Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
MIDDLE
PALAEOLITHIC
OCCUPATION OF EUROPE
edited by
Wil Roebroeks and
Clive Gamble
Su l,n \u- li.IM- only hccn able to follow the trail of Palaeolithic man. to understand the period. The pulling power of trinitarianism
extracting what information we could from the implements dropped \\as obvious when we planned the three workshops in the
along the way; now...we enter a clearing, where we make aci|iiamt.iiue European Science Eoundation network 'The Palaeolithic
with the man himself, witness his leasts around his hearth, and
occupation of Europe'. But our decision from the outset was
contemplate the last ceremonies which attended him to the grave"
to examine issues w i t h i n each of the three periods rather than
(Sollas I'M I: I.V) The Middle Palaeolithic). to discuss transitions.
Our first workshop at Tautavel in 1993 (Roehroeks and
1. Introduction Van Kolfschoten 1995) dealt with the Lower Palaeolithic and
Archaeologists generally like to think in threes; Thomson's took as its theme the earliest colonisation of Europe. The
three ages of stone, bron/.e and iron (1836), Morgan's second, which forms the basis of this volume, was held a
othnieal periods savagery, barbarism and civilisation (1877). scar later in Arras.' The focus was the Middle Palaeolithic
Childe's three revolutions Neolithic, urban and industrial and concentrated on biotopes and settlement patterns.
(1935) and even Flannery's three combatants the Sceptical Our aim was to establish the environmental tolerance of
Graduate Student, the Real Mesoameriean Archaeologist and hominines during the period and to examine the variable
the Great Synthesiser ( 1976). Then of course there are the pattern of settlement, both local and regional across the
myriad divisions of periods and cultures into early, middle continent. The third workshop held in October 1995 at
and late phases, for instance Lubbock (1865) and Westropp's Pavlov examined the pericxl from 30,000-20,000 years ago
(1872) I'alaeo-, Meso- and Neo-lithic stages, or more recently in the Upper Palaeolithic (Mussi and Roebroeks 1996: Mussi
the <<i<iti'ina Idgico-onaUtic which divides the Palaeolithic into c/ til., in press). The issues were cultural innovation, the
the bio-functional, the bio-morphotechnical and the bio- distribution of population and the impact, if any. of a
potential periods (C'arbonell el al. I995a: Vaquero 1992). deteriorating c l i m a t e on societies.
Three smacks of a job well done. Three also appeals to a We also returned to many of the questions raised at the
higher authority. The anthropologist Ernest Gellner (1986: first two ESF meetings at a joint meeting, sponsored by the
78) whimsically labelled this the doctrine of Trinitarianism, Römisch-Germanisches /entr.ilmusoum Mam/ and the
which states that mankind passes through three and only European Science foundation, held at Schloss Monrepos.
three fundamental stages in its development. It is to be Neuwiod. The conference examined the role of early humans
I > iv I erred to those who, misguidedly in his opinion, favour in the accumulation of European Lower and Middle
five. Grahame Clark's five technological modes ( 1961 ) would Palaeolithic bone assemblages (Gaud/inski and Turner 1996;
in our opinion be a good Palaeolithic example of two-too- ( i a u d / i n s k i and Turner, in press). Gaud/inski's paper in this
many, since technology is more than just stone tools however volume reports on some of those discussions
well these survive.
The way we approach the whole sweep of human social 3. Forget modern humans for a moment
development therefore colours the way we organise Us The great interest in the origins of modern h u m a n s
internal investigation. But however right three may feel it is (for example Mellars and Stringer 1989; Trinkaus 1989;
another matter entirely, as Gellner observed, if the three Mellars 1990; Anken <•/ nl.. 1993) has relied heavily on
stages have been correctly identified. Palaeolithic data from Europe. This important debate
concerning continuity or replacement among regional
2. 'The Palaeolithic occupation of Europe' populations polarised opinions about the respective
Palaeolithic archaeologists will instantly recognise familiar capabilities - physical and cultural - of archaic anil modern
territory. The Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic and the humans Indeed we can see now that by focusing so strongly
Early, Middle and Late Stone Age together with the Lower, on the appearance and definition of modern humans our
Middle and Upper Pleistocene are essential building blocks appreciation of the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic was
THE MIDDLE PALAEOLITHIC OCCUPATION OF EUROPE
entirely coloured by the interest in characterising the event, For example, one of us (Gamble 1986: table 4.8)
and the process, summarised in such phrases as "the human previously favoured a two stage Palaeolithic based on
revolution". technology, Earlier and Upper, divided into four chronologi-
Our intention in the ESF network was to step back from cal periods. Here our interest was in tackling themes such as
this great question and re-examine the three periods on their space and subsistence demography and style, society and
own merits and for other issues. Once the teleology that settlement. We now see this differently (Gamble, in press).
modern humans will arrive in Europe is removed, and the The tripartite division, Lower, Middle and Upper makes a
comparative judgement that the Upper Palaeolithic will good deal of analytical sense when it comes to tracing a
always look more complex than what went before is also single issue. Palaeolithic societies, and is easily supported
suspended, then we can begin to deal with other issues that by the rich, well-dated artefactual evidence that is now
might, at a later stage, re-inform the main debate. This was available.
our strategy in the Tautavel workshop. The contentious Similar shifts in opinion about either two or three stages
'facts' concerning earliest dates and the human manufacture has typified the classification of the Palaeolithic. Indeed, the
of disputed artefacts served to raise more interesting issues history of the term Middle Palaeolithic is very interesting as
concerning the colonising abilities and environmental it also tells us something about the way this period - which
tolerances of Middle Pleistocene hominines (Gamble I995a; is somehow 'betwixt and between' as well as 'take it or leave
Dennell and Roebroeks 1996) by contrasting the behavioural it' - has been addressed. As Mussi (this volume) comments it
implications of accepting either a short or long chronology seems to be a difficult period just because it is in the middle.
for Europe. However, subsequent discoveries seem to have Our own, by no means exhaustive, survey of the literature
returned the discussion to a national and regional auction for shows Anglo American archaeologists adopted it much
the oldest European (Roberts et til. 1994; Carbonell et <il. earlier than their continental colleagues. Sollas ( 1 9 1 1 )
1995b; Roe 1995; Beimüde/, de Castro et al. 1997; Pitts and devoted an entire chapter to the period in the first edition of
Roberts 1997; Gibert et al. 1998) even though the maker of Ancient hunters. The Middle Palaeolithic is the time when
one of these early collections at Venta Micena is now the place of the handaxe is taken by the Levallois flake. By
identified by some as a horse rather than a hominine contrast Osborn, in Men of the old \tone di>c (1915), was a
(Moyà-Solà and Köhler 1997; Palmqvist 1997). supporter of a two period Palaeolithic, Lower and Upper.
