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This work presents the Middle Pleistocene palaeoenvironmental and archaeological record of the Valle Giumentina basin (Abruzzo, Italy). A high-resolution geological study, including stratigraphy, sedimentology and micromorphology, was performed on the lower part of the sequence which correlates with the time span between MIS 15 and MIS 14 stages, i.e. between 570 and 530 ka. In addition to long-term climatic variability, sedimentological data highlight many short oscillations of varying amplitude during both Glacial and Interglacial periods. These results are confirmed by the studies of environmental proxies (pollen and molluscan analysis) previously undertaken on the Valle Giumentina sequence in 2016. Comparisons with global, Mediterranean and Italian climate archives confirm the consistency of the Valle Giumentina record and the contrasting characteristics of each isotopic stages. The three archaeological levels comprised in this part of the sequence can be assigned to isotopic sub-stages MIS 15a (Level AO1-20), MIS 14d (Level 24) and MIS 14c/14b (Level LBr). Human groups lived here during both temperate and cold periods, into woodland and steppe landscapes. Petrographic, traceological and technological studies were undertaken on the small lithic series (total of 119 artefacts). They suggest that raw material procurement was strictly local. The core and flake production is of techno-type C (recurrent unipolar flaking, SSDA, flaked flakes). Several morphologies of blanks occur with regular and mostly straight cutting-edges (small and thin flakes, notches, thick backed flakes). They are rarely retouched. Despite their good state of preservation, the pieces do not exhibit use-wear traces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe is characterized by an uneven record of Middle Paleolithic occupations. Specifically, large parts of southeastern Europe display markedly lower site densities and less intensive evidence of human presence than is found elsewhere; this has often resulted in the exclusion of the Balkans from debates related to Pleistocene human adaptation. The discrepancy stems either from the lower population densities of southeastern Europe or an imbalance in research across Europe. Additionally, our understanding of Balkan Middle Paleolithic stone tool industries suffers from the use of Mousterian labels defined when Bordian typology was the chief method of lithic analysis. Industrial facies then defined and still in use include Balkan Charentian, Levallois Mousterian, Micromousterian, Denticulate Mousterian; their relation with the rest of the Eurasian record was and remains unclear. This paper sets aside the issue of scarcity of Pleistocene occupations and tries to address Neanderthal biogeography, and variations in Neanderthal technological behavior and subsistence, based on the available record. It reviews the current Middle Paleolithic record in the Balkans, presents the apparent temporal and spatial trends, and presents the provisional biogeography of hominins, including scenarios for the demise of Neanderthals at or soon after the arrival of modern humans in Europe. The paper ends with a discussion of perspectives for future research arising from this analysis of the available record and proposes some hypotheses regarding the role of the Balkans in the overall context of the occupational history of western Eurasia in the Middle/Late Pleistocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of style has been the subject of much research and theoretical development in prehistoric archaeology. This vast concept touches several fields, including the morphology of artefacts, technical gestures and their function. The lithic typology of arrowhead armatures was widely developed in the twentieth century for the study of the French Mesolithic and includes some of these aspects. The functional, technical, or aesthetic nature of the morphological characteristics of these artefacts has received little attention, while the mapping of types has been overvalued This article presents a new approach combining statistical analysis with the use-wear analysis of arrowhead from several Breton sites, dated to the Late Mesolithic.

