Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic

Question 1

Basic chronology of Upper Palaeolithic & Mesolithic

Answer 1

• Last Mousterian & Early Upper Palaeolithic (c. 45 – 42 kya). Homo neanderthalis & Homo sapiens sapiens – Neanderthals and modern humans inhabiting Europe at same time (but not necessarily Britain);
• Châtelperronian (c. 45,000 – 40,000 BP). Neanderthals or modern humans;
• Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician (LRJ, c. 45,000 – c. 43,000 BP). Neanderthals or modern humans;
• Aurignacian (c. 41,000 – 35,000 BP). Modern humans.
• Gravettian (c. 35,000 – 22,000 BP).
• Solutrean (c. 22,000 – 17,000 BP).
• Magdalenian – Late Upper Palaeolithic (c. 17,000 – c.13,000 BC).
• Creswellian (c. 13,000 – 11,800 BP).
• Early Mesolithic (c. 9600 – c. 6000 BC).
• Later Mesolithic (c. 6000 – c. 4000 BC).

Question 2

Europe’s last Neanderthals, & first H. sapiens

Answer 2

-c. 45,000 – 42,000 BP – Neanderthals & modern humans together in Europe

Question 3

What happened?

Answer 3

1) Modern humans out-competed Neanderthals who were too slow/specialised to adapt to change;
2) Climate change – see above;
3) Genocide;
4) Disease;
5) Neanderthals & humans interbred;
6) Combinations of the above…..

Question 4

Hybridisation?

Answer 4

-Lagar Velho, Portugal c. 24.5 kya
• 4 year old boy;
• Debate over Neanderthal influence on skeleton…
-Peștera cu Oase, Romania c. 40 kya
• ‘Modern human’ features like projecting chin, no brow ridge, high & rounded brain case;
• Some Neanderthal characteristics e.g. large crest of bone behind ear, robust jaw & big teeth that get even larger toward the back.

Question 5

The Châtelperronian – a late Neanderthal adaptive culture?

Answer 5

• At sites such as La Grotte des Fées in Châtelperron, & Grotte-du-Renne, Arcy-sur-Cure 1960s excavations recovered assemblages with backed blades & burins but also worked bone awls & needles, & ivory & pierced shells & teeth . c. 45,000 – 40,000 BP.
• Châtelperronian stone tools seem to be continuation of Mousterian (Neanderthal) manufacture techniques, but bone & ivory objects similar to those of earliest H. sapiens Aurignacian culture. BUT stratigraphy Grotte-du-Renne was disturbed, & excav. techniques & recording not great.
• Delporte, Bordes & Zilhão argue this a hybrid culture, Neanderthals learning from modern humans. Hublin with AMS 14C dates has shown that bone ornaments, awls, pierced teeth & ivory pendants do date to this early period.
• Recent palaeoproteomic & aDNA analyses of hominin bones associated with tools indicate Neanderthal ancestry. Others, incl. Gamble, Mellars & Stringer, still assert that stratigraphy is too disturbed, & that these are comingled assemblages of objects.

Question 6

Other late Mousterian/‘transitional’ evidence

Answer 6

• Perforated shells from Mousterian deposits c. 50,000 BP, Cueva de los Aviones, Cartagena, Spain •
• Incised bone, & cup-mark decorated grave slab, from Neanderthal burials c. 75,000 – 50,000 BP at La Ferrassie (Les Eyzies, France)

Question 7

Who were the leaf-point makers?

Answer 7

• Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician (LRJ, c. 45,000 – c. 43,000 BP) technology in NW Europe. Characterised by thick blade blanks, often from opposed platform cores, & long, ‘leaf-shaped’ blade-points
• These bladepoints probably used as spear tips – some have impact fractures e.g. from Beedings Hill in West Sussex
• Who were the leaf-point makers? Made by Neanderthals, or earliest H. sapiens?

Question 8

The earliest modern human remains in Europe?