Of course we have nothing against reliable new data and Perhaps such a magisterial conclusion swayed Sollas because
welcome clarification of chronological patterns. Where we in the second edition of Ancient hintten (1924) he dropped
are disappointed is that the use to which such data are put the Middle Palaeolithic as both a chapter title and as a
represents a poor return on the effort required to obtain them period. 2 But on both sides of the Atlantic first Macalister
if they represent nothing more than a timetable (for example (1921) and then MacCurdy (1924) followed his 1 9 1 1 lead in
Bonifay and Vandermeersch 1991). The same could happen their textbooks and stressed the importance of caves and
with the Middle Palaeolithic if the only reason for collecting Neanderthals tor the Middle Palaeolithic period.
data is to compare it either favourably against the Lower or In Europe the term became en vogue from around 1950
un-favourably with the Upper Palaeolithic. All that would onwards, and is associated with the increasing influence of
demonstrate is the fundamental fallacy of trinitarianism - Francois Bordes.1 There were earlier but informal uses of the
where the inevitability of human progress is the sole lesson term. For instance G. and A. de Mortillet in l^e Préhistorique
that archaeology, and particularly the Palaeolithic, can write about
illuminate. That may be the reason why trinitarianism has "Le Moustcricn ou partie moyenne du paléolithique"
appealed so much to anthropologists, historians, sociologists
and archaeologists. Three steps to the present, three steps to which began
modern humans, keeps the process simple and the progress "avec la degeneration du eoup de poing et sa disparition progressive"
palpable. (19(X):234).
4. How many Palaeolithic periods? The first formal and explicit proposal that we have
But for the Palaeolithic archaeologist there is one small uncovered comes from the German archaeologist F'. Wiegers
problem in this simple scheme of things; does the Middle who considered the old division into two periods superseded.
Palaeolithic actually exist? Without a middle stage to the He proposed that a "Mittleres Palaolithikum" should be
appearance of modern humans the inevitability of inserted between the Lower and the Upper Palaeolithic
evolutionary progress collapses. We would be governed less (Wiegers 1920: 89). However, even in Germany this division,
by the classificatory structures we inherit and use and rather though occasionally used (Schuster 1928: 48-50), did not
more by the issues we wanted to investigate. become very popular (cf. Andrée 1939: 142).
( I IVI : GAMBLE AND Wil. ROEBROEKS - A POINT OF INFLECTION
Three decades later Bordes provided a formal definition in In this sense, the existence of a real element of 'cultural' patterning
Ins important paper on the ramifying character of industries in the character of technological \analion w i t h i n the Middle
in western Europe (Bordes 1950). He mentions typological Palaeolithic seems difficult, il not impossible, to deny ( IW6:
and technological differences between Lower and Middle
Palaeolithic industries and goes out of his way to show that At the same time the Binfords' tool kits have also been
Middle Palaeolithic industries - i.e. those with Levallois - updated (Kühn 1995) while a lively debate revolves around
are all post Rissian 4 . To do so he even develops an ingenious the dietary habits of the Neanderthals (Stiner 1994; Marean
scenario to discredit the Saalian age of the German site 1998).
Markkleeberg, with its abundant Levallois elements.
Grahmann, who exhaustively studied the Markkleeberg 5. The Middle Palaeolithic: core properties,
site (1955). was the first person to use the term Middle timing and development
Palaeolithic in a way which goes beyond typology and Throughout this volume the term Middle Palaeolithic is used
technology to resemble, in many ways, the 'modern' usage in the sense employed by the authors in Ronen ( 1982).
of the term. In his Urt;e\clu<hte der Menschheit ( 1952) It is a stage anterior to the Upper Palaeolithic where lithic
Grahmann characterises the Middle Palaeolithic by a focus assemblages are characterised by a high proportion of
on (Levallois) Hake products rather than on handaxes, and standardised Hake-supports and flake-tools. These are based
chronologically covering the Rissian up until the middle of on débitage which generally, but not always, involves the
I he hist glaciation. In this period new habitats were occupied Levallois technique. In general terms the period is characterised
for the first time, for example mountainous areas and caves by long-term technological stability. At a synchronous level.
and significantly regional 'cultures' develop. however, considerable technological variability can be found.
Nonetheless, some authors still preferred the twofold As noted above the geographical recurrence of tool forms
division, notably Breuil and Lantier in the 1959 edition of provides, for the first time, cultural groupings at a regional
Les hommes de lu pierre ancienne, and Miiller-Beck, who. in rather than continental scale (Clark 1982. 1988). Regional
the third edition of Grahmann's Urt>eM hichte der Menschheit variability exists in the choice of chaîne opératoire, either
states that developments in the Upper Pleistocene are a dehitd^e. fii(i>iiihu;c or tri/iiciul (Turq, this volume), the use
continuation of Lower Palaeolithic variability. He therefore ol secant and migrating plane technology (White and Pettit
considers the use of the term Middle Palaeolithic 1995). and within Levallois the selection of linear or
unnecessary and confusing (Grahmann and Miiller-Beck recurrent sequences (Boéda et al. 1990; Boéda 1993).