Copyright of Complutum is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study of the Palaeolithic in Senegal has made considerable progress in the last decade and has provided a renewed vision of the behavioral evolution of prehistoric populations in West Africa. The cultural trajectories within the region seem to be highly variable and bear witness to strong behavioral dynamics, the mechanisms of which still need to be better understood. However, the number of reliable, dated, and stratified sites, as well as the palaeoenvironmental data providing a context for populations in their palaeolandscapes, is still scarce. In order to provide new and solid data, we conducted new archaeological survey in the Niokolo-Koba National Park in south-central Senegal, aiming at a preliminary identification of Pleistocene and early Holocene sedimentary deposits. Here, we report an overview of the newly discovered industries found in different contexts. Most of the 27 identified sites show surface and out-of-context assemblages, but other sites are stratified and have all the criteria to justify the development of a long-term archaeological, geochronological, geomorphological, and palaeobotanical project. The Niokolo-Koba National Park, through which the Gambia River flows, is characterized by an abundance of sources of knappable material and by well-preserved sedimentary sequences. Therefore, archaeological research in the Niokolo-Koba National Park has the potential to provide major milestones in our understanding of the evolutionary dynamics at work in West Africa during the early periods of occupation of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the recovery of the collections from D. Berciu’s excavations in Ceamurlia de Jos and Baia – Golovița, the lithic industries have been subjected to a characterization of the materials and to a technological and typological study. The exploitation focused mainly on local materials knapped on site, but the sites are also integrated into the circulation networks of semi‑finished products. The question of microlithism of Mesolithic origin is debated.

Territory of Mongolia is situated in the center of Asia, a crossroad of the potential migration routes, that connect different Eurasian macroregions. Here an example of earliest appearance and long-term existence of small blade and microblade production has been found. Beyond that, the industries, that appeared within limited area of the Middle Selenga Basin in the late MIS3 — early MIS2, contained the earliest for Northern and Central Asia geometric and non-geometric microliths. They have been found in the sediments of Kharganyn Gol 5 and Tolbor-4, — 16 and –21. They end up in LGM — post-LGM which cause depopulation in the region and following changes in the human groups, occupying this territory. An understanding of the character, causes and specifics of such early appearance of the microblade and bladelet production, and especially geometric microliths, impose the arrangement and definition of the terminology, associated with microlithic assemblages in Asia. This is due to the fact that in the archaeological definitions of both processes and the desired forms of artifacts associated with the production and use of microliths, there are significant discrepancies that complicate the understanding of the described phenomena. The article provides an overview of the research terminology of microlithization processes, and also determines the position of the microlithic complexes of Mongolia in the Upper Paleolithic system of the eastern part of Asia.

For more than twenty years, Iran has focused a great deal of research on the emergence and development of Upper Palaeolithic industries. South of the Caspian Sea, the site of Garm Roud 2, dated to 33878 ± 3300 Cal BP, is one of the few sites, with Mirak, to have yielded stratified evidence of occupation during this period. This paper presents the results of the typo-technological analysis of the lithic assemblage collected during the 2006 to 2008 excavation campaigns. The focus here is on a production of straight and twisted bladelets. Very few similarities have appeared between this assemblage and those from sites in the Zagros and the rest of Iran, which are generally older (about 35 to 40 000 Cal BP). Garm Roud 2 yields original evidence and may be seen as a key site for understanding Upper Palaeolithic technocomplexes and the development of bladelet production in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the left side of the OuedTamri mouth, a palaeo-sea-level (Unit 1) consists of marine and fluvio-marine deposits at ca. + 6 m a.s.l. The U/Th dating method applied to one marine shell of Patella sp. has yielded ages of 100,02 ± 1,662 ka and 101,188 ± 1,339 ka (MIS5.3) The overcoming dune (Sx) is dated at 84 ± 4 ka by OSL (MIS5.1). At TighrineImksaoun (200 m South of the mouth) the same MIS 5.3 palaeo-sea-leveliscovered by coastaldune sands and colluvial deposits on more than 20 m thickness. The latter show numerous interstratified red palaeosoils and calcretes which indicate run-off at intermediate moisture-periods, and enable to distinguish three main units (U2, U3, U4): (U2), lower Aeolian interdune accumulation Unit, mainly of colluvial and run-off detritic facies, numerous land-snails, and scarce lithic artefacts; (U3), middle aeolian accumulation Unit, with several series of dunes separated by palaeosoils and calcretes; the dune (S5) is dated at 92 ± 6 ka (MIS5.3 or MIS5.2) by OSL, and the palaeosoil (S6) countains a lithic industry with cleavers; (U4), upper, not well consolidated, aeolian accumulation Unit, lying on a calcreted basal palaeosurface (S6/S7) where Epipalaeolithic (?) artefacts are found; the uppermost serie (S8) was 14C dated at more than 30 ka on Ostrich eggs. The geomorphologic, sedimentologic and petrographic analyses helped us to build a sedimentary model of accumulation at the foot of a dead-cliff,model that is expected to resolve the apparent inconsistence between the position of the lithic industries and the dating results.