Answer 8

• Infant molar from Grotta del Cavallo, Italy recently 14C dated to 45,000 – 43,000 BP.
• The earliest modern human remains in Europe? Tibia from adult male, Ust’-Ishim, Siberia, dated to c. 45,000 BP
• Jawbone fragment from Kent’s Cavern, Devon, recently 14C dated to 44,200 – 41,500 BP.

Question 9

It’s culture, innit?

Answer 9

• Perforated animal bone & ivory beads Geißenklösterle Cave, SW Germany, c. 42 – 40, 000 BP.
• Venus of Hohle Fels, Germany, c. 40 – 35,000 BP.
• Löwenmensch figurine or Lionman of the Hohlenstein-Stadel, SW Germany, c. 40, 000 BP.
• Cueva de El Castillo cave art, Puente Viesgo, Cantabria, Spain, c. 40,800 BP. Neanderthals or
modern humans?

Question 10

New technologies, ways of being & scales of movement

Answer 10

• Long distance movements & exchanges of material taking place – sea shells >1000km; amber from Black Sea >700 km; & Polish flint >400km.
• Biomechanical analyses of pedal phalanges of W. Europe MP & UP humans suggests footwear much more common in UP.

Question 11

Aurignacian

Answer 11

• 41,000 – 36,000 BP
• The Upper Danube Valley region in SW Germany is a possible ‘homeland’ for the Aurignacian. As a lithics industry it is characterised by:
• End scrapers (carinated, nosed & shouldered), burins busqués (chisel-like implements), multi-component tools & weapons, & bone/antler points

Question 12

Goat’s Hole Cave, Paviland, South Wales

Answer 12

• Goat’s Hole Cave at Paviland on the Gower peninsula in S Wales has lithics from c. 40,000 BP to c. 13,000 BP (incl. Mousterian, leaf point, & later Aurignacian).
• The earliest Aurignacian material consists of c. 50 lithics – small-scale, intermittent occupation.
• The first excavator at Paviland in 1823 was William Buckland the Oxford don, Dean of Westminster & Curate of Christchurch. He kept a pet hyaena at home, sometimes bringing it into college
• At Paviland, he found bones of ‘antediluvial’ animals incl. a mammoth skull (now lost), but also partial human skeleton. Initially thought to be a recent, male Customs Officer.
• In his Reliquiae Diluvianae of 1823, he suggested it was a female Romano-British prostitute, a ‘painted lady’. Later recognised as male.
• Bones stained red by ochre, & accompanied by deliberately broken rods of ivory, rings & a bead, bone blades/knives, & perforated shells & animal teeth
• Later excavs found the ‘Sollas Egg’ – a pathological fragment of mammoth tusk pierced for suspension . Initial 14C date of 26,350 – 25,840 BP, suggesting it was firmly later Gravettian.
• More recent dating & isotope work by Higham & Jacobi, now young man had 20% marine diet, & died 29,490 – 28, 400 BP – the oldest formal burial in NW Europe. Evolved Aurignacian/ earliest Gravettian.

Question 13

“Neolithic farmers had social relationships with each other while Mesolithic
hunter-gatherers had ecological relationships with hazelnuts”.

Answer 13

• Richard Bradley
• He made this semi-flippant remark about the lack of theoretical approaches to Mesolithic archaeology (in 1980s), which was still dominated by ecological determinism & optimal foraging theory – maximum yield for minimum effort.
• This has changed dramatically since the early 1990s…

Question 14

Last Glacial Maximum c. 20,000 – 18, 000 BP

Answer 14

• Britain was probably largely abandoned during 33,000 – 15,000 BP as climate deteriorated, or possibly saw only very occasional intermittent, seasonal visits by small groups.
• Most human occupation in western & central Europe at this time.
• The Last Glacial Maximum occurred at c. 20, 000 BP, when ocean levels were 60m below their current level – ice sheet over 2km thick in places

Question 15

Gravettian (c. 35,000 – 22,000 BP)

Answer 15

• Named after type site of La Gravette in France. •
• Gravettian stone industries characterised by points & small blades used for big-game hunting (bison, horse, reindeer & mammoth), & burins used for working hides. • People also used nets to hunt small game. Small, semi-permanent camps.

