The early upper Paleolithic of eastern Europe reconsidered

Abstract

Artifacts of Paleolithic age were first recognized in eastern Europe during the 1870s. Archeologists have struggled ever since to integrate them into the better known record of western Europe, where the interpretive framework of Paleolithic archeology was originally developed. The essential elements of both the Middle and Upper Paleolithic were recognized quickly in eastern Europe, and a close connection with a major middle Upper Paleolithic industry of central Europe (Gravettian) was established many years ago. The early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) has remained a major challenge, however; it is represented primarily by a bewildering array of local archeological cultures that exhibit limited similarity to contemporaneous industries of western and central Europe.6-9.

A radiocarbon chronology for the complete Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transitional sequence of Les Cottés (France)

“…The ages obtained on Les Cottés Protoaurignacian confirm that the Anatomically Modern Humans associated with this industry entered this part of Europe with the onset of HE4 and that they populated this area even during this phase, as observed also for Eastern Europe (Hoffecker, 2011(Hoffecker, , 2009). …”

Single amino acid radiocarbon dating of Upper Paleolithic modern humans

“…S1), is one of only three fossil human remains with a "complete" published mtDNA sequence (17) and it shows the five diagnostic substitutions defining haplogroup U2, present also in modern populations in Europe. Although the specimen is suspected of being Paleolithic in age, direct radiocarbon dates are much younger (∼3.7-13.6 kaBP) (18,19). One indication of a problem with the collagen from the bone is that the C:N ratio is higher than expected (Table 1: values outside 2.9-3.5 are considered problematic).…”

“…The burial lies under cultural layer III, but no signs of a burial pit were observed from the level of this cultural layer. A. N. Rogachev (21,22), the excavator, rejected any possibility for the burial to be attributed to cultural layer III, which is dated to ∼28.3-31.7 kaBP (19). The pit containing the body had cut through the volcanic ash horizon at the site, the Campanian Ignibrite (CI), which was clearly visible in the walls but absent from the burial fill (22,23).…”

The origin of the Gravettians: genomic evidence from a 36,000-year-old Eastern European

“…Although the integration of Eastern European EUP and MUP traditions into an archaeological framework defined in Central and Western Europe has historically been problematic, recent reassessments of EUP assemblages from the Caucasus 10–12 emphasize similar lithic traditions among roughly contemporaneous (40-30,000 cal BP) layers at sites such as Dzudzuana Cave (layer D), Ortvale Klde (layer 4c), Mezmaiskaya Cave (layer 1C), and the six layers of Buran Kaya III (layer 6-5 to 5-2) in Crimea 13,14 (see Supplementary Text for the stratigraphy of Buran-Kaya III). Some authors suppose that the appearance of these Caucasian and Eastern European EUP assemblages, which include backed blades and bladelets, are primarily based on the distribution and transformation of Ahmarian traditions from Near East to Europe, probably through the Caucasus, independent of that which brought the proto-Aurignacian to Central and Southern Europe and the Mediterranean area 10,14–16 . The parallels between these Eastern European industries and the Gravettian appearing later in Central Europe and the Danubian Valley have led some to propose the term “Early Gravettian” to describe these industries to distinguish them from the classical Gravettian 8,16,17 .…”