Paleolithic Europe

During the Late Pleistocene, children in southwest France and northern Spain grew up engaging with the world around them through the lenses of locally and historically situated pictorial cultures. This particular period and region is not the site of the earliest example of symbolic behaviour, nor is it the only example of the production of imagery during the Pleistocene but the rich record of Franco-Cantabrian visual material culture provides a unique opportunity to explore how children learned to decode and transform the world around them through imagery. In this paper, focusing on parietal art, I consider the biological, cognitive and social underpinnings of the uniquely human ability to move between two and three dimensional worlds and to perceive a fourth dimension-time-through the perception of motion from still images. These abilities, which can be traced through the archaeological record, allowed children and the adults they became new ways of imagining and acting in the world.

This article introduces the special issue "Philosophy and Prehistory: New Perspectives on Minds, Art, and Culture." The primary motivation for the issue was to create a space where philosophy and evolutionary cognitive archaeology could intersect. We wanted to encourage cognitive archaeologists to reflect on their field from a philosophical perspective, and philosophers to consider key methodological, theoretical, or conceptual issues in evolutionary cognitive archaeology. We thereby aimed to bridge a perceived gap between philosophical and scientific research on prehistory, and to explore how these fields might complement each other. Our contributors relied on a variety of philosophical frameworks, including phenomenology, analytic philosophy, 4E cognition, and Material Engagement Theory. In this introduction, we reflect briefly on all fourteen contributions, and identify some common themes and points of complementarity. By bringing these perspectives together, we hope to inspire further philosophical inquiry into the vast expanse of human prehistory.

Gli Autori presentano i recenti approcci sviluppati per gestire i dati di scavo di Grotta del Romito (Cosenza) al fine di indagare gli spazi domestici e rituali relativi all’Epigravettiano. Dopo aver introdotto il contesto stratigrafico e gli aspetti rituali e funerari si propongono alcune applicazioni GIS volte  all’analisi integrata dei dati in ambiente 3D

La Güelga cave is located at the bottom of a mountain valley in the Eastern part of Asturias (Northern Spain), 186 m above sea level and 15 km far away from the coast. It currently comprises a group of caves that were occupied during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic periods (MP and UP respectively). In recent years, we have studied the levels of La Güelga cave eD Zone-proposing a sequence for the MP/UP transition: Mousterian-Aurignacian-Châtelperronian, which we review in this paper after a detailed analysis of the chronostratigraphy. We also provide new radiocarbon dates for the Mousterian, Aurignacian and Châtelperronian levels. Finally, the geoarchaeology, taphonomy, archaeological data, and chronology suggest that the interstratification -initially identified on the basis of stratigraphic observations during excavation-cannot be maintained. In any case, the stratigraphy of the internal D Zone of La Güelga cave is one of the most interesting from the Cantabrian region for analyzing the last phases of the Mousterian and the rise of the Aurignacian in the North of the Peninsula.

Das Dilemma urgeschichtlicher Forschung ist die selektive und fragmentarische Überlieferung ihrer Quellen. Solange sich der Urgeschichtler auf die Beschreibung und Sortierung seines Fundstoffes nach chronologischen und typologischen Merkmalen beschränkt, behindern ihn die Lücken wenig. Begreift er sein Fach aber als Teil der Kulturanthropologie, beginnt sein eigentliches Problem. Denn ohne Hilfe von außen ist er nicht in der Lage, die wenigen Mosaiksteine, die sein Fundgut nur darstellt, in ein gemeinsames Bezugssystem einzupassen. Wie archaische Gesellschaften organisiert sind, welche Parameter von Bedeutung sind, kann ihm -zumindest an Beispielen -die Ethnologie vermitteln. Die sogenannte ethnoarchäologische Arbeitsweise hat das Verständnis paläolithischer Gemeinschaften in den letzten Jahren entscheidend gefördert. Aus ethnographischen Daten werden dabei Modelle konstruiert, die versuchen, Rahmenbedingungen und signifikante Parameter jägerischer Subsistenz in übersichtlicher Form darzustellen, mit dem Ziel, dem Urgeschichtler eine Vorstellung zu geben, welche sozialen Vorgänge hinter seinem Fundgut stehen. Allerdings bedürfen diese ethnographischen »Kondensate' einer kritischen Bewertung, denn sie sind nicht ohne Gefahren für den archäologischen Anwender: 1) Ein Problem liegt in der für Modelle unabdingbaren Simplifizierung komplexer Vorgänge. Jägerische Gemeinschaften sind relativ einfach strukturiert und vermitteln daher den Eindruck, gut überschaubar zu sein. Sie dienen häufig als Experimentierfeld kulturanthropologischer Theoriebildung und verführen leicht zu der Annahme, hier könnte die gesamte Dynamik der gruppeninternen und -externen Prozesse in ihren Wechselbeziehungen verstanden und erklärt werden. Bei der großen ökologischen Bandbreite der von Jägern und Sammlern besiedelten Habitate greifen globale Modelle in vielen Fragen aber zu kurz. Wenn diese Modelle darüber hinaus in handliche mathematische Gleichungen aufgelöst werden, mögen diese zwar statistisch korrekt sein, der Blickwinkel des Urgeschichtlers wird im Angesicht seines konkreten Falles aber unter Umständen eingeengt. 2) Ein weiteres Problem liegt in der Zuverlässigkeit der ethnographischen Quellen. Jägerische Gemeinschaften sind in ihrer ursprünglichen Form heute ausgestorben. Da keine neuen Informationen zu erwarten sind, müssen aus der älteren ethnohistorischen Literatur Daten für die angestrebte Fragestellung mühsam herausgefiltert werden. Wir beobachten in den letzten Jahren seit dem Symposium ,Man the 82