The Holocene hunter-gatherers of the Maghreb are characterized by extensive use of wild plant resources; for food and for making containers, weapons and tools, ropes and fabrics. Some of the harvesting and processing operations of these materials can be performed with stone tools that leave traces on the tools. It is therefore possible to get information about the nature of the harvested and processed plants, the technical operations carried out with the tools and the design of the tools themselves. This information has a technological, economic and cultural scope, and is essential for thinking about the links between environmental changes and lithic industry variability. We present here the first data from technological and use-wear studies carried out on collections from Epipalaeolithic sites in Algeria and Tunisia, focusing on unretouched blades and bladelets from the Columnatian, blades and backed blades from the Typical Capsian, and notched blades and bladelets from the Upper Capsian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The archaeo-sequence of Gatzarria Cave (Ossas-Suhare, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France), in the northwestern foothills of the Pyrenees, records several phases of the Middle Palaeolithic and the initial stages of the Upper Palaeolithic. This type of deposit in a karstic context enables us to characterize diachronic changes in industries and to demonstrate the relative preservation of the assemblages. This cavity was excavated by Georges Laplace between 1951 and 1976 and contains a complex stratigraphy that was exposed to significant post-depositional processes. It was thus essential to test that the archaeological levels were intact before any techno-economic analysis. Several recent studies have questioned the homogeneity of the archaeological remains in the back of the cave. This article focuses on the sequencing of the industries attributed to the Quina and the Vasconian, based on the correlation of different types of taphonomic and typo-technological analyses (density of remains, surface conditions, refits, spatial distribution, analysis of the fieldwork notebooks). Ultimately, this work sheds light on the sequencing of lithic technocomplexes at a macro-regional scale in a relatively poorly-documented key zone between northern Aquitaine and the Cantabrian mountains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revue Archéologique de Picardie is the property of Revue Archeologique de Picardie and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Within the Egyptian Western Desert, the Kharga Oasis was a particularly favourable and highly frequented area during the Holocene thanks to a permanent ground water supply. The high concentration and accessibility of archaeological sites here allows the cultural and economic changes to be documented at a local scale, when northeastern Africa was experiencing strong climatic variations and the transition to a food production economy. An expansive program led by the Institut français d'archéologie orientale (IFAO) which included systematic survey, sampling collections, tests and stratigraphic excavations has dramatically increased the amount of data available concerning the prehistory of the Kharga Oasis. Typo-technological analyses focusing on the lithic industries, and other aspects of material culture, plus a series of 14C dates have led to the definition of four main successive cultural phases: Kharga A, B, C and D. This paper describes this proposal of a new archaeological sequence for human occupation in the Kharga Oasis and discusses its integration in the wider frame of Egypt and the Eastern Sahara. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to present a very general view of siliceous raw material sources in the central Pyrenees, with support from recent bibliographic references. To illustrate the use of these materials in the Upper Paleolithic, we chose the example of the Gravettian occupation of Gargas Cave (Hautes-Pyrénées, France). Finally, we describe a few economic characteristics of the Pyrenean region, which are distinct from the Perigordian context in several ways.

