New data on the late Neandertals: Direct dating of the Belgian Spy fossils

Semal, Patrick; Rougier, Hélène; Crevecœur, Isabelle; Jungels, Cécile; Flas, Damien; Hauzeur, Anne; Maureille, Bruno; Germonpré, Mietje; Bocherens, Hervé; Pirson, Stéphane; Cammaert, Laurence; Clerck, Nora De; Hambücken, Anne; Higham, Thomas; Toussaint, Michel; Plicht, Johannes van der

doi:10.1002/ajpa.20954

Cited by 132 publications

(63 citation statements)

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“…It is also possible that a similar but shorter persistence pattern, albeit in an Upper Paleolithic context (the Lincombian/ Ranisian/Jerzmanowician), not a Middle Paleolithic one, underpins the direct dating to the ~41.0-41.5 ka cal BP interval of the two adult individuals from Spy (Semal et al 2009 ;Flas 2011 ). In both cases, such late Neandertal occurrences concern areas located outside the geographic range of the Protoaurignacian, while the directly dated Oase fossils, although lacking an immediate archeological context, come from a region where a coeval Protoaurignacian is well documented (Hahn 1977 ;Zilhão 2006a ;Teyssandier 2008 ).…”

Section: 3mentioning

confidence: 99%

Neandertal-Modern Human Contact in Western Eurasia: Issues of Dating, Taxonomy, and Cultural Associations

Zilhão

2013

Dynamics of Learning in Neanderthals and Modern Humans Volume 1

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Supporting Assimilation views of Neandertal/modern human interaction, chronostratigraphic reasoning indicates that the "transitional" industries of Europe predate modern human immigration, in agreement with their association with Neandertals in the Châtelperronian at the Grotte du Renne and St.-Césaire. Supporting the Neandertals' species separateness and less developed cognition, those industries are alternatively claimed to relate to pioneer groups of modern humans; the latter would have been the true makers of the precocious instances of symbolic material culture that, under Assimilation, are assigned to the Neandertals. However, the taxonomy of the Kent's Cavern and Grotta del Cavallo dental remains is uncertain, and their poor stratigraphic context precludes dating by association. The opposite happens at the Grotte du Renne, whose stratigraphic integrity is corroborated by both taphonomy and dating. Not questioning that the Early Ahmarian is a cultural proxy for modern humans and a source for the Protoaurignacian of Europe, its claimed emergence ~46-49 ka ago at Kebara refl ects the dating of Middle Paleolithic charcoal-to be expected, because the Early Ahmarian units at the back of the cave are made up of reworked Middle Paleolithic sediments derived from the entrance. The dating of inherited material also explains the old results for the Aurignacian of Willendorf II and Geissenklösterle. At the latter, the dates on anthropically modifi ed samples of the hunted taxa (reindeer and horse) place its Aurignacian occupations in the same time range as elsewhere in Europe, after ~40 ka ago. The hypothesis that Neandertal/modern human contact in Europe resulted in a process of assimilation in connection with the spread of the Protoaurignacian ~41.5 ka ago remains unfalsifi ed.

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Section: 3mentioning

confidence: 99%

Neandertal-Modern Human Contact in Western Eurasia: Issues of Dating, Taxonomy, and Cultural Associations

Zilhão

2013

Dynamics of Learning in Neanderthals and Modern Humans Volume 1

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“…That Neandertals made some of the transitional industries has at times been suggested based on fragmentary paleontological evidence (4,5) or on indirect chronological arguments (6). However, to date, only the Châtelperronian (CP), a transitional assemblage from central and southwestern France, and northern Spain, has yielded well-identified and relatively abundant Neandertal remains, specifically from two French sites (La Grotte du Renne and Saint-Césaire) (7-9).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Radiocarbon dates from the Grotte du Renne and Saint-Césaire support a Neandertal origin for the Châtelperronian

Hublin

Talamo

Julien

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

205

142

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The transition from the Middle Paleolithic (MP) to Upper Paleolithic (UP) is marked by the replacement of late Neandertals by modern humans in Europe between 50,000 and 40,000 y ago. Châtelperronian (CP) artifact assemblages found in central France and northern Spain date to this time period. So far, it is the only such assemblage type that has yielded Neandertal remains directly associated with UP style artifacts. CP assemblages also include body ornaments, otherwise virtually unknown in the Neandertal world. However, it has been argued that instead of the CP being manufactured by Neandertals, site formation processes and layer admixture resulted in the chance association of Neanderthal remains, CP assemblages, and body ornaments. Here, we report a series of accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dates on ultrafiltered bone collagen extracted from 40 well-preserved bone fragments from the late Mousterian, CP, and Protoaurignacian layers at the Grotte du Renne site (at Arcy-sur-Cure, France). Our radiocarbon results are inconsistent with the admixture hypothesis. Further, we report a direct date on the Neandertal CP skeleton from Saint-Césaire (France). This date corroborates the assignment of CP assemblages to the latest Neandertals of western Europe. Importantly, our results establish that the production of body ornaments in the CP postdates the arrival of modern humans in neighboring regions of Europe. This new behavior could therefore have been the result of cultural diffusion from modern to Neandertal groups.

