Academic literature on the topic 'Early Middle Magdaleniany'

Excavations since 1996 in the large El Mirón Cave in the Cantabrian Cordillera of northern Spain have revealed a cultural sequence of late Mousterian, early Upper Paleolithic, Solutrean, Magdalenian, Azilian, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, and Medieval occupations. These components have been dated by 51 generally coherent radiocarbon determinations, all run by the Geochron labs, in association with the Lawrence Livermore labs for AMS. This series is one of the largest for a single prehistoric site in Iberia or even Europe. The series is consistent with the record from Cantabrian Spain and provides new detail on the age of the Middle–Upper Paleolithic transition, on the various phases of the Magdalenian culture, on the appearance of the Neolithic in the Atlantic zone of Spain, and on the origins of the socioeconomic complexity in the metal ages. The stratigraphic relationship of 14C-dated levels to a roof-fall block and adjacent cave walls (both with engravings) provides rare terminus post and ante quem ages for execution of the rupestral art in El Mirón during the early to mid Magdalenian. The 14C record has also been instrumental in revealing the existence of depositional hiati during the early Holocene.

The beginning of the Middle Magdalenian is marked by an increase in the density and geographic extension of evidences of human occupation across western Europe. The Early Middle Magdalenian (19,5–17,5 ka cal. BP) thereby extends from Poland to Spain, and the sharing of the flint-knapping concepts and the circulation of raw materials show the existence of networks active over this wide area. In parallel, part of the production of art, ornaments, microliths, bone industry, and the proportions of hunted ungulates vary regionally and allow to identify distinct technical traditions. Departing from a palethnographic approach at a regional scale, this paper aims at participating in renewing our understanding of the mechanisms of regionalisation during the period, and among past societies of hunter-gatherers. The reflection is based on the techno-functional analysis of stone tools from two cave sites of west-central France that are at the heart of the definition of two technical traditions: La Marche (Magdalenian with Lussac-Angles points) and the Blanchard cave (Magdalenian with navettes). Inter-site comparisons of the functioning and management of stone tools, and of subsistence strategies show the sharing of techno-economical norms, expressing the adhesion to a wider community of practice. The long-term occupation of at least part of the caves and the high density of sites in the Vienne, the Creuse, the Gartempe, and the Charente Valleys, indicate the strong regional implantation of human societies. This strong territoriality (effective and symbolic) is likely a major factor to understand the specificity of the EMM expressions in the area, as well as the sharing, in the same economic territory, of technical norms and of part of the system of symbolic representation.

Dating the appearance of the spear-thrower and the bow among Paleolithic hunter-gatherers has long been an important concern for prehistoric research. In Western Europe, the direct evidence (antler spear-thrower “hooks” from the Middle Magdalenian ca. 19-16 cal ka BP, and pine arrows from the Ahrensburgian ca. 12-11.5 cal ka BP) suggests that the spear-thrower was replaced, or at least largely superseded, by the bow around the end of the Magdalenian period, but the nature and evolution of the weapons used at the transitional period remains unclear. Unlike point morphometry, the comparative study of the points’ fracture patterns offers interesting perspectives for the identification of the projectile delivery mode; but it was rarely applied, especially to points from that period. Projectile experiments carried out in the Cedarc / Musée du Malgré-Tout in the early 2000s bring new data into this debate. Both spear-thrower and bow were used in conditions replicating Palaeolithic hunting, and the projectiles were equipped with experimental copies of antler fork-based points from the Upper Magdalenian (ca. 16-14 cal ka BP) of the Isturitz cave site. After impact, several experimental specimens show proximal fractures characteristic of spear-thrower use, likely due to the much greater size and mass of the spears compared to the arrows, as well as their more irregular trajectory. Similar fractures are found on many of the archaeological specimens: these points were thus used as spearheads rather than arrowheads. The radiocarbon dating of one antler spear-thrower from Isturitz confirms this association. However, the complementary usage of spear-throwers made of perishable materials is plausible, and the concomitant existence of the bow cannot be ruled out.

Abstract. Research on the Palaeolithic started in Switzerland during the 19th Century in the overall framework of cave studies. Two different industries were soon recognized: middlepalaeolithic flake tools usually together with the bones of cave bear, and a late palaeolithic blade industry associated with bone and antler tools, sculptures and line drawings. Recent research yielded complementary information on openair sites. A characteristic Mousterian tool-kit comes from a surface deposit at Pleigne JU, Löwenburg. New chronostratigraphic studies in the alpine Wildkirchli cave resulted in a relatively late date for its middle-palaeolithic layers. The late palaeolithic open-air and cave Sites, which belong to an evolved Magdalenian tradition, seem to concentrate around the Bölling oscillation. Information on the final Palaeolithic and early Mesolithic is still too fragmentary for conclusions.