This paper explains how mammoths were routinely killed in rivers, floated down to mammoth technocomplexes, butchered while docked in the river below the technocomplexes, and then butchered meat carried to smokehouses. The smokehouses simultaneously smoked the meat for immediate consumption, consumption after re-heating over flames or coals, or storage in elevated meat caches. This process is depicted in the Mezhyrich Map, now correctly interpreted in this paper. The weight of mammoths and riverine siting of technocomplexes defined the mammoth economy. The presence in technocomplexes of all parts of mammoths, including skulls, tusks and long bones, necessarily means the mammoths were both killed and transported docking in the rivers.

Une lecture historiographique superficielle pourrait donner l’impression que la préhistoire s’est construite de manière linéaire par des fondateurs qui en ont posé les bases et par des “suiveurs” qui en ont précisé le système. Dans ce modèle, l’histoire se serait progressivement construite sur le socle des données positives accumulées par les générations successives de pionniers, avec les inévitables rectifications qu’entraîne une discipline qui doit arrimer ses fondations dans le paradigme de l’époque. L’application de cette grille de lecture à une personnalité comme François Daleau (11.06.1845-16.11.1927) permet de mettre en évidence son inadéquation...

Entre Boucher de Perthes, qui projette les haches antédiluviennes d’Abbeville dans un passé sans date, et Bordes, qui dissèque avec la pré- cision d’un anatomiste les couches du Paléolithique ancien et moyen, les préhistoriens n’ont cessé de vouloir donner une matérialité aux témoi- gnages les plus anciens. Se représenter l’épaisseur temporelle entre les industries extraites des gisements est à ce point difficile que les cher- cheurs privilégieront longtemps la constitution d’une histoire des progrès humains, sans se préoccuper des millénaires qu’il a fallu à l’homme pour sortir de son état de « sauvagerie ».

Cross-culturally, shamans are believed to have the capacity to supernaturally cure and cause sickness. For this reason, shamans are both universally admired and feared. When a person dies or when a shaman’s patient fails to recover, shamans are often accused of practicing sorcery on a targeted individual. In turn, shamans were/are sometimes killed as a result of such accusations. We propose that such transegalitarian cultural contexts, in which surpluses were produced and competition over wealth and power increased, exacerbated accusations against shamans who might stand to benefit from individual misfortunes or recoveries. Under these conditions, to protect themselves from being physically attacked, ritual specialists formed sodalities, which offered mutual aid and protection to their members. In this sense, such shamanic defense alliances formed the basis of secret societies. In addition to providing shamans with protection, ritual sodalities typically claim privileged access to the ancestors or other supernatural beings. The leaders of secret societies often charge fellow villagers exorbitant fees in exchange for various services, including memberships that conferred access to coveted esoteric knowledge of the supernatural world and the secrets of healing and dramatic legerdemain. Thus, ritual sodalities serve as culturally sanctioned mechanisms for extracting wealth and funneling surpluses from villagers. We suggest that over time, the wealth, status, and power of aggrandizing secret society leaders grew vis-à-vis fellow transegalitarian villagers resulting in some of the first steps towards the rise of social complexity. In sum, we propose that similar practices of aggrandizement, along with the adoption of similar protection measures, were employed in the distant past by leaders of transegalitarian societies, such as those operating in Scandinavian polities during the Bronze Age.

