The analysis of ancient genomes is having a major impact on archaeological interpretations. Yet, the methodological divide between these disciplines is substantial. Fundamentally, there is an urgent need to reconcile archaeological and genetic taxonomies. However, traditional archaeological taxonomies are problematic because they are epistemologically weak and often laden with undue assumptions about past ethnicity and demography-they are a hindrance rather than a help in such a reconciliation. Eisenmann and colleagues have recently tackled this issue, offering a palette of potential solutions that circumvents traditional archaeological culture labels. We welcome renewed attention to nomenclature but take issue with such recent work that favours systems of taxonomic assignment for genomic groups that either do not include archaeological information at all or retain traditional cultural taxonomic categories. While superficially pragmatic, these administrative solutions do not address the substantive issues that the topic raises. We here present the argument that the only analytically viable solution to aligning genetic and cultural nomenclature is to conceptualise material culture as underwritten by a system of information transmission across generations that has similar structural properties to the genetic system of information transmission. This alignment facilitates the use of similar analytical protocols and hence allows for a true parallel analysis. Once culture change is also understood as an evolutionary process, a wealth of analytical methods for reconciling archaeological and genetic clusters becomes available.

The Late Glacial, that is the period from the first pronounced warming after the Last Glacial Maximum to the beginning of the Holocene (c. 16,000-11,700 cal BP), is traditionally viewed as a time when northern Europe was being recolonized and Late Palaeolithic cultures diversified. These cultures are characterized by particular artefact types, or the co-occurrence or specific relative frequencies of these. In north-eastern Europe, numerous cultures have been proposed on the basis of supposedly different tanged points. This practice of naming new cultural units based on these perceived differences has been repeatedly critiqued, but robust alternatives have rarely been offered. Here, we review the taxonomic landscape of Late Palaeolithic large tanged point cultures in eastern Europe as currently envisaged, which leads us to be cautious about the epistemological validity of many of the constituent groups. This, in turn, motivates us to investigate the key artefact class, the large tanged point, using geometric morphometric methods. Using these methods, we show that distinct groups are difficult to recognize, with major implications for our understanding of patterns and processes of culture change in this period in north-eastern Europe and perhaps elsewhere.

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The Acheulean is defined by its iconic tool type, the handaxe, and a suite of other large cutting tools (LCTs). These tools retain information on technical and procedural practices concerned with the manufacture of these butchery tools and carcass processing knives. The Acheulean straddles the period in which more ancient hominin species (H. erectus and H. heidelbergensis) give way to archaic H. sapiens (sensu lato) amongst whom the ancestor of modern humans may be found. The roots of modern behaviour may be present in these handaxe making hominin species, and the handaxes themselves, through proxy data such as bilateral symmetry, may chart hominin cognitive evolution as researchers such as T. Wynn and F. Coolidge (2016), amongst others, have argued. But the search for the earliest consistent application of symmetry, and its persistence thereafter has been hampered by the lack of large datasets, spanning the temporal extent of the Acheulean, and analysed through a single consistent methodology.Our paper has two aims. The first, and in the absence of a large comparative data set of earlier Acheulean handaxes, is to assess the degree to which symmetry is consistently applied to the making of handaxes in the later Acheulean (=<0.5 mya), a time when bilateral planform symmetry should already be an integral component in handaxe making. The dataset we select is the British Acheulean from MIS 13 -MIS 3/4. To the best of our knowledge this is the first time handaxe symmetry has been assessed on a large body of British Acheulean handaxes. Our second aim is to present a relatively simple and low tech methodology for the analysis of handaxes