The Palaeolithic occupation of Europe as revealed by evidence from the rivers: data from IGCP 449

Abstract

IGCP 449 (2000–2004), seeking to correlate fluvial records globally, has compiled a dataset of archaeological records from Pleistocene fluvial sequences. Many terrace sequences can now be reliably dated and correlated with marine oxygen isotope stages (MIS), allowing potentially useful patterns in artefact distribution to be recognised. This review, based on evidence from northwest European and German sequences (Thames, Somme, Ilm, Neckar and Wipper), makes wider comparisons with rivers further east, particularly the Vltava, and with southern Europe, especially Iberia. The northwest and southern areas have early assemblages dominated by handaxes, in contrast with flake‐core industries in Germany and further east. Fluvial sequences can provide frameworks for correlation, based on markers within the Palaeolithic record. In northwest Europe the first appearance of artefacts in terrace staircases, the earliest such marker, dates from the mid–late Cromerian Complex. Flake‐core industries may have significantly preceded handaxe industries in southern Europe. An important technological innovation—Levallois technique—occurs at the Lower‐Middle Palaeolithic boundary, correlated with MIS 9–8. Humans deserted northern Europe during MIS 6, apparently returning to central Germany and northern France (Somme valley) by MIS 5e but not reaching southern England until the appearance of Mousterian culture during MIS 4–3. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Rivers through geological time: the fluvial contribution to understanding of our planet

“…In the fluvio-lacustrine sequence of the Siwaliks, in the Himalayan foreland, an important vertebrate record includes fossils of hominin ancesters (Johnson et al, 1983). Fine-grained floodplain sediments can also preserve trace fossils (e.g., Pollard, 1985), a classification that in the Pleistocene includes the artefacts that record the presence of early humans (Wymer, 1999;Bridgland, 2000;Bridgland et al, 2006;Mishra et al, 2007). Numerically these artefacts are dominated by waste material from the manufacture of stone tools, although the tools themselves represent a conspicuous and highly informative body of data.…”

An enhanced record of MIS 9 environments, geochronology and geoarchaeology: data from construction of the High Speed 1 (London–Channel Tunnel) rail-link and other recent investigations at Purfleet, Essex, UK

“…Comparably complete late Middle Pleistocene fluvial sequences in Germany provide further examples of MIS 9 riverine sediments, amongst which two are of particular importance: a terrace staircase of the River Wipper, in Thuringia, and a basin-infill sequence exposed in an open-cast lignite mine at Schöningen, Lower Saxony, both of which have yielded notable archaeological assemblages (Mania, 1995;Urban et al, 1995;Bridgland et al, 2006;Mishra et al, 2007). The terraces of the Wipper, a tributary of the Saale-Elbe system, are documented from a single meander-core at Bilzingsleben and include interbedded cold-climate gravels and interglacial travertines, with colluvial overburden, some of it loessic.…”

Fluvial deposits as an archive of early human activity

“…The infonnation from here was reviewed recently by Bridgland et al (2006), so the foregoing will be restricted to highlights. Signifi cant advances have been achieved during the past decade, some of which challenge former received wisdom.…”

“…There has been participation in IGCP 449 from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Moldova and Ukraine, each of which has sites contributing to this pattern of evidence. Data from the Czech site at Racineves, in the Vltava valley (Tyricek et aI., 2004), and Vertessz61os, Hungary (Kretzoi and Vertes, 1965;Kretzoi and Dobosi, 1990;Moncel, 2003), were reviewed recently by Bridgland et al (2006), so brief mentions will suffice here. The RaCineves deposits, part of the Straskov 2 terrace of the Vltava, is another with a diminutive non-handaxe (LPMT) lithic assemblage of a type characteristic of central Europe (Bridgland et aI., 2006).…”

“…At contemporaneous sites further north, such as Isernia La Pineta, mentioned above, only fl ake artefacts are known, leading to the suggestion of a separate immigration of handaxe makers from North Africa (cf. Bridgland et aL, 2006).…”