Question 16

Dolní Věstonice, Moravia, Czech Republic

Answer 16

• Extensive area repeatedly visited (seasonally?) & occupied c. 30,000 – 25,000 BP. Many excavations since 1920s. Huts or tents surrounded by mammoth bones, with hearths.
• Evidence for cloth & plaited basketry. One hut had a clay-walled kiln or oven – for baking clay?
• At Dolní Věstonice, fired-clay female figure c. 30,0000 BP, similar to others in stone, ivory & bone found on
• Gravettian sites across central & southern Europe. Were ‘Venus figurines’ a male obsession with breasts & bums, or women depicting themselves?
• Other Dolní Věstonice finds incl. ivory female head, & stylised ivory male & female figurines – or dildos?
• At Dolní Věstonice, & Sungir in Russia, several elaborate burials of men & women found.

Question 17

From wolf to woof?

Answer 17

• At various Upper Pal. sites, in addition to wolf remains, it has been claimed some canid bones are early domesticated dogs, usually from changes in skull. Some of these buried with care.
• Did these possible dogs confer advantages in hunting big game?
• Předmostí poss. dog skulls, Moravia, Czech Republic c. 32,000 – 22,000 BP. Paw prints from Chauvet Cave, France now thought to be wolf. Eliseevichi-1 possible dog skulls, Bryansk, Russia 13,900 BP.
• BUT, recent computerised morphometric analyses have shown most claims fall within variables of wolves. Goyet Cave poss. dog skull Belgium, c. 36,000 BP

Question 18

Solutrean

Answer 18

• (c. 22,000 – 17,000 BP)
• Solutrean tools – finely-worked, bifacial points made with reduction percussion & pressure flaking using antler & wooden hammers.
• Solutrean laurel-leaf spear points are aesthetic marvels.
• Also flint scrapers, knives, & saws; & bone needles & fish hooks.
• Britain does not appear to have been visited in this period.

Question 19

Late Glacial Interstadial

17,000 – 12,800 BP

Answer 19

• Climate improved from c. 18,000 BP, & reindeer returned to Britain, followed by horses, red deer, saiga antelope, & some mammoths. Wolves now top predator.
• Some of earliest evidence for human re-occupation of Britain is small group of lithics of c. 15,000 BP from Sun Hole rock shelter, Cheddar Gorge

Question 20

Magdalenian – Late Upper Palaeolithic (c. 17,000

– c. 13,000 BC)

Answer 20

• Re-occupation of Britain coincides with emergence of Late Upper Palaeolithic Magdalenian culture, which had some important technological changes.
• Although a 17,500 year old spear-thrower or atlatl from Combe Saunière (Dordogne, Solutrean) is oldest in Europe, most of these distinctive implements are from Magdalenian sites.
• Spear-throwers greatly improved range & power of projectiles. Smaller stone points, & antler & bone spear & harpoon points now used.

Question 21

Mezhirich & Gontsy, Ukraine

Answer 21

• On the less sheltered steppes further east, remains of remarkable structures made of mammoth bone & skins have been found at Magdalenian sites such as Mezhirich & Gontsy in Ukraine, c. 15,000 – 13,000 BP. •
• Pits cut into permafrost, & evidence for long-distance trade

Question 22

Gough’s Cave, Cheddar Gorge

Answer 22

• Evidence for occupation from c. 14,000 BP.
• Stone points & blades, flint from Vale of Pewsey 70km away. Amber pieces from Baltic, a mammoth ivory point, & 3 reindeer antler bâtons percé (spear straighteners?), & notched bones.
• Remains of horse, reindeer, Arctic hare, wolf, lynx, ptarmigan. Also a possible mammoth carving.
• Also at Gough’s Cave were found partial & disarticulated remains of 5 humans. These had cut-marks from dismembering & defleshing. The heads were severed, defleshed, & shaped into skull ‘cups’.
• Complex mortuary treatment?
• Social consumption of remains of close relatives? (endocannibalism);
• Cannibalism following violent encounters? (exocannibalism).