Answer by J.D. Gleissner to a question posed by Dr. Gary Haynes in "A review of some attacks on the overkill hypothesis, with special attention to misrepresentations and doubletalk" in Quaternary International (2007) and Academia.edu: Were there two different kinds of human hunting and human dispersals in the Old and New Worlds, to account for the two different tempos of Overkill? Yes.

In the Old World, mammoth hunting during the Last Glacial Maximum (and the hunting of other large game such as bison, woolly rhinoceros, horses, etc.) was geographically restricted to riverine environments, to include every facet of the mammoth economy. Mammoths were killed in the rivers, transported downstream to settlements, and butchered in the rivers below the smokehouses overlooking rivers. This is clearly shown in the mammoth-bone circle settlements in the drainage basins of the Don and Dnieper Rivers, and it is also noticeable in the Moravian and Danuban mammoth-bone settlements that preceded those in the Don and Dnieper basins. See, J.D. Gleissner, 'The Mammoth Economy.'

Nomadic hunters in North America faced many obstacles compared to the mammoth hunters in the Old World. This may have induced North American hunters to kill more animals to make up for the many inefficiencies not faced by hunters in Eurasia who operated along rivers.

Between the settlements dating from the Middle Palaeolithic in Romania, a special place is held by the Mousterian from the Carpathian caves which provided lithic industries made of a great diversity of local rocks: flint, chaille, chert, jasper, radiolarite, quartz, quartzite, quartzolite, andesite, basalt, diorite etc. So far, all the specialized studies highlight the use of rocks other than flint, chaille or chert as a form of substitution of the high-quality raw materials missing in a certain area. As the use of certain types of rocks provides particular technological and typological features to the material culture from the Carpathian caves, we shall attempt to understand to what extent the Mousterian dwellers of the Carpathian caves chose, for debitage, certain categories of rocks with different mechanical properties and petrographic characteristics. The types of rocks analysed in this article come from the following Mousterian settlements: Bordul Mare Cave from Ohaba Ponor, Cu...

Dans l´essai présenté ici sous forme préliminaire d´un "draft", une disposition morbihannaise sans précédent de 13 cupules réparties en trois groupes distincts est mise en relation avec le ciel boréal. Cette approche repose sur la vérification d'une hypothèse concernant la signification du pôle nord céleste comme une base de toute forme d'orientation au cours de la préhistoire. Le groupe 2, le plus révélateur, peut être identifié comme une reproduction précise et à l'échelle de la constellation de « Céphée », plus deux autres étoiles de Cassiopée et d'Andromède, par rapport aux cartes stellaires médiévales. Les comparaisons avec "Stellarium" pour le présent, pour 19850 avant J.-C. et pour 45750 avant J.-C. semblent confirmer la datation proposée ici pour 19850 avant J.-C. en raison de la position centrale de l´étoile Al Kurhah dans le quadrilatère de Céphée à l´époque et en raison du mouvement propre des étoiles. Cette datation précoce peut sembler farfelue au vu de l'état actuel des recherches sur l'histoire du peuplement de la Bretagne, mais les trois groupes de cupules parlent clairement d'eux-mêmes en comparaison simple avec « Stellarium » et son cercle de précession.

Marco Tremari, in: Notiziario della Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Lombardia 2012–2013, Quingentole (MN), SAP Società Archeologica s.r.l., 2023, pp. 169–172. ISBN 978-88-99547-87-5.

Nel corso dei lavori di ristrutturazione della Chiesa di Sant’Elena, situata nella frazione di Fontanedo (Colico, LC), è stato condotto un intervento di assistenza archeologica e indagine stratigrafica tra ottobre e novembre 2013. Lo scavo ha portato all’individuazione di quattro principali fasi edilizie, databili dall’XI al XIX secolo. La fase più antica, romanica o altomedievale, è testimoniata da strutture murarie e una tomba in lastroni. La fase successiva documenta l’uso della necropoli adiacente, con tombe a inumazione legate al riuso del complesso ecclesiastico. Le fasi più recenti evidenziano rimaneggiamenti, rialzamenti e la trasformazione dell’edificio nella sua forma attuale, compreso il probabile ampliamento con presbiterio e sacrestia. L’intervento ha permesso una ricostruzione parziale ma significativa della stratigrafia architettonica del sito, contribuendo alla conoscenza dell’evoluzione storico-costruttiva di un edificio di culto in area montana lecchese.