1967: 232). By then however the Binlbrds had entered the Moreover, the repeated presence of blade forms at a small
mousterian debate (1966) and the Middle Palaeolithic, number of sites in Africa and Europe provides another
defined in Bordes' famous t\polo^ie ( 1961). became an instance of such régionalisation (McBurney 1967: Singer and
internationally hot research topic. Wymer 1982; Conard 1992; Révillion and Tuffreau 1994)
The modern usage can be conveniently traced to a volume The appearance in southern England of Levallois
examining Dorothy Garrod's contribution to the period technique in terrace deposits dated to OIS 8. c. 300.0(X) years
(Ronen 1982). In particular the paper by Bosinski (1982). ago (Bridgland 1994). indicates a chronological span of some
stemming from his major survey of the l-onneii^nippen of 250.0()() years. This places the Early Middle Palaeolithic at
the German Middle Palaeolithic (Bosinski 1967). identified the beginning of' the continental Saalian complex cold stage
the period as the first appearance of recognisable space-time as seen at Mesvin IV (Cahen and Haesearts 1984; Cahen and
groupings or cultures. Michel 1986).5 Good agreement can be found in many of the
papers in this volume. Svoboda (Central Europe) and Vega
"The subdivision of our finds into different groups of industries
starts with the Middle Palaeolithic. In our region |(ierniany| these Toscano et ni. (Iberia) both give time ranges of 3(X) Kyr to
are the I .cbcnstedt group anil the Rheindahlen-type assemblage. 30 Kyr bp. Turq (Aquitaine) agrees, even though in lithic
This indicates the development of distinct areas ol'tradition and terms the beginning of the early Middle Palaeolithic is
communication, which characterises the human way of life ever blurred in this region by the southern Acheulean.
since" (1982: 167). Erom the next warm temperate phase. (MS 7. a number of
well-dated Middle Palaeolithic industries are known, e.g.
As recently put by Mellars in his exhaustive study of this Ehringsdorf in Germany. Maastricht-Belvédère in the
phenomenon in France Netherlands and Biache-Samt-Vaast in northern France
"the only plausible explanation for these patterns lies in the notion (Roebrocks and Tuffreau, this volume). This pattern
«I separate lechnologic.il traditions - i.e. separate patterns of continues through OIS 6 and OIS 5.
technological development, fostered hy the variable degrees ol There is a qualitative and quantitative change in the
social distance maintained between the human populations involved. archaeology of the period after 70,000 years ago. the division
THE MIDD1.I PAI.AI.OI ITHIC (XTUPATION OF HUROPH
marked by OIS 4 and the onset of severe Pleniglacial time occupation on the Russian plain extending as far as the
conditions. This is also the beginning of the Late Middle Urals (Praslov, pers. comm. 1994). Absolute dating is still
Palaeolithic whose start date has recently received greater tricky for this period but a recent calibration curve suggests
significance with the volcanic winter model (Ambrose 1998). that the majority of our information probably falls in the
The largest Pleistocene volcanic eruption occurred at Toba, interstadials that punctuated the period between 60-40 Kyr
in Sumatra, at 71 Kyr bp and may have affected regional (Van Andel 1998).
archaic populations in Southeast Asia, South China and
India. The eruption influenced global climate by exacerbating 6. Biotopes
the shift to glacial conditions. Taken together these events One of the purposes of the Arras meeting was to explore the
might have produced a bottleneck effect for African geographical limits of Middle Palaeolithic foraging and its
populations ol Homo w//wm SK/W/JS surviving in the largest environmental constraints. The 'beginning' of the Early
areas of tropical réfugia. It is noticeable that the expansion Middle Palaeolithic roughly coincides with the first
out of Africa of modern humans at 100 Kyr currently does unambiguous presence in western Eurasia of a biotope that
not reach much further than the Middle East. It is the has become known as the Mammoth-steppe (Guthrie 1984,
expansion post-Toba at about 50 Kyr which might be much 1990). This was a highly productive habitat which supported
more significant for re-colonising parts of the Old World a very diverse gra/ing community with the mammoth as its
and expanding into territories previously uninhabited by characteristic species. The mammoth steppe stretched from
hominines. Cantabria to Alaska.
Europe escaped Toba's thick ash deposits which covered According to Van Kolfschoten (1990) the fauna from the
parts of Asia but not the impact of this volcanic event on German site Ariendorf 8 which includes l)i< nnionyx,
global climate. Réfugia in southern and Mediterranean Lemmus lemmus, Mammuthus, Coelodonta untie/uitatis and
Europe become important between 70 and 50 Kyr bp. Since 'IRangifer tarandus (Turner 1990, 1991 ) is one of the first
these réfugia are in limestone regions the places where cold stage faunas in Europe with a composition indicative for
material survives now changes dramatically. Even so it is a mammoth-steppe environment (cf. Kahlkc 1994). The
apparent that the contexts from which we retrieve the Ariendorf I fauna ties in well with the first appearance of
archaeology of these Neanderthal réfugia often represent Mammuthu\ i>riinif>eiiiii\ during OIS 8 and the contempora-
only very short pulses of sedimentation, and thus only stand neous immigration of ('oclodonla unlu/mtcitn into western
for short periods of Pleistocene time, most of which is parts of Eurasia. This timing probably represents the earliest
represented by sedimentary hiatuses rather than by gradual extension of the mammoth steppe this far to the west (cf.
sedimentation as previously supposed (Laville et til. 19X0). also Roebroeks and Van Kolfschoten 1995: 309. note X).
This is exemplified by Turq's paper (this volume); in The key property of the mammoth steppe, as explained by
particular the new interpretation of the profile of La Micoque Guthrie at the workshop, was the 'plaid' structure of the
and the sequence at the lower abri of Le Moustier. Rather vegetation which supported both the megafauna and large
than representing gradual sedimentation over quite long herds of mixed ungulates. Using a wide array of data, Jaubert
periods of time, the sediment build-up is seen at both sites ( t h i s volume) characterises the result as a geoclimatic
as tast. intermittent and episodic. This of course has mosaic. This structure resulted in environmental resilience to
implications for our view of the archaeology of such sites short-term fluctuations in climate. In particular the animal
and the inferences this allows concerning mobility and populations, while subject to cycles of population expansion
settlement (see below). and decline, were able to weather perturbations by adjusting
The Late Middle Palaeolithic, often synonymous with the the combination of gra/ers and browsers, single and multiple
Mousterian, still has the Lcvullois and all of Bordes' five stomach ruminants, odd and even toed ungulates, as well as
tribes (1968: 98), some of which can be found in the stature and si/e of taxa in the Mammuthusl Coelodonta
previous 200,000 years. But added to this are novel aspects community. These changes reflect varied selective factors
at the site and regional level. At the site level we find burials, such as snow cover, precipitation, length of season, herb
as at Le Moustier, La Chapelle-aux-Saints, and La Ferrassie layer, rodent numbers, temperature and wind strength.