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“…A similar, but shorter-lived persistence into the time range of the Protoaurignacian (but not beyond) of both the Neanderthals and the regionally associated material culture -in this case, the Lincombian/Jerzmanovician -is indicated by the dating of a few sites in Britain (Jacobi 2007) and the age of about forty-one thousand years ago or less obtained for directly dated fossils from Spy (Semal et al 2009). Although reasoning by stratigraphic association is precluded at this site by the inadequate methods used in its early 19th-century excavation, the dating is consistent with three observations: irstly, that the northernmost occurrence of the Protoaurignacian in western Europe (level VII of the Grotte du Renne) lies in Burgundy, some 500 kilometres to the south; secondly, that Jerzmanovician-like blade-points presumably associated with the dated Neanderthals exist in the Spy collections; thirdly, that the presence in said collections of split-based bone points typical of the earlier Aurignacian (see later in this chapter) sets an upper limit of ~40,300 years ago for the age of the site's bladepoint occupation.…”

Section: The Transitional Phasementioning

confidence: 54%

“…Alternatively, it could represent rapid diffusion of an innovation across interaction networks -in this case, the ixation of stone-tipped javelins in the role of primary hunting weapons, which may have occurred as a common response to the environmental challenges raised by the setting in of the rather long period of predominantly interstadial conditions that followed the onset of GI 12. Where the Bohunician is concerned, the impression of regional continuity is further strengthened by the fact that coeval human skeletal remains surrounding its core area in all directions, whether found in stratigraphic association with archaeological contexts of the earliest UP or directly dated to its time range, are exclusively of Neanderthals (e.g., Spy in Belgium, Neanderthal in Germany, El Sidrón in northern Spain, or Vindija in Croatia; Higham et al 2006b;Schmitz 2006;Semal et al 2009;Zilhão 2009;Torres et al 2010).…”

Section: The Transitional Phasementioning

confidence: 99%

The Upper Palaeolithic of Europe

Zilhão¹

The Cambridge World Prehistory 3 Volume Set

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the later part of the MP were lake-based, whereas, after about forty-ive thousand years ago, blade/bladelet production became predominant, if not exclusive, and remained so for thirty millennia; (b) such blade/bladelet blanks were obtained in the framework of volumetric core reduction schemes, while the Levallois method, characteristic of the MP, was entirely abandoned, even for the production of lake blanks; (c) as a result, the domestic component of retouched tool assemblages became dominated by end-scrapers and retouched blades instead of side-scrapers, notches and denticulates; (d) a component of points and barbs designed to be mounted on projectile tips and shaped to recognisable templates became readily apparent (probably in relation to the widespread adoption of complex composite tools requiring standardised blanks); and (e) implements made of bone and antler became ubiquitous at about the same time, even in those parts of the continent where wood was never in short supply, not even when climatic conditions were at their harshest. Secondly, in terms of demography, society and culture, the evidence for territoriality and identity, both individual and social, rare prior to ~45,000 years ago, became widespread thereafter and until the end of the Palaeolithic (Gamble 1983(Gamble , 1999 Vanhaeren & d'Errico 2006).After a review of current knowledge concerning the climatic and environmental background, this chapter will discuss issues of human ecology, culture and history. Given the limitations of space, the geographical and chronological coverage is of necessity imbalanced, and the emphasis will lie on describing and proposing interpretations for perceived general patterns, using speciic case studies to support the arguments, rather than on the illustration of regional or temporal particularities. The aim is to bring into focus what the UP as a whole represents in evolutionary terms by comparison with preceding times, namely where (a) technological innovation and adaptive success relate to demographic growth and social complexiication, and (b) these and related factors set a base line for the momentous developments that led to the emergence of food production in the later prehistory of Europe and the Greater Mediterranean.Throughout, calendar ages before present will be used (i.e., when relying upon radiocarbon results, after calibration; Reimer et al. 2009). The location of all sites mentioned in the text is given in Map 3.19.1, and the units of analysis are the different techno-complexes recognised in the literature (Table 3.19.1), grouped into four major phases: Transitional, The Upper Palaeolithic of EuropeEarly, Full and Final. The irst phase begins some time between ifty thousand and forty-ive thousand years ago with a period during which European Neanderthals experimented with novel technological systems in regionally diverse ways, and ends with the Protoaurignacian intrusion, which at present seems to be devoid of local roots and thus may well represent the archaeological signature of the irst wave ...

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New data on the late Neandertals: Direct dating of the Belgian Spy fossils

Cited by 132 publications

References 21 publications

Neandertal-Modern Human Contact in Western Eurasia: Issues of Dating, Taxonomy, and Cultural Associations

Neandertal-Modern Human Contact in Western Eurasia: Issues of Dating, Taxonomy, and Cultural Associations

Radiocarbon dates from the Grotte du Renne and Saint-Césaire support a Neandertal origin for the Châtelperronian

The Upper Palaeolithic of Europe

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