Question 23

Creswell Crags, Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire

Answer 23

• At Creswell Crags, series of caves & rock shelters in limestone gorge occupied intermittently by Neanderthals c. 50–60,000 BP, Lincombian-Ranisian Jerzmanowician (LRJ) c. 41,000 BP,
Gravettian c. 32,000 BP, & most caves used during Magdalenian c. 14–12,800 years ago.

Question 24

Creswell Crags

artefacts

Answer 24

• Creswellian points, blades & scrapers, Robin Hood Cave
• Bone needle from Church Hole Cave, & bone point
Creswell Crags artefacts
• Ochred engraving of a horse on a rib from Robin Hood Cave & human/ anthropomorphic figure on a woolly rhino rib from Pin Hole Cave
• In addition to the deer carving, a possible horse & a bison or aurochs have also been identified.
• This was Britain’s first confirmed Palaeolithic art.

Question 25

Bradgate Park, Leicestershire

Answer 25

• Excavation by ULAS in 2016, on rocky rise in grounds of late medieval deer park.
• Openair late Creswellian site with Cheddar points, scrapers, burins, piercers, cores & flakes –c. 3750 pieces of worked stone >10mm, & c. 250 tools recovered.
• The concentration of finds, & distribution of cores, hints at presence of some sort of subcircular structure such as a tent.

Question 26

Palaeolithic Ireland?

Answer 26

• Ireland thought to have been largely too cold & just too far west for much human presence during most of Upper Palaeolithic.
• A possible struck flake from Drogheda, Co. Louth, may be pre-Mesolithic, but could be from what is now Irish Sea basin.
• In 2016, a butchered bear knee bone from cave in Co. Clare excavated in 1903, was 14C dated to 10,500 BC.
• Further dating of early museum collections may now take place.

Question 27

The Younger Dryas

Answer 27

• From c. 12,800 – 11,500 BP it grew much colder again – the Younger Dryas.
• During this very last glacial episode, the warm Gulf Stream stopped flowing & temperature dropped by at least 15 C on average, possibly in only 10 years.
• No evidence for any human inhabitation – only lemmings, steppe pika, Arctic fox, & occasional reindeer

Question 28

Rapid warming from c. 9600 BC

Answer 28

• Climate of Britain became warmer than today, & wetter.
• Britain initially colonised by Scots pine & birch scrub, then deciduous woodland tree & plant species forming climax vegetation (oak, elm, ash, alder).
• This was not simply dense woodland, however. Tree falls created open clearings, as did felling by beavers, & trampling & browsing by aurochs & red deer.
• Tree throw root holes were used as basis for lean-to shelters by Mesolithic people.

Question 29

Doggerland

Answer 29

• Doggerland is name of area between Britain & NW Europe that is now North Sea, but during Palaeolithic was undulating plain with low hills, cut by large river valleys.
• Fishing trawlers have pulled up faunal remains & Palaeolithic & Mesolithic artefacts for many years. This area began to submerge from 11,000 BP.
• Doggerland had rich flora & fauna, attractive to Palaeolithic & Mesolithic people.
• It had become a large offshore archipeligo by c. 7000 BC, but the underwater Storegga landslip of c. 6200 6170 BC off coast of Norway, may have caused tsunami <5m high.
• This would have devastated communities along E coast.

Question 30

Early Mesolithic (c. 9600 – c. 6000 BC)

Answer 30

• Early Mesolithic lithic assemblages tend to have more broad blades, & irregular rhomboidal broad blade microliths, BUT these typologies are very generalised, & there are lots of diachronic & regional variations.
• Pyramidal cores used to produce blade ‘blanks’ that were then turned into other tools. Microliths probably for composite tools.
• Tools of wood, antler & bone rarely survive.