in France (Smirnov 1991; Defleur 1993) and less certainly at W i t h i n the monolithic concept of the mammoth steppe we
Saint-Césaire (Vandermeersch 1993) and Altamura in Italy can uncover a good deal of variation relating to a model of
(Ventura 1993) although complete skeletons arc present. settlement ebb and flow. This can be translated into phases of
There are also well-constructed fire places as at Vilas Ruivas réfugia and expansion. Contraction of population into réfugia
in Portugal (Vega Toscano et ai, this volume). At a regional must have been a feature of the glacial climates in OIS 4, 6
level there is greater movement of raw materials over longer and 8. However, while interstadial conditions prevailed in
distances (Féblot-Augustins, this volume). There is also first these stages and during the two very different interglacials.
( I I V I (iAMBI.K AND W1L. ROHBROF.KS - A POINT OF INI I ICTION
OIS 7 and 5e, population most probably expanded into This tephra is f o u n d in the transition between a loess and a
previously abandonned territory. In this regard Turq's refuge palaeosol indicating a transition from cool to temperate
hypothesis developed for the Aquitaine basin (this volume) conditions. The full OIS 7 lasted from 242-194 Kyr and
makes two important predictions tor further examination; further sub-stages are indicated which mirror the fivefold
cold periods should see an increase in both the number of pattern in OIS 5 (Bassinot el til. 1994).
sites ami very rich assemblages. This represents an important Assigning archaeological sites to these three sub-stages is
start in turning archaeological data into long-term proving difficult. Most sues are simply 'interglacial in
demographic estimates. What we need are more accurate character' with tloral and faunal remains very reminiscent of
estimates of the amplitude and duration of climatic earlier travertine sites in Germany such as Bil/mgsleben
oscillations within these rather monolithic cold and warm ( M a n i a 1995). But what is surprising is thai for such an
deep-sea stages. isotopically 'weak' interglacial (Shackleton 1987) the faunal
Mussi (this volume) also uses the rich Italian palaeontologi- and floral evidence is either equivalent to. or greater than,
eal record, dated OIS 5 to OIS 3. to provide an assessment of temperatures and tolerances in both the present and the last
hominine ecology. From her sample of 119 sites. ]17r with interglacial which have a very 'strong' isotopic signature.
lithics, she found that more carnivores were invariably For example, at the lakeside site of Neumark-Nord in
matched by more human presence. This supports earlier eastern Germany the vegetation was dominated by oak.
studies by Miracle ( 1991 ) and Gamble ( I995b) where ha/el, hornbeam. yew. lime, box and holly. Pond tortoise
increased carnivore presence is indicative of resource rich (/-.'HIVs t>i'hifnliiri<>). regarded as a good indicator of full
areas. Late Middle Palaeolithic hominincs preferred to be in interglacial conditions (Mama ct «I. 1990; Mania 1991 ). is
the thick of the action. They were not relegated to marginal also present which is »in reason why most Quaternary
/ones but competed with other social carnivores and scientists would prefer to see this sue as OIS 5e (Vanden-
omnivores for the optimum habitats. berghe et al. 1993). But pond tortoise has also heen found at
But if ebb and How describes Neanderthal occupation another OIS 7 locale. Maastricht Belvedere (Van Kolfschoten
patterns at a regional and continental scale (Gamble 1986) and Roebroeks 1985). I t its eggs are to hatch it requires a
then the limits need to be explored. Exactly what the mean J u l y temperature of I 7 - I 8 ° C , combined with a
environmental limits of Middle Palaeolithic hominincs were considerable amount of sunshine w i t h few damp, cloudy or
is debated, and in particular their ability to cope with climax- rainy days. These températures are in excess ot today's
interglacial forested environments (Gamble 1986; Roebroeks (Stuart 1982). The traserimes at Stuttgart-Bad Cannstall
el til. 1992). This debate has more productively turned into (Reiff l')S(i) also contain this laxon along with leaves and
i|iiestioning the nature of our environmental reconstructions fruits ol box (Him/-, \<-/H/«TH/-r;is) and other oak mixed
(Van Andel and T/edakis 1996). How, for example, do we forest elements. These tree taxa are also present in the lower
turn the various data from pollen, small mammals etc. into travertine at Ehringsdorf (Steiner and Wagenbreth 1971 ).
archaeologically u s e f u l data on the structure and productivity Remains of macaque monkeys (Maciicn sp.), indicative of
of former environments ' forested conditions have been found in the oceanic
The problem is highlighted by the two Middle Palaeolithic interglacials OIS 1 1 and OIS 9 in northern sites such as
interglacials; OIS 7, which probably correlates with an mtra- Bil/mgsleben and Swanscombe. But this species is also
Saalian warm-temperate phase and the Hemian, OIS 5e. the found in the more continental interglacial of O1S 7 at Hunas.
lasi interglacial. These have been described as a low- and a a collapsed cave in Bavaria, w here an upper molar of
high-sea level interglacial respectively, both on the basis of Macacti ct.fltm'niimi occurs in levels above a stalagmite
oxygen isotope data (Shackle-ton 1987) and palynological tloor with a Thorium/Uranium date of 260 Kyr (Carls t-i ai
data, with Ahies present north of the Alps during inlerglacials l l >88: Groiss <•/ w/. 1995). Currant (1989) lists macaque in
with a marine ingression in the coastal areas of Western English faunas which may be of similar age to Hunas.''
