987 Review.

• Isotopic evidence for diet and subsistence pattern of the Saint-Césaire I Neanderthal: review and use of a multi-source mixing model.

  Bocherens H, Drucker DG, Billiou D, Patou-Mathis M, Vandermeersch B. Bocherens H, et al. J Hum Evol. 2005 Jul;49(1):71-87. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2005.03.003. J Hum Evol. 2005. PMID: 15869783 Review.

Cited by

• Versatile use of microliths as a technological advantage in the miniaturization of Late Pleistocene toolkits: The case study of Neve David, Israel.

  Groman-Yaroslavski I, Chen H, Liu C, Shimelmitz R, Yeshurun R, Liu J, Yang X, Nadel D. Groman-Yaroslavski I, et al. PLoS One. 2020 Jun 3;15(6):e0233340. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0233340. eCollection 2020. PLoS One. 2020. PMID: 32492038 Free PMC article.

• Subsistence strategy changes during the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition reveals specific adaptations of Human Populations to their environment.

  Rendu W, Renou S, Soulier MC, Rigaud S, Roussel M, Soressi M. Rendu W, et al. Sci Rep. 2019 Nov 1;9(1):15817. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-50647-6. Sci Rep. 2019. PMID: 31676799 Free PMC article.

• A pan-European dataset revealing variability in lithic technology, toolkits, and artefact shapes ~15-11 kya.

  Hussain ST, Riede F, Matzig DN, Biard M, Crombé P, Fernández-Lopéz de Pablo J, Fontana F, Groß D, Hess T, Langlais M, Mevel L, Mills W, Moník M, Naudinot N, Posch C, Rimkus T, Stefański D, Vandendriessche H. Hussain ST, et al. Sci Data. 2023 Sep 7;10(1):593. doi: 10.1038/s41597-023-02500-9. Sci Data. 2023. PMID: 37679390 Free PMC article.

• A critical assessment of the Protoaurignacian lithic technology at Fumane Cave and its implications for the definition of the earliest Aurignacian.

  Falcucci A, Conard NJ, Peresani M. Falcucci A, et al. PLoS One. 2017 Dec 7;12(12):e0189241. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0189241. eCollection 2017. PLoS One. 2017. PMID: 29216284 Free PMC article.

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources

• Full Text Sources

  • Elsevier Science

• Other Literature Sources

  • scite Smart Citations