Timescales, space and culture during the Middle Palaeolithic in northwestern France

Locht, Jean‐luc; Hérisson, David; Goval, Emilie; Cliquet, Dominique; Huet, Briagell; Coutard, Sylvie; Antoine, Pierre; Feray, Philippe

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2015.07.053

Cited by 54 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…What is clear is that Neandertal populations in the west differed from the ones in the east (21,35) and that they were very dynamic on both regional and larger geographical scales. High-resolution data from northwestern Europe for instance show clear phases of presence and absence of Neandertals in the Late Pleistocene (36,37), very probably the result of a process of repeated phases of colonization, regional extinction, and recolonization, also during earlier glacial-interglacial cycles (37). This process must have been an important factor in the demography of these populations, including their limited genetic variation (15,38): genetic studies show that (late) Neandertal populations had small effective population sizes and were inbred, not only in relation to extant humans within Europe, but also in comparison with their Denisovan contemporaries (34): they were "thin on the ground" (39) indeed, even though making quantitative assessments of population densities in any given area is problematic (40).…”

Section: Neandertals In Time and Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Neandertals revised

Roebroeks

Soressi

2016

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

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The last decade has seen a significant growth of our knowledge of the Neandertals, a population of Pleistocene hunter-gatherers who lived in (western) Eurasia between ∼400,000 and 40,000 y ago. Starting from a source population deep in the Middle Pleistocene, the hundreds of thousands of years of relative separation between African and Eurasian groups led to the emergence of different phenotypes in Late Pleistocene Europe and Africa. Both recently obtained genetic evidence and archeological data show that the biological and cultural gaps between these populations were probably smaller than previously thought. These data, reviewed here, falsify inferences to the effect that, compared with their near-modern contemporaries in Africa, Neandertals were outliers in terms of behavioral complexity. It is only around 40,000 y ago, tens of thousands of years after anatomically modern humans first left Africa and thousands of years after documented interbreeding between modern humans, Neandertals and Denisovans, that we see major changes in the archeological record, from western Eurasia to Southeast Asia, e.g., the emergence of representational imagery and the colonization of arctic areas and of greater Australia (Sahul).

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Section: Neandertals In Time and Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Neandertals revised

Roebroeks

Soressi

2016

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

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“…In Northwestern Europe, MIS 6 tundra gleys have also been described in loess sequences. Locht et al (2016) report three tundra gleys and one paleosol in Northern France. In Belgium, Juvigné et al The Greenland ice-cores are the key paleoclimatic references used to interpret the paleosol-loess unit alternations identified during the last climate cycle in the European loess sequences at about 50°N.…”

Section: Speleothem Records (Figmentioning

confidence: 93%

DO-like events of the penultimate climate cycle: the loess point of view

Rousseau

Antoine

Boers

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Abstract. The global character of the millennial-scale climate variability associated with the Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) events in Greenland has been well-established for the last glacial cycle. Mainly due to the sparsity of reliable data, however, the spatial coherence of corresponding variability during the penultimate cycle is less clear. New investigations of European loess records from MIS 6 reveal the occurrence of alternating loess intervals and paleosols (incipient soil horizons), similar to those from the last climatic cycle. These paleosols are correlated based on their stratigraphical position and numbers, and available optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dates with interstadials described in various Northern Hemisphere records as well as in GLt_syn, the synthetic 800-kyr record of Greenland ice core δ18O. Therefore, referring to the interstadials described in the record of the last climate cycle in European loess sequences, the MIS 6 interstadials can confidently be interpreted as DO-like events of the penultimate climate cycle. The statistical similarity between the millennial-scale loess-paleosol oscillations during the last and penultimate climate cycle provides direct empirical evidence that the cycles of the penultimate cycle are indeed of the same nature as the DO cycles originally discovered for the last glacial cycle. Our results thus imply that their underlying cause and global imprint was characteristic of at least the last two climate cycles.

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“…Due to the use of the term Keilmessergruppen, which is now increasingly used in Central Europe, they propose to form a separate term for the industries at the beginning of the last glaciation (but make no proposal). Locht et al (2016), who avoid using cultural allocations or generic units to describe the assemblages wherever possible, consider the production systems for flakes, blades, points, and bifaces in each chronostratigraphic phase for northern France (MIS 7 to early MIS 3). They come to the conclusion that the individual reduction systems do not always occur and that bifacial elements are only sporadically present in individual units (Fig.…”

Section: Micoquian Research In Western and Central Europe During The mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Veil et al (1994, pp. 40-41), as well Locht et al (2016), Kozłowski (2016), and Blaser and Chaussé (2016) as Jöris (1993), proposed the term "Keilmessergruppen," introduced by Mania, as a substitute for the Micoquian (according to Bosinski, Günther, Toepfer, or Valoch). Jöris (1993, p. 45) writes in the same spirit that on the basis of the premises made against the term "Micoquien," there is a tendency to abandon all the termini for Micoquian associated with the research history and to introduce a more neutral term, that of the Keilmessergruppen, as a substitute.…”

Section: Assigning New Namesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When the assemblage components are described and a chronological framework exists, the assemblages are compared to one another. Similarly, Locht et al (2016), Hérisson et al (2016), or Soriano (2000 also tried to describe assemblages according to the reduction concepts and to fix them chronologically.…”

Section: Possibilities and Ideas For Overcoming The Term Micoquianmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reflections on the term Micoquian in Western and Central Europe. Change in criteria, changed deductions, change in meaning, and its significance for current research

Frick

2020

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

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The primary objective of this contribution is to show the intricate ways of over 100 years of research concerning the term Micoquian and its multiple shifts in meaning. A detailed analysis of the course of the research history has made it possible to identify several tendencies of shifting meaning. This concerned both its position within the chronology, its spatial extent, and decisive assemblage components. The term Micoquian has been used to describe complexes with very different characteristics. Chronologically, both assemblages dating before, during, and after the last interglacial period were referred to as Micoquian. To avoid difficulties in understanding the term, different names for the generic units of the respective assemblage units have been proposed from time to time. Due to the reflections on the research history, it is possible to investigate the question of whether and to what extent the term Micoquian should continue to be used and what significance is attached to it today, and to what extent it appears necessary to pursue other approaches to the classification of the Middle Paleolithic record. In conclusion, a multidisciplinary approach is proposed (including lithic, faunal, radiometric, site catchment, and/or settlement dynamic analysis) to build a multifaceted framework that is able to form clusters of similarities. The formerly defined generic units (called technocomplexes, facies, groups, space-time units, and so on) are seen purely as umbrella terms to structure the Paleolithic record, without claiming to reflect the former Paleolithic reality. With the addition of a tight chronological corset, the definitions of technocomplexes (by using lithic, faunal, and possibly floral data) could allow small, manageable space-time units to be formed and then compared with one another.

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Timescales, space and culture during the Middle Palaeolithic in northwestern France

Cited by 54 publications

References 38 publications

Neandertals revised

Neandertals revised

DO-like events of the penultimate climate cycle: the loess point of view

Reflections on the term Micoquian in Western and Central Europe. Change in criteria, changed deductions, change in meaning, and its significance for current research

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