This paper combines complex archaeological records from excavations of sandstone rockshelters with paleobotanical investigations in the adjacent wetlands of Northern Bohemia, Czech Republic. Several pollen diagramms from nearby peatbogs are used to document the paleoenvironmental development from the Late Glacial to the Middle Holocene. In addition, two recently excavated key archaeological sections were selected to document human behavioral responses to the climatic development: Kostelní rokle, and Smolný kámen. This region remained mostly unsettled during the Upper Paleolithic (Magdalenian or Epigravettian) so that the Late Paleolithic colonization after the LGM appears to be a major behavioral adaptation. The Early and Middle Mesolithic foragers developed this pattern to be optimally adapted to the versatile landscape of sandstone plateaus and canyons during the Holocene. The aim was to exploit its changing vegetational, aquatic and terrestric faunal resources, until the Late Mesolithic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nomadism is traditionally considered the unique lifestyle of the European Upper Palaeolithic before the appearance of the settled way of life characterizing the Neolithic. A semi-sedentary intermediate organization based on the economy of the mammoth was nevertheless proposed for the Gravettian and Epigravettian of Central and Eastern Europe. Paradoxically, though the Gravettian is considered to be the first European culture of modern humans, this working hypothesis has not been raised in Western Europe. Indeed, in the unity/diversity debate for the Gravettian phenomenon, the importance of territorial organization is underestimated, given that it is just as important as the lithic and osseous industries. Based on a study of the lithic industry, I explore the possibility that the Gravettian groups occupying Brassempouy (Landes, France) approximately 30,000 BP lived a semi-sedentary lifestyle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English: Sitio do Meio, in southern Piaui, Brazil, is the second rock shelter presenting fully Pleistocene dates and artefacts after Pedra Furada. Despite the anthropogenic origin of Pedra Furada artefacts has been questioned, SDM has better chances to be accepted by the scientific community because of the absence of the most relevant stone breaking agents in this kind of site, i.e. waterfalls. This paper presents a critical revision of the history of excavations (1980-2000), stratigraphy, chronology, and the archaeological content of the site (sector 2). At least 98 stone tools have been identified and described, all of them being older than 12,500 BP, i.e. belonging to the Upper Pleistocenic phase of Pedra Furada 3, as defined in the close reference site. The lithic industry of Serra Talhada phase (lower Holocene) is also presented and compared with paleoindian sites of North-Eastern and Central Brazil. French: Le Sitio do meio, dans le Piaui méridional (Brésil) est le deuxième abri sous roche de la région ayant livré des dates pléistocènes en dehors du site de la Pedra Furada. L'article présente une révision critique des fouilles (1980-2000), la chronostratigraphie et le contenu archéologique du secteur 2. Une centaine d'outils lithiques sont décrits, ils sont plus anciens de 12,5 ka BP et correspondent à la phase Pléistocène Pedra Furada 3 définie dans le site éponyme de référence. On présente aussi l' industrie lithique de la phase Serra Talhada (Holocène ancien) en la comparant aux industries paléoindiennes du Nord-Est et du centre du Brésil.