Europe (see Roebroeks el nl. 1992 for a discussion of the High resolution evidence from the Greenland Ice ("ore
differences and their archaeological visibility; Zagwijn project (GRIP 1993) has enabled a detailed sub division of
1992). the 10 Kyr of O1S 5e in the Summit ice-core, ('lunate in
OIS 7 has been subdivided into three major sub-stages Greenland during the last interglacial was characterised by a
w i t h suhstage 7b representing a short ice age lasting 15 Kyr series ol severe cold periods, which began extremely rapidly
and commencing at 230 Kyr bp (Andrews 1983). The end of and lasted from decades to centuries. For its last 2 Kyr the
OIS 7b is dated by the single grain 4()Ar/39Ar technique and Hemian was interrupted by .1 series of oscillations apparently
has been applied to the Ariendorf 8 site in the east Eifel reflecting reversals to a mid-glacial like climate. Importantly.
volcanic field. The technique has dated the Hüttenberg ( H ) Dansgaard ft til. ( 1993) suggest that apart from the
tephra to 215 ± 4 Kyr bp (Van den Bogaard cl <il. 1989). Holocene. i n s t a b i l i t y has dominated the North Atlantic
8 TUK MIDDLL PALAEOLITHIC OCCUPATION OF hUROPh
climate over the last 23(),(XK) years, i.e. during the Middle feeding strategies (Bellinger 1991). The results strike us as
Palaeolithic. curiously data free since the models from evolutionary
What all this tells us is that interglacial climates fluctuated ecology are so strong lhal lesling them with the taphonomi-
with rapid internal shifts of temperature. These changes cally-riddled samples of prehistoric hunters and gatherers
happened within the lifetime of individuals. One event at the almost seems superfluous. Alternalively, and Mussi (ihis
end of OIS 5el lasted only an estimated 70 years but saw the volume) takes one of these approaches to lask, the decisions
oxygen isotope values plunge to mid-glacial levels (GRIP are reduced lo such basic subsistence needs in order to address
1993: 206). Hominine adaptation to several millennia of taphonomic issues ( S t i n e r 1994) t h a t often all we seem to
constant climate, sea level and presumably plant cover is learn is thai people ate. which is hardly very revealing about
looking less and less likely as a scenario for the period 300- the hominine condition. Especially when, as Mussi points
60 Kyr bp.7 out, the choices by pioneering archaeologists about what
Therefore the two factors which characterised Middle bones to keep uninlenlionally produced a dismal piclure of
Palaeolithic biotopes were resilience and instability. Some Neanderthal dietary success for Ihe archaeozoologists of ihe
indication of their impact on Neanderthal societies can be 1990V
seen in a north south transect provided by the papers in this Rather than games-against-nalure we would suggest a
volume. In the north. Roebroeks and Tuffreau for France and change in focus and view the environment in a mutual
Svoboda for the C/ech Republic reconstruct occupation as relalionship to the hominines we study. Such an approach
mainly interstadial or temperate in character. Moreover what stems from the work of J.J. Gibson and in particular his last
was favoured were the mosaic conditions that increased book The ecological approach lo VIMIII/ pen-eplion (1979).
ecological productivity. In the Czech Republic this was Instead of treating the hominine and Ihe environment as
assisted by topographic diversity as suggested elsewhere in separale, Gibson asks us to acknowledge what our visual
Europe and the Ukraine by Soffer (1989: 724, 1994) sense tells us; that the one does not exist without the other.
Continuing the transect to the south are the papers by Instead they exist in a mutual relationship acting on and
Jaubert and Turq for Aquitaine. Here Soffer's model is well acling with each other. In perceptual terms the animal
supported by the density of find spots. Interestingly the louches and is surrounded by its environment. We are in
preserved deposits come from caves, abns and avens. Their contact with our environment because that is how we see it,
survival emphasises that occupation took place in cooler as occlusal edges and surfaces. Quite simply, our
conditions. The number of interglacial occupations is very understanding of the world is based on what we see. what
small by comparison. In our opinion this emphasises the we can become involved with. For example, Gibson is not
refuge status of this oceanic moderated corner of Europe. interested in the laws of physics which tell us in good
The third leg of the transect is Iberia (Vega Toscano et al.) cartesian fashion that matler eannol be deslroyed, only its
and Italy (Mussi). Here the biotopes also formed réfugia, for state altered. An example is someone eating an apple. In
plants and animals, during northern and Alpine glaciations perceptual terms that apple has disappeared. What was a
(Tzedakis 1993; Tzedakis and Bennett 1995). In Iberia the persistent surface has vanished (Reed 1988: 285). We do not
recovery of open sites as well as caves and abris is need lo explain ils disappearance since il happened before
particularly striking when compared to southern France. our eyes.
In Italy, as Mussi has argued previously (1995). the Such elision does not mean thai we need to abandon the
topographic diversity of the peninsula encouraged resilience quesl for decision rules (Mithen 1990) but rather that the
in the occupation of hominine populations by imposing a Palaeolilhic hominine is no longer jusl playing calch-up lo
mosaic of possibilities. adapl to a changing climate. Ralher Ihey changed with rather
than because of such shifts. This ralher different view of
7. Settlement patterns ecological processes also suggests that the perception of
At Arras the reconstruction of biotopes raised, as expected, environments by hominines was probably more important
more questions than answers. We suspect that this is partly lhan their cognitive apprecialion of ihcm. Whal is appealing
due to the lack of precision in reconstructions but also to for Palaeolithic archaeologists about this approach is that
the concepts which archaeologists bring to the analysis of perception is anolhcr of Ihose intellcclual anchors (Binford
hominine/environment interaction. The dominant view is very 1983) which allow us to make strong inferences about the
much one of external selection where at best (and usually not past based on uniformilarian assumplions. The hominine
before the Upper Palaeolithic) hominines played a game mode of perception, as Gibson pointed out, is ambulatory.
against the environment. This is most strongly seen in the We are bipedal with forward facing eyes and a head that can
attempts to analyse settlement patterns and landscape use in swivel to change the optical array. This is how we see Ihe
terms of decisions based on reproductive success linked to world and how all European hominines have seen Ihe world.