Question 31

Later Mesolithic 6,000 – 4,000 BC

Answer 31

• Later Mesolithic microliths tended to be smaller geometric forms produced by striking narrow blades & microblades off a prepared pyramidal core.
• These blades snapped to produce scalene triangles & micro-burins, then hafted in composite tools such as arrows & spears.
• These could be repaired more easily if damaged Mesolithic people more than capable of significantly transforming woodlands & other areas.
• Other stone tools finds include this digging tool from the Isle of Sheppey, a tranchet axe from the River Thames, a pick from River Thames, & tranchet axes from East Yorks.

Question 32

Star Carr, Yorkshire

Answer 32

• Star Carr was first investigated in detail by Grahame Clark in 1949-51. It consisted of an artificial timber & brushwood platform occupied during c. 9300 – 8830 BC, on the shore of Lake Flixton, an extensive inland lake in the Vale of Pickering in East Yorks. The lake has been drained since 17th C., leaving peat & alluvial silts behind.
Finds included:
• Scrapers, awls (leather working);
• Burins (bone, antler, wood);
• Microliths (hunting), stone axes and adzes (woodworking);
• Elk antler mattocks;
• Red deer antler barbed points;
• Pierced antler frontlets.
One recent Mesolithic find from Star Carr – an engraved shale pendant. Detailed analyses & SEM scans reveal how it was inscribed.

Question 33

Different models for Star Carr

Answer 33

• Due to all the different excavations (& excavators) from Clark onwards, there have been many different interpretations 7 models based on Star Carr:
- Clark (1972) – saw it as a winter base camp – on basis of shed antlers;
- Pitts (1979) – specialised site for working antler & tanning hides – antler artefacts, end-scrapers, awls, birch bark;
- Legge and Rowley-Conwy (1988) – summer hunting-camp – tooth eruption in deer mandibles;
- Dumont (1989) – wide range of activities carried
- out – i.e. not specialist site – microwear;
- Milner & Conneller – socially important aggregation site.
• Were antler frontlets used in hunting, as a disguise to get close to deer herds; or were they shamanic paraphernalia for ritualised practices? Did people become deer?

Question 34

Mesolithic Ireland

Answer 34

• As in Britain, deciduous woodland favoured wild boar, wolf, fox, & bear. No red deer – these probably introduced during Neolithic! Fish & wildfowl very important.
• Map of Meso. sites in Ireland, now out of date due to developer-funded discoveries. Earlier Mesolithic stone tool assemblages from Ireland – microliths, flaked axes, narrow blades, burins, & scrapers.

Question 35

What can Mesolithic practices tell us about societies?

Answer 35

• More intensive exploitation of the landscape, with evidence for burning, clearance, & repeated visits to particular locales. Landscape as social, meaningful.
• Exploitative or respectful relationship with the landscape? Animist beliefs? Animals & plants as other beings?
• Common in many high-latitude hunter-gatherer
cultures in North America & Eurasia.

Question 36

Mesolithic ritualised practices?

Answer 36

• Lydstep Haven, S. Wales – At coast in 1917 a boar skeleton, dated to 6,300 BC, found with 2 broken flint points in its neck, pinned to ground by a tree trunk. Trapped during hunt (but not butchered in situ?), or a deliberate deposit?
• Ferriter’s Cove, Co. Kerry – cache of 5 stone axes; Nab Head, Pembrokeshire – deposit of shale phallus & beads
Culverwell, Portland, Dorset – pit with carefully placed deposit of a tranchet axe, pierced scallop shell & rolled beach pebble
• Lunt Meadow, Liverpool – circle of pebbles around an iron pyrites (fool’s gold) nodule

Question 37

Mesolithic death & burial in Europe

Answer 37

• Very few Meso. human remains found in Britain. Yet at Aveline’s Hole, Burrington Combe, Mendip – possibly 50-100 individuals interred, c. 8400 – 8200 BC.
• Some were complete skeletons lying parallel to one another, others disarticulated & mingled with animal bones.
• One double inhumation burial. Some with ochre, intact & perforated red deer & aurochs teeth, & 7 fossil ammonites.
• Cave also has possible incised marks Conneller has argued that mixing of human & animal bones deliberate – relational ontologies.