Since 2013, the authors have conducted archaeological surveys across the Al-Jawf province in northern Saudi Arabia. In the past two seasons, 48 sites were mapped and characterized by the presence of Levallois technology and, therefore, attributed to the Middle Paleolithic of Arabia. Preferential Levallois reduction using different methods of dorsal core preparation have been found at these sites. The technological variability includes Nubian Levallois methods, preferential Levallois with centripetal preparation, as well as recurrent centripetal reduction methods. In Arabia, sites with Nubian Levallois reduction are known from southern Oman, eastern Yemen, and central Saudi Arabia, while in Africa this reduction method has been identified across much of the northeastern continent. Preferential Levallois with centripetal preparation and recurrent centripetal Levallois methods have been found across Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Outside of Arabia, these methods have been found in many regions across the Old World. In this paper, we present the results from technological analyses on the Middle Paleolithic assemblages from the newly discovered Al-Jawf sites. The technological data are used to place these sites into a wider regional framework, assessing whether connections with known lithic industries from across the Near East and northeastern Africa can be surmised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excavated in the 1960s, the Baume de Montclus rock shelter (Gard, France) contained a significant stratigraphic sequence covering the entire Mesolithic. The oldest layers (layer 30 to 17) belong to the first Mesolithic, and contain particular hyper-microlithic flint industries (Montclusian facies of the Sauveterrian). The overlying layers 14 to 7, underlying the Neolithic ones (layers 5 to 3), document a second Mesolithic sequence (Castelnovian). Layers 16 and 15 are the stratigraphical transition between those two main sets. The lithic industries from those two layers have characteristic elements referred both to the first and second Mesolithic. Generally, this duality was understood as evidence of the existence of a local transition facies between Sauveterrian and Castelnovian, and thus, of a permanent regional occupation. However, the analysis of spatial and stratigraphical data of those two layers 16 and 15, as well as that of their lithic industries, question this hypothesis. There is more probably a real break between the two main sets of occupation, Sauveterrian and Castelnovian. As generally noticed elsewhere in Southern France, we cannot highlight a transition facies between first and second Mesolithic. Consequently, the durability of human occupations at the end of the 6th millennium cal. BC in this region of Southern France is questioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon the already well-known archaeological record and on recent data, we present a general overview of Mesolithic stone production in Central–Southern Italy and its main islands, Sicily and Sardinia. In the Early Mesolithic (10th–9th mill. uncal. BP ca.), the lithic industries of this wide area reveal the presence of different facies , each with its own peculiar techno-typological features; an articulate picture most likely originating from differentiations in lithic production already in existence at the end of the Epigravettian in both the central–southern regions of the peninsula and in Sicily. On the basis of the available chronological and stratigraphical record from several Mesolithic sites, these lithic facies at least appear to be partly contemporary. Two of them, a Sauveterrian-like aspect and the Undifferentiated Epipalaeolithic, spread more widely, involving both the peninsular region and the main islands. Regarding the Sauveterrian, both the variability and originality of the southern complexes seem to be in relation to the progressive distance from the northern areas. In Southern Apulia, we see the appearance of the Epiromanellian, coeval to the spread of Sauveterrian. In Sicily the situation is more intricate. During the Early Holocene an Epigravettian-tradition microlithic facies with unilateral backed tools and geometrics is attested on the island, spreading together with peculiar Sauveterrian-like industries and the Undifferentiated Epipalaeolithic. In Corsica–Sardinia, only the Undifferentiated facies is documented. The emergence of some industries with trapezes during the first half of 9th mill. cal. BP in Central–Southern Italy and Sicily and, later, in Tuscany attest the formation of Castelnovian-like aspects which closed the local Mesolithic cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northwestern France is characterized by the presence of many Middle Palaeolithic sites, covering the entire period. The Saalian phase is less documented, partly for taphonomic reasons. The lithic industries indicate mastery of all production systems for flakes, blades, points and to a lesser extent, bifaces. During the Upper Pleistocene, occupation of this territory by Neandertal groups is important. The vast majority of these lithic series cannot be attributed to cultural facies of Mousterian defined by Bordes, due to the low number of retouched tools. Aside from some typical Mousterian of Acheulean tradition bifaces and blade production characteristic of the Early Weichselian, which are stylistic and