( Ï . I V I - : CAMB1.I' AND Wil. ROliBROKKS A POINT OF INFI.HCTÏON
To walk between Ihe rock shellers öl' the Dordogne or around This in turn suggests that descriptions of Neanderthals as
the excavations of Maastricht-Belvédère is to perceive an 'tool assisted hominids' (Binford 1989) may be conceptually
environment in the same way as any Middle Palaeolithic limiting for our understanding of their spatial data. However,
hominine. As Reed puts it, observers have a path not a point the intermediary character of these centrifugal living
of view. Because these paths intersect the environment of one structures remains. They have more complicated life histories
animal becomes the environment of all animals (Reed 1988: than a chimp's bed but yet do not carry that symbolic sense
297). of 'home', with its connotation of dwelling, that distinguishes
Of course any landscape will have changed, especially our use of place and space from the nest of a bird or the hive
over 250,000 years. But the process of direct perception, of a bee (Ingold 1992).
whereby we pick up the affordances, or use values, the Beyond the level of the site, ambulatory perception and the
landscape possesses, has not. Direct perception is one of mutual environment suggests a model of settlement location
Gibson's most important but controversial ideas. Basically and landscape use which is linked to animal tracks and
he argued that the information contained in an animal's hominine paths. Here for example is a route out of the debate
environment, be they either 'natural' or 'cultural' items, does concerning the occupation of interglacial forests, reviewed
not need a prior mental model for their meaning to be above, as well as a way round the pitfall of 'common sense'
decoded. We do not need a mental plan to guide our actions approaches to Palaeolithic land use as discussed by
because perception is a process of action determined by our Roebroeks and Tuffreau ( t h i s volume). When the debate
mobility. We perceive the world as we go about our daily began about the habitat tolerances of archaic hominines
lives of living in it. Therefore, ( ( i a m b i c 1984) the model of landscape use was still one
"the structures and meanings that we find in the world are alremly
based on Ihe principles of site catchment analysis (Vita-Finzi
there in llie information that we extract in the act of perception; and Higgs 1970: Bailey and Oavidson 1983). Time and
their source lies in the objects we perceive, they are not added on dislance provided a prism (Carlstein 1982) through which
by the perceiver. Therefore perceiving is, ipso fact«, knowing" palaeocm ironments around sites could be investigated,
(Ingold 1992: 46). typically as a sel of concentric resource /ones. While these
exploitation territories were internally assessed in terms of
By contrast a cognitive approach to the past can make no the /.onation of food resources, the model necessarily
such uniformitarian assumption and is difficult to test stressed Ihe central functions of sites ( h u t see Sturdy 1975).
(Mithen 1997). This had the result of making the pattern of land use seem
In the same way Ingold has drawn attention to the like that of agriculturists with its optimising approach to
taskscape where people attend to each other as they go about continuous parcels of land.
their daily routines (Ingold 1993). Here the emphasis is on However, among foragers these mutual environments are
sound, an aspect of perception not covered by Gibson. not surface-area territories, as traditionally conceived, but
The sounds of flint knapping, children playing and animals rather paths between locales (Ingold 1986: 152: Gamble
calling are all part of the audible rhythms which establish the 1998). Tenure in such societies "is not of surface-area, but of
taskscape and which result from action and movement. sites and paths within a landscape" (Ingold 1986: 153).
Rolen's discussion (this volume) of Middle Palaeolithic Leroi-Gourhan foreshadowed this argument in /,<' geste et
settlement evidence provides another example of such mutual la parole, (first published in 1966). with a discussion
involvement between an organism and its environment. comparable to Gibson's ambulatory perception,
Rather than looking for deliberate, planned structures that
"We perceive the surrounding world in two ways, a dynamic one
meet our criteria of architecture or camp-sites he instead whereby we travel through space to take cognisance of it and u
proposes that what patterning we do find in caves and open static one that enables us. while remaining immobile, to reconstitute
sites is best interpreted as centrifugal living structuren where circles around ourselves extending to the limits of the unknown. The
spatial patterning resulted from moving materials outwards in first offers an image of the world linked to an itinerary: the second
the context of carrying our tasks. He concludes that such integrates the image within the two opposing surfaces of sky and
Middle Palaeolithic structures were never really finished earth meeting at the horizon" (Leroi-Gourhan 1993: 325-6).
because they were never planned. Rather they changed
continuously due to repeated use and the mutual interplay As the result he concluded that, "the nomad hunter-gatherer
between the individuals and their environment. The patterns visualised the surface of a territory by crossing it: the settled
provided their own affordances for subsequent action. In thai tanner constructed the world in concentric circles around a
regard they are different to the notion of primate nests granary" (ihid.: 327).
created as individual sleeping or resting places because those From this perspective the occupation, or not. of the inter-
Middle Palaeolithic actions were social as well as technical. glacial forests can be re-examined. The question has less to
10 THE MIDDLE PALAEOLITHIC OCCUPATION OF EUR« li'l
do with overall prey density, aggregation and mobility, action as in, of and with the world rather than separate from
crucial to assessing how hommines played the game againsi it (Gamble 1998). The prospect is for a more interesting sel
the environment (Jochim 1976), than with the frequency with of Middle Palaeolithic hominines than we previously have
which their tracks crossed the paths of hominines. from our detailed reconstructions.
Environmental reconstructions do not need to specify
precisely the type of forest hut rather the length of' the path 8. The Middle Palaeolithic and the qualities of
and the affordances it encounters. As Roehroeks and Tuffreau primeness and protection
( t h i s volume) conclude "these open corridors through We now illustrate this approach with two qualities which,
forested areas must have acted as a kind of highway for from our reading of'these papers, characterise the Middle
Pleistocene hunter-gatherers". The rest of the forest remains Palaeolithic. These are priiiit'iii'ss and pmteciinn. Such
unvisited and uninhabited. The path is the territory (Bahuchet qualities are expressed through skills which leave residues.
