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The bouffia Bonneval at La Chapelle-aux-Saints is well known for the discovery of the first secure Neandertal burial in the early 20th century. However, the intentionality of the burial remains an issue of some debate. Here, we present the results of a 12-y fieldwork project, along with a taphonomic analysis of the human remains, designed to assess the funerary context of the La Chapelle-auxSaints Neandertal. We have established the anthropogenic nature of the burial pit and underlined the taphonomic evidence of a rapid burial of the body. These multiple lines of evidence support the hypothesis of an intentional burial. Finally, the discovery of skeletal elements belonging to the original La Chapelle aux Saints 1 individual, two additional young individuals, and a second adult in the bouffia Bonneval highlights a more complex site-formation history than previously proposed.

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The Middle Palaeolithic of southwestern France has long been a testing ground for models of Nean-derthal lithic assemblage variability and mobility strategies. Advances in our understanding of the lithological structure of the northern Aquitaine Basin combined with numerous raw material studies allows connections between different areas of the region to be revealed based on the movement of particular 'tracer' materials. By comparing technological data with raw material transport patterns elements of Late Neanderthal techno-economic behaviour emerge. Raw materials were transferred over longer distances in both the Levallois and Quina techno-complexes compared to the Discoid techno-complexes, where evidence for similar movements are almost entirely absent. Comparing these patterns of raw material provisioning and transfer against the distribution of key Middle Palaeolithic sites forms the basis of a new model for the territorial organisation of Late Neandertal groups in the Aquitaine Basin to be built.

Analyses of Middle Paleolithic technological behaviors -and by extension of Neandertal cognitive capacities and mobility organization -have been revolutionized by theoretical perspectives devised from lithic technological and raw material investigations. Binary oppositions such as "Levallois/non-Levallois" are increasingly regarded as oversimplifications since differing reduction strategies are apparent in the same archaeological assemblages. Various factors including raw material quality and cyclical reduction are reflected in multiple lithic matrices. Detailed analyses of chaînes opératoires provided insights on the structures of lithic technological behaviors. The authors refer to extensive data from recent excavations in France and Belgium to argue that Middle Paleolithic tool provisioning and management strategies show clear organization and planning depth, even if those strategies differ from those of the Upper Paleolithic.Lithic Materials and Paleolithic Societies Edited by Brian Adams and Brooke S. Blades

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Multiple factors have been proposed to explain the disappearance of Neandertals between ca. 50 and 40 kyr BP. Central to these discussions has been the identification of new techno-cultural complexes that overlap with the period of Neandertal demise in Europe. One such complex is the Châtelperronian, which extends from the Paris Basin to the Northern Iberian Peninsula between 43,760–39,220 BP. In this study we present the first open-air Châtelperronian site in the Northern Iberian Peninsula, Aranbaltza II. The technological features of its stone tool assemblage show no links with previous Middle Paleolithic technology in the region, and chronological modeling reveals a gap between the latest Middle Paleolithic and the Châtelperronian in this area. We interpret this as evidence of local Neandertal extinction and replacement by other Neandertal groups coming from southern France, illustrating how local extinction episodes could have played a role in the process of disappearance of Neandertals.