cultural markers, there is nothing to differentiate Mousterian groups. In an attempt to identify their cultural identities, lithic assemblages were apprehended globally, using the operative sequence concept from the acquisition of raw material to the final objectives of the different production systems, and abandonment of tools. The situation is considered from each chronostratigraphic phase to try to distinguish the settlement patterns of this region. This renewed approach to technical studies points to a wide diversity of Neandertal adaptive faculties, which can be interpreted in terms of cultural diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of the large site clusters of the Gravettian (Pavlovian) represents one of the final effects of modern human adaptation in central Europe, but chronology of the site formation processes at such sites are still little understood. Here we present new evidence from Pavlov I, a site now prepared for the construction of a museum and subjected to a large-scale preparatory excavation. Understanding the spatial organisation, microstratigraphies, and the effects of cryogenic processes on the site formation is the basic presumption for lithic analysis at a large and complex site. Obviously, these extensive sites have a longer prehistory than was previously thought. The detection of the Early Upper Palaeolithic/Gravettian boundary was related to a radical change in the lithic raw material composition. The early and evolved Gravettian industries complete previously recorded the techno/typological spectrum by additional microlithic assemblages. With this new evidence, the paper also discusses the question of Gravettian origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Si bien la materialidad lítica disminuye en cantidad y calidad en el Período Formativo, en el valle Quillagua se presenta bastante abundante, habiendo presencia de tres tipos de industrias diferenciadas en términos de funcionalidad de los sitios y no como expresiones culturales distintas asignables a distintas áreas geográficas. No obstante, es posible vincular a alguna de éstas con la región cultural de Loa-San Pedro, en tanto que otras se visualizan como manifestaciones eminentemente locales.Although lithic materials diminish in quantity and quality during the Formative Period, in Quillagua Valley it is quite abundant, being three types of industries differing in terms of sites' functionality and not as cultural expressions assignable to distinct geographical areas. Nevertheless, it is possible to link some of these with Loa-San Pedro cultural region, while others are prominently visualized as local manifestations.

A recent paper on Vale da Pedra Furada (VPF, Lahaye et al., this journal), a final Pleistocene archaeological site of Northeastern Brazil (VPF), while comparing to some other sites in the region, fails to refere to the very close rock-shelter of Boqueirao da Pedra Furada (BPF), the main reference, and controversial, site of lowland South America. Because I studied exhaustively this last, I provide some explanations both on stratigraphic, taphonomic and palaeoclimatic grounds, pointing to a more careful intra-site analysis of such a critical archaeological area. Both VPF and BPF are two parts of the same site: in fact, VPF correlates with the youngest Pleistocene layer of BPF, Pedra Furada 3 (26–18 cal ky BP) but also seems to fill the gap between the last millennia of final Pleistocene and the onsent of Holocenic conditions. A tight ressemblance of archaological features is underlined as long as analogies and differences regarding taphonomic analysis of the artifacts between the two sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The excavation of the spring site at Hummal, located in the region of El Kowm (Central Syria) is a reference site for the Palaeolithic in the interior Levant due to its archaeological sequence of deposits from the Lower to Upper Palaeolithic. This paper presents some principal data on the Hummalian culture, originating from the systematic excavation of in situ archaeological layers between 2001 and 2010. While the Hummalian is synonymous for the primary production of large-sized blades, another interesting feature that needs to be highlighted is the variation of reuse during on-site production. The practice is documented throughout Hummalian occupations and is observed through the recycling of blanks and by-products of the main reduction strategy for production of secondary blanks, patinated items for shaping new tools, using the Yabrudian scrapers as a cores and shaping exhausted cores for tool use. The main focus here will be on the presence of numerous core-burins and cores on flake including truncated-faceted pieces. The former are in the author's opinion the evidence of recycling and their end products, namely bladelets represent desired components supplementary to the repertoire of various specimens recovered from Hummalian layers and could suggest easily portable implements. The latter group, cores on flake, seems to represent a subdivision of the reduction system carried out on-site rather than a concept of recycling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Excavated between 1970 and 1980, abri Gay (Poncin, Ain) has delivered, in its 12m deep surface, a stratigraphic sequence with an upper Magdalenian level (F2d) and an important Azilian level (F2b) containing