Gruta do Caldeirão features a c. 6 m-thick archaeological stratification capped by Holocene layers ABC-D and Ea, which overlie layer Eb, a deposit of Magdalenian age that underwent significant disturbance, intrusion, and component mixing caused by funerary use of the cave during the Early Neolithic. Here, we provide an updated overview of the stratigraphy and archaeological content of the underlying Pleistocene succession, whose chronology we refine using radiocarbon and single-grain optically stimulated luminescence dating. We find a high degree of stratigraphic integrity. Dating anomalies exist in association with the succession’s two major discontinuities: between layer Eb and Upper Solutrean layer Fa, and between Early Upper Palaeolithic layer K and Middle Palaeolithic layer L. Mostly, the anomalies consist of older-than-expected radiocarbon ages and can be explained by bioturbation and palimpsest-forming sedimentation hiatuses. Combined with palaeoenvironmental inferences derived from magnetic susceptibility analyses, the dating shows that sedimentation rates varied in tandem with the oscillations in global climate revealed by the Greenland oxygen isotope record. A steep increase in sedimentation rate is observed through the Last Glacial Maximum, resulting in a c. 1.5 m-thick accumulation containing conspicuous remains of occupation by people of the Solutrean technocomplex, whose traditional subdivision is corroborated: the index fossils appear in the expected stratigraphic order; the diagnostics of the Protosolutrean and the Lower Solutrean predate 24,000 years ago; and the constraints on the Upper Solutrean place it after Greenland Interstadial 2.2. (23,220–23,340 years ago). Human usage of the site during the Early Upper and the Middle Palaeolithic is episodic and low-intensity: stone tools are few, and the faunal remains relate to carnivore activity. The Middle Palaeolithic is found to persist beyond 39,000 years ago, at least three millennia longer than in the Franco-Cantabrian region. This conclusion is upheld by Bayesian modelling and stands even if the radiocarbon ages for the Middle Palaeolithic levels are removed from consideration (on account of observed inversions and the method’s potential for underestimation when used close to its limit of applicability). A number of localities in Spain and Portugal reveal a similar persistence pattern. The key evidence comes from high-resolution fluviatile contexts spared by the site formation issues that our study of Caldeirão brings to light—palimpsest formation, post-depositional disturbance, and erosion. These processes. are ubiquitous in the cave and rock-shelter sites of Iberia, reflecting the impact on karst archives of the variation in climate and environments that occurred through the Upper Pleistocene, and especially at two key points in time: between 37,000 and 42,000 years ago, and after the Last Glacial Maximum. Such empirical difficulties go a long way towards explaining the controversies surrounding the associated cultural transitions: from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic, and from the Solutrean to the Magdalenian. Alongside potential dating error caused by incomplete decontamination, proper consideration of sample association issues is required if we are ever to fully understand what happened with the human settlement of Iberia during these critical intervals, and especially so with regards to the fate of Iberia’s last Neandertal populations.

This study is devoted to geometric images (also called “abstract” and “non-figurative”) on pebbles and stone tablets that are represented in the context of cave and open Paleolithic sites of Europe and Russia. Terms such as “geometric image” and “symbolic image” reflect different approaches to the study of non-figurative images - morphological and semiotic. Geometric images chronologically appeared earlier than figurative ones: the first evidence of nonutilitarian activity in the form of notches and strokes is known at the sites of the Acheulean time, and for the Middle Paleolithic their number reached several dozen. With the onset of the Upper Paleolithic, the heyday of Paleolithic art begins. Since the Magdalenian, there has been a sharp development of non-figurative art, which reached its apogee in the final Paleolithic. It was during this period that Azil pebbles appeared, and geometric images on stones became serial and standardized, primarily in Western Europe. Pebbles and stone tablets with signs are found on the territory of Central and Eastern Europe, the Urals and Siberia, up to Kamchatka. Some geometric images are found both in mobile and in rock art, but in most cases, it is impossible to consider the signs separately from the object on which they are applied. Pebbles and stone tablets are usually decorated with different motifs. They existed in different contexts and cultures: tablets were more often used as a base in the Magdalenian, and pebbles – in the Azilian. They probably had different meanings and were created for different purposes. The technique of image creation was also important: it is no accident that drawings made with paint rarely have analogies among engraved images, even within the one site. The application of the semiotic approach allows us to identify groups of images that can be considered elements of sign systems. The Azilian pebbles of Western Europe can be attributed to the sign systems. Stone objects with geometric images from Eastern Europe and Siberia do not form such a unity: they are represented by single artifacts, diverse in morphology, age, technique and the type of the stone object. Some objects found at the sites of the Northern Asia, from the Urals to Kamchatka, show similarities with European artifacts. However, such examples are rare, and similar stones with geometric images were found at sites very remote from each other, so it is too early to draw conclusions about their relationship.

