Interpreting the Formation of the Abri Dufaure: An Upper Paleolithic Site in Southwestern France

Describing and comparing archaeological spatial structures

“…Today, the practice of archaeological spatial studies involves (1) paying explicit attention to artifact and element attributes that are known or suspected to be sensitive to specific structuring processes, (2) describing spatial patterns in terms of the distribution of those attributes, and (3) assessing whether particular processes have been at work. Some recent analyses have considered a suite of such indicators (e.g., Enloe et al, 1994;Petraglia et al, 1994) and have constructed formational narratives for the deposits in question.…”

“…The spatial patterning of the attribute density grounds an interpretation about the generating process (e.g., Enloe et al, 1994). Site formational history, then, is constructed from several individual analyses of this sort (e.g., Petraglia et al, 1994).…”

The Analysis of Stone Tool Procurement, Production, and Maintenance

“…Franklin and Simek (2001) used refitting analysis on a rock shelter assemblage from Tennessee to conclusively infer that bipolar technology had been used to test and reduce cobbles. Simek (1994) notes that refitting stone artifacts is a common analytical practice in parts of Europe (see also Grimm and Koetje 1992;Petraglia 1992;Veil 1990;Villa 1982). Archaeologists working in Japan also are actively refitting lithic assemblages (Bleed 2002a(Bleed , b, 2004Serizawa 1978).…”

Perturbation assessment in archaeological sites as part of the taphonomic study: a review of methods used to document the impact of natural processes on site formation and archaeological interpretations

“…The existence of movements of the remains caused by biopedological factors occurring after burial is a well-established fact in geoarchaeology (Wood and Johnson 1978), and such movements were observed in different contexts, in open air sites (Cahe 1976;Bunn et al 1980;Van Noten et al 1980;Villa 1982;Barton 1987;Vermeersch and Bubel 1997) as well as in caves and rockshelters (Bordes 1972;Petraglia et al 1994). The anthropised palaeosurfaces are degraded to varying degrees depending on the magnitude of transformations linked to mechanisms such as burrowing (Hole 1981;Bocek 1992;Armour-Chelu and Andrews 1994;Balek 2002;Johnson 2002;Araujo and Marcelino 2003;Canti 2003;Mallye 2011), trampling by humans (Villa and Courtin 1983;Nielsen 1991;Benito-Calvo et al 2011) and animals (Thiébaut et al 2010;Eren et al 2010;Asryan et al 2014), tree uprooting (Schaetzl et al 1990;Crombé 1993;Langohr 1993), argiliturbation in soils rich in swelling clays (Cahen and Moeyersons 1977;Delagnes et al 2006), frost jacking and cryoturbation in periglacial environments (Johnson and Hansen 1974;Pissart 1977;Masson 2010;Yamagishi and Matsuoka 2015), or the sieving effect in coarse materials without an interstitial matrix (Bertran et al 2015;Dudill et al 2017).…”