Due to its diverse geographic and climatic conditions, the Iberian Peninsula is well suited for studies into the relationship between climate, environment and hunter-gatherer adaptation. With focus on the archaeological record, this paper examines to what extent diachronic variations in site density on the Iberian Peninsula are related to climate variability and cultural change. Studies are based on a comprehensive record of technocomplexes that date from the late Middle Palaeolithic, early Upper Palaeolithic, Gravettian and Solutrean. The record comprises altogether 152 archaeological cave sites and rock shelters. Analysis reveals strong regional differences between Northern and Southern Iberia, both in isochronic and in diachronic perspective. This is expressed by the strongly different patterns of human presence in these regions. In particular, within both regions major cultural changes coincide with the environmental impact of North Atlantic Heinrich Events (HE). From previous studies, it is known that the human population on the Iberian Peninsula (IP) must have suffered strongly under the extremely variable climate conditions during the Late Pleistocene. Based on extensive site-mapping, the hypothesis is that during HE a major disintegration of habitats must have occurred, with various but strongly isolated patchy refugia remaining. Further, during HE, Southern Iberia could not uphold its previous function in providing a reliable refuge for humans. Not only does climatic deterioration during the different HE repeatedly lead to a near-complete breakdown of settlement patterns, but following each HE there is a major reorganization in settlement patterns on the IP.

En una visión sintética, la clave que define el estado actual de la investigación del Paleolítico Inferior de nuestra península, la constituye la estructuración de una serie de estratigrafías regionales que, con sus paralelismos, permiten fundamentar una secuencia general peninsular ibérica, sustancialmente sustentada por ahora en las estratigrafías de la Depresión Guadix-Baza, de Atapuerca y de las grandes depresiones fluviales del Duero y Tajo y la del Gualdalquivir Inferior, a las que deben incorporarse las restantes secuencias y estratigrafías locales conocidas en las periferias occidental, septentrional y del levante valenciano. El interés de lograr la correlación crono-estratigráfica de las Secuencias de Guadix-Baza y del Bajo Guadalquivir resulta por lo tanto evidente, al constituir ambas la secuencia regional

Magdalena Piotrowska, Arkadiusz Tabaka, Daniel Żychliński 2024. Traces of settlements from the Roman Iron Age, Early Middle Ages and Modern Period discovered during the archaeological survey of the Mdzewo site 4, Masovian Voivodeship Archaeological research in Mdzewo, Strzegowo Commune, Mazowieckie Voivodeship, was carried out in connection with the construction of the S7 expressway between Mława and Strzegowo. On an area of 63.55 ares, 116 features were discovered and 764 artefacts were recovered, associated with the Roman Iron Age, the Early Middle Ages and the Modern Period. The Przeworsk culture was represented by 4 features (2 ovens, a hearth and a utility pit) and a collection of 72 fragments of pottery. The Early Middle Ages (mid 11th century) included 17 features-relics of 7 buildings, 5 hearths, 5 utility pits of unknown function. 613 fragments of pottery, 2 metal objects, a spindle whorl, a comb fragment and 8 animal bones were found. The Modern Period (17th-20th century) is represented by a pit of undetermined function and 3 coins, an iron knife, a bullet and 3 rifle cartridge casings.

Traces of settlements from the Early Iron Age and Roman Iron Age discovered during the archaeological survey of the Otocznia Stara site 13, Masovian Voivodeship Otocznia Stara 13 is an archaeological site investigated in connection with the construction of the S7 road. Traces of settlement of the Lusatian culture, the Przeworsk culture and a few artefacts from the Modern Period were discovered during the research. Nine features of Lusatian culture with pottery dating to the Hallstatt period were recorded during the works. One of the features, ceramic fragments and a silver denarius were associated with the Przeworsk culture from the late Roman Iron Age.

Статья посвящена результатам эксперимента по перфорации тонко выделанной шкуры с помощью иглы, изготовленной из бивня мамонта. Данное исследование является продолжением ранее начатых работ, направлен-ных на изучение технических алгоритмов перфорации кожи с различными характеристиками. Для реализации эксперимента были созданы: инструмент согласно критериям палеолитических технологий, перфорируемый материал (шкура), прошедший механическую обработку, нити (из эпидермы стеблей конопли). В результате сотни перфораций получены данные о специфике следов утилизации на рабочем инструменте, которые позволяют провести сопоставление с экспериментальными и археологическими материалами. Сделан вывод об особенностях формирования следов износа на поверхности костяной иглы в контексте кратковременной обработки тонкой шкуры.

The Eneolithic settlement from Șoimuș – Lângă Sat, belonging to the Tiszapolgár communities, revealed, among other types of archaeological complexes (fortification ditches, dwellings, pits with deposits etc.),also two categories of burned pits. THese could be defined,
based on the characteristics and analogies, as ceramic burning pits and storage pits.