Compared with Poland, the territory of Bohemia and Moravia is not so rich in natural occurrences of high-quality siliceous rocks (silicites, ‘flints’). This contribution follows distribution of the four most attractive Polish chipped raw materials (silicite of the Cracow-Częstochowa Jurassic, ‘chocolate’ silicite, banded Krzemionki [striped] silicite and spotted Świeciechów [grey white-spotted] silicite) in the Czech Republic. Since the middle phase of Upper Palaeolithic (Gravettian) the Jurasssic-Cracow silicites had been transported to Moravia and since its late phase (Magdalenian) also to Bohemia. The first use of the ‘chocolate’ silicite has been ascertained at some Late Aurignacian (Epiaurignacian) sites of central Moravia similarly as an exceptional find attesting early use of Świeciechów spotted silicite (Late Szeletian?). No finds of the banded Krzemionki silicite have been registered in Pre-Neolithic flaked assemblages in the Czech Republic. Evidence of systematic and mass transport of silicites from the Cracow-Częstochowa Jurassic to northern/central Moravia and to eastern/central Bohemia has been found in some periods of the Neolithic (especially connected with the Linear Pottery culture). For the period of the earlier Eneolithic (Funnel Beaker culture) we can identify a small but systematic presence of raw materials from the northern foreland of the Świętokrzyskie (Holy Cross) Mountains, this comprises objects of banded Krzemionki silicite and spotted Świeciechów silicite. About 24 Moravian non-stratified finds of axes made of the banded Krzemionki silicite and polished over the whole surface can be probably connected with the Globular Amphora culture. Silicites from the Cracow-Częstochowa Jurassic appeared again in the late Eneolithic, especially as arrowheads of the Bell Beaker culture in Moravia. Only two pieces made from the Jurassic Cracow-Częstochowa silicite appeared in a collection of 1463 artefacts connected with the Early Bronze Age in Moravia

This succinct contribution focuses on description and preliminary interpretation of “minor” occupations of the large, strategically located El Mirón Cave on the edge of the Cantabrian Cordillera in eastern Cantabria (Spain) during the Middle and early Upper Magalenian that followed upon the massive, culturally rich, faunally dense, functionally complex deposits of the Initial and Lower Magdalenian. The ten levels analyzed here date to the Late Glacial, c. 15.5-12.5 uncal kya BP. At a time when the classic Middle Magdalenian of the nearby French Pyrenees developed and major residential sites with clear social links to it (via the key site of Isturitz) were occupied in the lowland coastal zone of Cantabria and Asturias (e.g. La Garma, Llonín, La Viña), El Mirón had reverted for the most part to the role of a short-term, special-purpose, perhaps logistical campsite, rather than as a long-term, large-scale hub residential base. It is tempting (and indeed traditional) to focus on levels with large numbers of lithic and osseous artifacts, as well as works of portable art and personal ornaments, which are so characteristic of the most famous Magdalenian occupations. However, in hunter-gatherer subsistence systems, the “minor” locations played a significant role in the human exploitation of territories (especially ones with such complex, high relief as Cantabrian Spain). The levels in question here include some that can be interpreted as hunting camps (suggested by high percentages of worked and unworked bladelets and some antler points within the small assemblages), partially reminiscent of the use to which the cave may have been put during pre-Initial Magdalenian times, notably during the Solutrean, which was relatively rich in stone points.

AbstractThe well-known Late Upper Palaeolithic cave site of Maszycka (southern Poland), excavated in the end of the nineteenth century as well as in the 1960s, furnished a collection of 89 osseous artefacts manufactured from cervid antler, mammoth ivory, and mammal long bone. The great majority are finished tools, mostly projectile points, while raw material blocks, pre-forms, and production waste are represented by only a few pieces. Based on the presence of the characteristic double-split antler tools, distinct projectile morphologies, and recurring ornaments, the assemblage from Maszycka can be assigned to the early Middle Magdalenian facies à navettes which dates to around 19 - 17.5 ka cal. BP. Compared to the western European sites, which also belong to this facies, Maszycka is characterised by a high proportion of ivory tools, reflecting the abundance of this favourable raw material in eastern central Europe, as well as an unusually high proportion of decorated tools, which may relate to an increased need for symbolic communication within the small and geographically isolated Magdalenian group. Both the remarkable typo-technological similarities of the bone industry from Maszycka to contemporary assemblages in France and the gap in the central European archaeological record between 22 and 19 ka cal. BP speak in favour of a direct immigration of Magdalenian hunter-gatherers from western Europe immediately after the end of the Last Glacial Maximum. Their relations to the bearers of the Epigravettian adjacent to the east and south remain to date poorly understood.