1992) and will be abandoned, lengthened, shortened or But first we have to be reminded about our scales of analysis
redirected depending on the frequency of" the tracks which and resolution.
cross it. Neither does the lack of trees matter. Seeing a wider At Arras we discussed how to make use of the different
vista does not affect the way mobile peoples move across a chronological envelopes in which our data comes. For
landscape. They still construct an itinerary (Brody 1981) example, in the Late Middle Palaeolithic of Iberia (Vega
because of ambulatory perception. They will always do so Toscano el al., this volume). Aquitaine and Italy there are
irrespective of such cognitive measures as planning depth comparatively few well-preserved activities which can be
and memory measured in the minutes it took to perform them. Instead it is
The papers in this volume present abundant evidence to the northern region in our transect which due to sedimenta-
support a path rather than a catchment model. In particular tion in open sites preserves such fine-grained, precisely timed
the overview provided by Féblot-Augustins and the region.il events; for example flint knapping at Wallertheim (Conard
syntheses of Turq, Jaubert and Svoboda point to the potential and Adler 1997) and Maastricht-Belvédère (Roehroeks and
with their studies of raw material transfers. When allied with Tuffreau, Ihis volume) or aurochs butchery at Neumark-Nord
other seminal work by Geneste (I988a. b). Floss (1994) and (Mania c t (il. 1990). The link between the data which took
Roebroeks et dl. ( 1988), we can move rapidly away from minutes and the evidence which represents an accumulated
such 'common sense' models of Palaeolithic land use as thousand years is provided by the scatters. As Svoboda (this
catchment analysis Mussi's final comment (this volume) that volume) points out those travertine sites of Central and
the Middle Palaeolithic hominines were more wolf' than ape eastern Europe are very useful for making the bridge within a
in their use of shelter is borne out by range si/es single depositional environment. Such variation between regions
reconstructed from raw material transfer data (Gamble and in Europe has to be borne in mind when assessing hominine
Steele 1997). Within such large ranges we now expect well- capabilities just as the different environmental selection
trodden highways (Roebroeks and Tuffreau. this volume). pressures operating between the regions of Palaeolithic
Lake (pers. comm. 1994) has used a computer based Europe (see above) resulted in different adaptations.
simulation approach to examine how information is acquired But what have we learnt from these varied samples about
and used in such habitats. His results emphasise the Middle Palaeolithic capabilities, what we prefer to call skills
importance of'the social context for sharing knowledge about rather than adaptive strategies? Skills have to be learnt and
itineraries constructed by individual hominines. practised. They provide individuals with a means of creating
At the Arras workshop the problem of Middle Palaeolithic an identity through performance and repetition. For present
settlement was presented by Roebroeks as a dichotomy purposes we distinguish two skills, generic, or transferable,
between walking stomachs and talking heads. In the former and specific which are relevant to this discussion.
the emphasis is on proteins, exploitation and landscapes Generic skills can be employed in very different
filled with resources. With the latter the accent changes to environmental settings. Examples would include searching
meaning, ritual landscapes and the giving environment (Bird- for food, co-operating in its acquisition and sharing the
David 1991). We believe that a move to path models allows results. The manufacture and use of stone tools was
us to capitalise on the many excellent studies which have embedded in such generic skills in the form of a social
focused until now on the walking stomachs part of the technology (Gamble, in press). Creating and following paths
dichotomy (eg. Gaud/inski, this volume). In particular this in the landscape would be another skill that was dependent
shift in emphasis allows us to see the mutual relationship upon knowledge and the transmission of information via
between hominines and their environments as discussed social networks. Variation in scale is expected but as we
above. We therefore move from a cartesian separation of the have seen (Féblot-Augustins; Svoboda, this volume) can also
mind from the world to a more inclusive view of human be explained in terms of ecology.
11 l I l\ I C1AMBI.K AND WII. ROEBROKKS A POINT OF INH.HCTION
By contrast, specific skills arc historically developed at Protection is the other quality we identify. It is thoroughly
particular places and in distinctive contexts. These are ways examined by Mussi who contrasts concepts of home and
of' doing things which are very local in performance, mobility now tethered to the needs of the Neanderthals'
application and transmission. Such specific skills may be young. Such specific skills allied to locales differentiated the
created many times in different places; the Middle local regions created by hominines as they trod their paths
Palaeolithic blades, discussed above, would be one such While these places remain undecorated. some of them were
example. These specific skills are what makes the marked in distinctive ways. In the Late Middle Palaeolithic
ethnographic record such a cultural kaleidoscope or the the creation of place and the embodiment of this quality can
world of the last glacial maximum so polyphonous (Gamble be traced through the burials. In contrast to the Upper
and Soffer 1990). The papers in this volume identify specific Palaeolithic the burials of the Late Middle Palaeolithic are all
s k i l l s in the Late Middle Palaeolithic of Hurope, particularly found in caves and abris. No open air graves with elaborate
in the discussion of settlement by Jaubert. Vega Toscano structures and grave goods have yet been found before
cl til. and Mussi. Specific skills, but employing different 30 Kyr bp and none with Middle Palaeolithic associations.
forms of performance and transmission, are a feature of the The lack of overt symbolling is a distinctive feature of the
Upper Palaeolithic. They are less apparent in the Early Middle Palaeolithic. What symbols existed were embodied
Middle Palaeolithic (Roebroeks and Tuffreau. this volume) rather than externalised. This pattern reflects the importance
and apparently absent in the Lower Palaeolithic, where a to Middle Palaeolithic hominines of intimate and effective
transect over a huge ecological gradient from Olduvai to networks where the resources used to create and reproduce
Swanscombe reveals very little that can be classified in this such societies are emotional anil material rather than
way (Gamble 1997). symbolic (Gamble 1998). However, as they were almost
The papers in this volume allow us to elaborate on these certainly equipped with language to express and create
skills. Firstly, there is a q u a l i t y in the Middle Palaeolithic of these intimate and effective networks, we must expect
primeness which expresses aspects of the generic skills highly varied personal histories and identity among the
which these hominines transferred within Europe. Primeness stones, bones and apparently limited spatial patterning
can be seen in the choice and selection of animals and raw which we investigate. Just because there are no huts, art or
materials; an appreciation of resources thai now involves triple burials does nol mean that they were without a social
repeated methods of acquisition (Gaud/inski. this volume) life or that it was not complex. Protection is merely a
and distribution (Feblot-Augustins. this volume) throughout summary of the skills w h i c h we need to be reminded about
the continent. These data allow us to recognise such generic and which we need to devise ways of investigating. One
skills. They make it possible to infer the quality of primeness such example is provided by Rolen's model (this volume)
which is the affordance. or use value, of the hominines' o f ' c e n t r i f u g a l living structures w h i c h judges the evidence
environment which they directly perceived. We would also on its own terms rather than imposing a set of criteria
cite the link between Levallois and the transport of tools which, as we pointed out at the beginning of this
around the landscape as another example of a generic s k i l l introduction, make the Middle Palaeolithic nothing more than
where primeness is being stressed. In his study of raw a yardstick for measuring the arrival and sophistication of
materials in Aquitaine, Geneste (1989: S3) shows that the modern humans.
