Early Evidence of Acheulean Settlement in Northwestern Europe - La Noira Site, a 700 000 Year-Old Occupation in the Center of France

Abstract

The human settlement of Europe during Pleistocene times was sporadic and several stages have been recognized, both from paleaoanthropological and archaeological records. If the first phase of hominin occupation (as early as 1.4 Ma) seems mainly restricted to the southern part of the continent, the second phase, characterized by specific lithic tools (handaxes), is linked to Acheulean settlements and to the emergence of Homo heidelbergensis, the ancestor of Neanderthals. This phase reached northwestern Europe and is documented in numerous sites in Germany, Great Britain and northern France, generally after 600 ka.At la Noira (Brinay, Central France), the Middle Pleistocene alluvial formation of the Cher River covers an archaeological level associated with a slope deposit (diamicton). The lithic assemblage from this level includes Large Cutting Tools (LCTs), flakes and cores, associated with numerous millstone slabs. The lithic series is classified as Acheulean on the basis of both technological and typological analyses. Cryoturbation features indicate that the slope deposits and associated archaeological level were strongly frozen and disturbed after hominin occupation and before fluvial deposition. Eight sediment samples were dated by the electron spin resonance (ESR) method and the weighted average age obtained for the fluvial sands overlying the slope deposits is 665±55 ka. This age is older than previous chronological data placing the first European Acheulean assemblages north of 45th parallel north at around 500 ka and modifies our current vision of the initial peopling of northern Europe. Acheulean settlements are older than previously assumed and the oldest evidences are not only located in southern Europe. La Noira is the oldest evidence of Acheulean presence in north-western Europe and attests to the possibility of pioneering phases of Acheulean settlement which would have taken place on a Mode 1-type substratum as early as 700 ka. The lithic assemblage from la Noira thus provides behavioral and technological data on early Acheulean occupation in Europe and contributes to our understanding of the diffusion of this tradition.

The Early Acheulean technology of Barranc de la Boella (Catalonia, Spain)

“…Given that the landscape was the same and that the availability of raw materials did not changed during the Galería sequence, this fact may point to a certain degree of technological evolution of the Acheulean in Europe. Similar evidences come from the early Middle Pleistocene Acheulean assemblage of La Noira (France), dated in 700 ka, where large flake production, together with LCT on slabs, is already present (Moncel et al 2013).…”

“…It has an archaeological (not palaeontological) gap between the last Early Pleistocene level (TD6) -with Mode 1 technology, according to our consideration ) and dated at c. 900 ka (Par es et al, 1995(Par es et al, , 2013Falgu eres et al, 1999;Berger et al, 2008;Arnold et al, 2014)-, and the first Middle Pleistocene levels with lithic assemblages (TD9-TD10) ascribed to the Acheulean , and dated to > 400 ka (Falgu eres et al, 1999(Falgu eres et al, , 2013Berger et al 2008). The lower levels of the nearby site of Galería (50 m south of Gran Dolina) have a similar chronology with an Acheulean assemblage (Mosquera, 1998;Carbonell et al 2001;García-Medrano et al 2014) of around 400 ka (Berger et al 2008;Falgu eres et al 2013;Demuro et al 2014). This implies that there is a lack of archaeological information in Atapuerca from between c. 900 ka and c. 450 ka Oll e et al, 2013), so again there is a gap where there hypothetically may have been a technological transition between Mode 1 and the Acheulean.…”

“…The assemblage contains two hammerstones with the expected concentrated pitting limited to one extremity, indicating lithic knapping. There are also 10 cobbles and broken cobbles with less diagnostic marks suggesting percussion activities (hereafter, "percussion material", Mora and de la Torre, 2005;Roche et al, 2009;Moncel et al, 2013). The assemblage also yielded four choppercore forms, five cores and core fragments, two small tools on pebbles, seven retouched flakes, and 50 flakes, broken flakes and flake fragments (Fig.…”

Uneven Data Quality and the Earliest Occupation of Europe—the Case of Untermassfeld (Germany)

“…This gives special importance to the study of the geological context of inferred early sites: rocks can fracture naturally and edges can be modified by natural processes in sediments such as cryoturbation, transport, and volcanic activities, and a wide variety of such processes has been documented to mimic hominin modification and to produce Bartefact-like^geofacts (Gillespie et al 2004;Lubinski et al 2014;Nash 1993;Peacock 1991;Raynal et al 1995;Warren 1914Warren , 1920Wiśniewski et al 2014) (see also below, BDiscussion^). Interestingly, the emergence of the Acheulean signal in southern (Villa 2001) as well as northwestern Europe from 600 to 700 ka (Moncel et al 2013(Moncel et al , 2015Pereira et al 2015) onward is in the same time range as the current estimate for the beginning of the Neandertal lineage (Meyer et al 2016).…”

Climatic control on palaeohydrology and cyclical sediment distribution in the Plio-Quaternary deposits of the Guadix Basin (Betic Cordillera, Spain)

“…The origins of handaxe-making (Mode 2) behaviour are seen rather later, with the first Acheulean evidence in southern Europe generally appearing at around 600 ka, followed by a rapid colonization of the northwest at 500 ka (Coltorti et al, 2005;Tuffreau et al, 2008;Lefèvre et al, 2010;Jiménez-Arenas et al, 2011;Barsky and de Lumley, 2010;Moncel et al, 2013).…”