Abstract In this study, we examine the role of foxes in Palaeolithic economies, focusing on sites of the Middle Palaeolithic, Aurignacian, Gravettian and Magdalenian of the Swabian Jura. For this purpose, we used published faunal data from 26 assemblages from the region, including new information from the Magdalenian layers of Langmahdhalde. We explore how the abundance of foxes changes over time, how they were used by humans, and how they were deposited at the sites, with a special focus on fox hunting methods. To evaluate these hunting methods, we use the prey choice model of optimal foraging theory (OFT) and simulate possible hunting scenarios, which we test based on the published faunal assemblages. Our research indicates that foxes were hunted since the early Upper Palaeolithic for their meat, fur and teeth, possibly with traps. We find that the abundance of fox remains in the archaeological record of the region increased continuously starting in the Aurignacian, which cannot be explained by taphonomic factors. The trend of foxes to adapt to human-influenced environments with commensal behavior may also have contributed to them being hunted more often.

Les données acquises dans le cadre de l'ANR MAGDATIS sur la période 19-18 Ky calBP permettent des soulever un certain nombre de questions relatives à la mise en place du Magdalénien classique dans le sud-ouest français. En outre, de nombreux résultats de datations C14 offrent un nouveau cadre plus précis pour cette période synchrone avec les débuts de l’événement climatique d’Heinrich 1 et ses conséquences sur l'environnement (paysages et disponibilités en gibier). Parallèlement, cette période est marquée par d'importantes transformations sociales et symboliques visibles dans différents registres : sépultures primaires richement dotées, sculptures pariétales, développement de la figuration humaine et sexuelle, recomposition des équipements lithiques et osseux. L'objectif de cette thèse est de confronter les comportements techniques et économiques à partir de l’examen de séries lithiques du Magdalénien moyen ancien (19-18 Ky calBP) à ces changements suscités afin d'en inférer sur les transformations sociétales des groupes de chasseurs-cueilleurs de cette période charnière. Plusieurs séries lithiques sont disponibles pour mener à bien ce projet dans le cadre d'analyses taphonomiques (numérisation des carnets de St Germain ou Roc de Marcamps disponibles). Une révision des séries de Marcamps, St Germain, Moulin Neuf, Combe Cullier, Petit Cloup Barrat couche 3, mais également l'apport de nouvelles fouilles (Laa2 et Ste Colome dans le Béarn) permettront d'appréhender sous un nouveau jour les premiers temps du Magdalénien moyen. L'espace géographique est circonscrit au sud-ouest de la France et centré sur la façade atlantique, participant ainsi également à des réflexions sur le peuplement, les territoires et les interactions sociales développées par ces groupes
The data acquired within the framework of the MAGDATIS RNA for the period 19-18 Ky calBP allow us to raise a certain number of questions concerning the establishment of the Classic Magdalenian in southwestern France. In addition, numerous C14 dating results offer a new and more precise framework for this period, synchronous with the beginning of the Heinrich 1 climatic event and its consequences on the environment (landscapes and availability of game). At the same time, this period is marked by important social and symbolic transformations visible in different registers: richly endowed primary burials, parietal sculptures, development of human and sexual figuration, recomposition of lithic and bone equipment. The objective of this thesis is to compare technical and economic behaviors based on the examination of lithic series from the Early Middle Magdalenian (19-18 Ky calBP) with these changes in order to infer about the societal transformations of hunter-gatherer groups during this pivotal period. Several lithic series are available to carry out this project within the framework of taphonomic analyses (digitization of the St Germain or Roc de Marcamps notebooks available). A revision of the series from Marcamps, St Germain, Moulin Neuf, Combe Cullier, Petit Cloup Barrat layer 3, but also the contribution of new excavations (Laa2 and Ste Colome in Béarn) will allow us to apprehend the early Middle Magdalenian period in a new light. The geographical area is limited to southwestern France and centered on the Atlantic coast, thus also contributing to reflections on the settlement, territories and social interactions developed by these groups

Since their initial discovery in the nineteenth century, human figurines have formed a noticeable part of the artistic record of the 30,000 years of the European Upper Palaeolithic. Some figurines—particularly the ‘Venuses’ of the Mid-Upper Palaeolithic (Gravettian sensu lato)—have long served as icons of Upper Palaeolithic cultural achievement. This chapter reviews our current understanding of figurines of western and North Central Europe. Their first manifestation is with a few enigmatic examples during the Early Upper Palaeolithic (Aurignacian) of southwest Germany. A far more visible and geographically widespread manifestation comes with the Mid-Upper Palaeolithic Venus figurines, and a similarly widespread occurrence comes with the highly schematic side-profile outlines of the Gönnersdorf type, which belong to the Middle and Late Magdalenian. The history of interpretation and current thinking of these figurine horizons is discussed in this chapter, which should be read in conjunction with Chapter 30 (Farbstein).