most mobile elements of any mousterian technology, as On the contrary, these specific skills may well point to an
judged by the use of distant raw materials, involve Levallois internal dynamism in the Middle Palaeolithic that is currently
elements. While the wider importance of Levallois has often only accorded to the Upper Palaeolithic. This is reflected in
been seen as indicative of linguistic capabilities, based on the historical development of these societies, not necessarily
assumptions about the pre-planned intentions of the knappers from outside influences and contacts, .is suggested for Arcy-
(Noble and Davidson 1996: 200-1), it now seems more sur-Cure (Hublin cl til. 1996) although these were
fruitful to examine the technique in terms of the skills undoubtedly important, but from within as Kolen suggests.
individuals learnt as they trod their habitual paths. The link As Fari/y noted at this important site there are major
between technology and resources is well made. The choice differences between the mousterian and châtelperronian
of prime aged animals, often taken in large numbers or on levels.
many occasions is well made by Gaud/inski ( t h i s volume)
"The changes seem to relaie rallier to .1 dil'lerent quality of l i t e ,
and illustrated by Jaubert's discussion of locales such as in w i n c h the immediate surroundings of the human groups the
La Borde where 93% of the bones are aurochs with an MNI habitation /one was perceived in a totally different way.
of 40. The age profile points to a selection of prime aged Analogous changes can he seen in the character of the lithic
animals between 2 to 6 years old. Primeness could further be industries, in winch the forms of the tools appear to have a new.
by se\ and condition. exclusive significance" (l-.in/v IWO: 325).
12 THK MIDDLE PALAEOLITHIC OCCUPATION ()!• liUROI'L
Her lead in recognising the Middle Palaeolithic as a point of 4 In a paper written for the Darwinian centennial Bordes reveals
inflection in hominine prehistory now needs to he pursued. Ins f u l l t r i n i l a n a n credentials inherited directly from Lubbock, "Can
we distinguish any particular direction or tendencies in the general
Where this inflection lulls, at the beginning of the late evolution of prehistoric cultures? I believe so. It seems possible to
Middle Palaeolithic rather than at the Middle/Upper distinguish three great cycles which developed in parallel
Palaeolithic transition, or even the fuzzy boundary of the fashion...the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic...the Upper Palaeolithic-
Lower/Middle Palaeolithic, is not so important as recognising Mesolithic...the Neolithic" (1959: 109).
the task we are now setting ourselves to investigate the
5 Bosinski (1982: 165) divided the Middle Palaeolithic as follows:
Middle Palaeolithic on its own terms. Trinitarianism, thinking Early Middle Palaeolithic of the RISS (Saale). Middle Middle
in threes, will still serve us well in pursuing fresh questions I'.il.icolithic of the Riss/Wurm (Eem), Late Middle Palaeolithic of
with Palaeolithic data. the Wiirrn (Weichsel). The Saale complex is now recognised as
more than |ust the penultimate (Riss) glaciation and comprises OIS
8, 7 and 6.
notes 6 Macaques are interesting because after hotninines they are the
most successful colonising primate. Their appearance across a wide
1 The Arras meeting (18-20 November 1994) was hosted by Alain
range of latitudes contrasts markedly with other tropically based
Tuffreau, assisted by Agnes Lamotte and Jean-Luc Marcy. A post
primates in both the New and Old Worlds. It is very possible that
conference excursion visited the palaeolithic sites at ('agny and
their social temperament has much to do with this expansion and as
Abbeville, while Tut't'reau and his colleagues enabled the participants
such they may serve as a better analogue for early human societies
to study the excavated material from Biache-Saint-Vaast, Cagny,
than previously believed (Y. Marshall pers. comm.).
Seclin and Riencourt-les-Bapaume. Participants were, in alphabetical
order: G. Bosinski, V. Cabrera-Valdes. J. Péblot-Augustins, C.S. Gamble,
7 It needs stressing that such short-term oscillations have not been
R.D. Guthrie, J. Jaubert, M. Lake, L. Larsson. M. Mussi, N. Praslov,
reported from terrestrial records Indeed, subséquent research of
L. Raposo, W. Roebroeks, M. Santonja, M. Sparreboom (ESF),
climate fluctuations and other records accounts for the discrepancy
J. Svoboda, A. Tuffreau, A. Turq, and G. Vega Toscano. (Invited, but
between the terrestrial and ice core records through the movement of
unable to attend: G. Bailey, M. Cremaschi, C. Farizy, S. Mithen).
the warm Norwegian current during the Kcmian, possibly caused by
the input of large amounts of fresh water from the North Pacific.
2 His change of mind probably also owed much to the work »I
This created cold water masses near Greenland and so affected the
Victor Commont in the Somme who is heavily cited in both
oxygen isotope composition of the source region for precipitation in
editions.
the Summit area (Larscn et al. 1995; Johnson el al. 1995). Bui these
oscillations had little effect on the climate of the European mainland
3 By contrast, McBurney's (1950) geographical paper finds the
(Litte/ ai 1996).
Middle Palaeolithic uncontroversial.
i; CLIVE GAMBLE AND WIL ROEBROEKS - A POINT OF INFLECTION
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Clive Gamble
Department of' Archaeology
University of Southampton
Highfietd
SO 17 1BJ Southampton
United Kingdom
Wil Roebroeks
Faculty of Archaeology
Leiden University
P.O. Box9.-il5
2300 RA Leiden
The Netherlands