Shifts in Neandertal mobility, technology and subsistence strategies in western France

Are Lithics and Fauna a Match Made in (Prehistoric) Heaven?

“…For example, in their diachronic study of lithic and faunal assemblages from four Italian cave sites, Stiner and Kuhn (1992;Kuhn 1995;Stiner 1994) linked flaking from platform cores with reduced mobility and more emphasis on hunting, whereas use of centripetal cores was linked to higher mobility and greater reliance on scavenging. A somewhat similar approach was taken by Delagnes and Rendu (2011), who argued that various lithic flaking systems (e.g., Levallois and laminar; Quina; discoidal-denticulate; and the Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition) reflected distinct mobility strategies as a response to different hunting practices. This case study, from a single region and from a restricted time window, is based on associations of faunal and lithic evidence but the causal relationship is not well elucidated, as noted by the authors themselves.…”

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“…As noted above, a recent trend in chaîne opératoire research by Meignen (2002, 2006), Delagnes et al (2007), and Delagnes and Rendu (2011) has shown a marked change in the analytical use of assemblages typed into particular chaînes opératoires. Instead of treating the identification of the chaînes opératoires as the goal, these studies use them as a means to an end.…”

“…Yet despite this very positive reaffirmation that all lithic analysts are truly engaged in the same task of understanding the holistic lifeways of past stone tool users, the emic-approach within this chaîne opératoire research may still derail the convergence to some degree. Beyond the thorny issue of eliminating our recognition of technological variability through the qualitative pigeon holing of assemblages into technological types described above, the ecological distinctions for each technology proposed by Delagnes and Rendu (2011), building off of the conclusions of Delagnes and Meignen (2006), are not as quantitatively justified on the order of low-level theory or rigorously articulated with the middle-level expectations of behavioral ecology as you see in parallel examples of other organization of technology studies. For instance, the conclusions in Delagnes and Rendu's Figure 5, showing the placement of the four technological types noted above in relation to the three axes of "tools maintenance," "blank versatility," and "duration of flaking/ shaping sequences," are not as quantitatively supported as one would like when employing these conclusions in evolutionary syntheses.…”

“…In contrast, until relatively recent papers by Meignen (2002, 2006), Delagne et al (2007), and Delagnes and Rendu (2011), chaîne opératoire advocates have done little with the diversity of assemblages "typed" to one schema opératoire or another. In part, they have been waiting for sufficient data to begin to understand the meaning of the temporal and environmental patterning of these technologies in the past.…”

Testing a hypothesis about the importance of the quality of raw material on technological changes at Abric Romaní (Capellades, Spain): Some considerations using a high-resolution techno-economic perspective

“…The reasons for changes in knapping strategies have been identified in climatic and environmental fluctuations (Rolland & Dibble 1990), landscape exploitation changes with consequences on raw material availability (Geneste 1985), mobility strategy shifts related to foraging activities (Delagnes & Rendu 2011), presence of human groups with different cultural backgrounds (Moncel & Daujeard 2012), and risk assessment of the activities carried out at the sites (Romagnoli 2015). In the last years, researchers clearly showed that many factors contributed to the variability of Neanderthal behaviour.…”