painted and engraved pebbles. The lithic industry is original and marked by an association between backed bladelets and backed-edged points in the whole late upper Paleolithic sequence. Concerning the fauna, the reindeer dominates the Magdalenian horizon but is also present in the Azilian one. Dating from Ancient Dryas, the Magdalenian backed-edged points can still be considered an early testimony for this kind of armature, and a particularity within the Jura Mountains. Nevertheless, the remaining uncertainties about the stratigraphic context and chrono-cultural coherence of the lithic industries have never been treated. Based on a taphonomic approach and a techno-economic analysis of the lithic industries of the two stratigraphic horizons, this study discusses the integrity of the unities established in the excavation context, and the value of the assemblies. The results allow to redefine the sequence and to write a new scenario articulated via a two-sided Azilian face. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: During the past ten years, our knowledge of Paleolithic industries in the Philippines has grown thanks to new excavations and discoveries of stone implements, but also thanks to new studies on older collections. The study of knapped stones in the Philippines dates back to the 1920s. At this time, stone tools were used as type fossils to propose an initial chronology of prehistoric cultures. Later, taxonomies and functional analyses were used to assess lithic assemblages until the end of the 1990s. Current functional technology and traceological methods allow us to propose new hypotheses about prehistoric behavior during the Pleistocene, and also technological developments across the archipelago during the Paleolithic. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper discusses the Greek Mesolithic record in the light of refinements to the international calibration curve and recent archaeological research. Central to the discussion are the timeframe usedfor this period of Greek prehistory, and the diagnostic potential, or visibility, of Mesolithic stone tools. Rather than offering a comprehensive account of Mesolithic sites across Greece, this study focuses on afew known cave sites in the northwest, in order to bring out some less pronounced aspects of their material record. Close and comparative examination of their radiocarbon dates, and traits of continuity and change in the lithic industries, highlights a regional pattern. At some sites, occupation extended into the Holocene, but there is little or no contrast to the preceding, late Upper Palaeolithic technological traditions. A working hypothesis to account for the geographic, temporal and cultural diversity of early Holocene sites and finds in Greece is thus spelled out. It is proposed that the Greek Mesolithic record is the manifestation of a mosaic of human groups, of different origins and cultural traditions, subsisting on a variety of resources and living in different regions, at different times and seasons of the early Holocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The site of Hummal is one of several artesian springs in the El Kowm area (Central Syria) that became the focus of archaeological research at the beginning of the 1980s. The archaeological sequence spans the whole Paleolithic period and the spring is therefore a reference site for the Paleolithic in the interior part of the Levant. Archaeological remains are found in a more than 15 m thick succession of deposits that contain Lower, Middle and Upper Paleolithic assemblages. The present paper addresses archaeological and geological data, which were recovered during recent years’ excavations of Mousterian deposits. With a compiled stratigraphy of over 6 m and more than 30 archaeological levels, the Hummal Mousterian sequence is especially apt for the reconstruction of changing site-use patterns through time. Lithic analysis helps to elucidate technological traditions as well as organization and the changing ways in which mobile foragers used a site in the context of an arid steppe. Results contribute further to existing models of Levantine Middle Paleolithic land-use strategies and demography in the time span of between 130,000 and 50,000 BP, and partly contradict existing interpretations. Two different lithic industries were defined, which correspond to a C- and B-type Levantine Mousterian according to the three-stage Tabun model. The discovery of a C-type Mousterian in the lower deposits further extends the geographical range of this cultural facies into the interior arid part of the Levant. An increasing importance and standardization of Levallois points is observable and thereby supports models that postulate a growing specialization of hunting techniques at the end of the Middle Paleolithic. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Rocks, which are ubiquitous in archaeological sites as chipped or polished tools, were important factors in the prehistoric Alpine economic system. Archaeometric characterization and identification of source areas open the path to a more detailed understanding of the production and diffusion mechanisms behind Alpine lithic industries. An overview of the situation from the eastern to the western Alps in the Mesolithic, the Neolithic and the Copper Age illustrates current debates and issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]