Whether a refugium, a transit area, or both, the Balkan Peninsula played a crucial role in the population dynamics of Europe during prehistory. However, the Balkans Peninsula is poorly represented in the European archaeological record. This article presents the newly discovered Middle Palaeolithic stone tool assemblage from the Uzun Mera site in the eastern Republic of Macedonia. Following fieldwork that included diverse methods in survey and excavation, as well as techno-economical and taphonomic assessment of the recovered stone tools, Uzun Mera is reported here as a typical Middle Palaeolithic assemblage that follows the pattern of a highly variable Balkan complex. The quality of the raw material reflects a highly selective approach, resulting in relatively low lithological variability where small blocks of raw material used for knapping are still present on site. These results contribute to better understanding the Palaeolithic of the Balkans and inform the population process in a region where little investigation has been previously conducted.

New trends in the interpretation of prehistoric female iconography in rock art, which, among others, focus on health, gynecology, self-image,  are compared with old ones, which stress reproduction and magico-religious symbolism of these representations.

La Cueva de la Güelga, whose name in the local language refers to wet and shady sites, opens to the heart of a limestone mountain valley, forming a cul-de-sac. A stream flows from the current cave aperture and has configurated a karst system with corresponding terrace drain caverns that were successively occupied during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. This group of rock shelters and caves has been divided into different sectors for investigation, which has developed from 1989 to the present. A-B and C areas are located on the lower terrace, occupied during the Magdalenian and Solutrean. At the top is D sector, with occupations attributed to Châtelperronian, Aurignacian and Mousterian. This valley, closed in itself, has provided numerous lithic remains in surfaces mostly attributable to Mode 3, surely exponents of intense and prolonged occupations. It is located 200 m above sea level, and along with Buxu and Azules caves, is a core site in the middle reaches of the Sella River, ter...

Předkládaný příspěvek v teoretické rovině rozebírá eventuální možnosti způsobu přepravy nákladu
v mladém paleolitu (gravettienu, magdalénienu) a s tím spojenou případnou existenci (znalost
používání) saní. S využitím etnologických pozorování a dále studií týkajících se pozdně pleistocenních
a raně holocenních nálezů pocházejících z arktických oblastí autorka popisuje charakter
případných nálezů, které by se saněmi mohly souviset, a možnosti jejich rozlišení. V daném kontextu
upozorňuje na tři konkrétní nálezy nejasné funkce pocházející z moravského gravettienu, které
by teoreticky mohly být součástmi postroje spřežení saní, a srovnává je s analogickými předměty
uloženými v zahraničních etnologických sbírkách. Aspekt využívání spřežení v mladém paleolitu
by mohl být zajímavý i v diskuzích týkajících se prvních domestikovaných vlků (psů) v gravettienu,
případně v otázce existence ochočených sobů. Z archeologického hlediska jsou v tomto kontextu
zajímavé nálezy vyobrazení koňských hlav s náznaky ohlávek

The territory of north-eastern Poland is experiencing a veritable archaeological renaissance through many research initiatives. In 2017, using the LiDAR method, 26 settlement sites located in the Podlasie Lowland were discovered. These sites have a similar form of construction and together they represent a compact settlement system. The main aim of this studies is to present the preliminary results of geoarchaeological studies of the Jatwieź Duża site as an example of this kind of settlement. This form is built by two distinct moats (circle shape) separated by earth embankment and a central flat area with a diameter of about 60 m. It is located on the Pleistocene clays, fluvioglacial sands and gravels. In the course of archaeological excavations, ten archeological resource objects with 79 parts of pottery and 83 flint artifacts were discovered. Technological and stylistic analysis of the pottery has shown that these artifacts belong to Urnfield culture communities from the Surash Gr...

Su desarrollo paralelo a los yacimientos con grabados al aire libre del Tajo Internacional dibuja un complejo entramado de símbolos con un importante papel en la definición de los territorios megalíticos. La identificación de figuras paleolíticas coincide con recurrencias similares documentadas en los yacimientos al aire libre del occidente peninsular, apuntando al recurso al pasado como uno de los argumentos de reivindicación y uso de territorios tradicionales.

After the discovery of relict cryoplanation morphology on mountain Tupižnica (1160 m), the extensive regional research of similar morphology in the Carpatho-Balkan mountains of Eastern Serbia began. On Rtanj (1570 m), there has been more detailed research during the period of 2011-2013. The aim of the research on Rtanj was to single out relict cryoplanation relief on the mountain and gain detailed insight into its polymorphism. During the research, a procedure of standard qualitative geomorphology with description, morphometry and correlation was applied. The obtained results support the presence of relict cryoplanation on Rtanj, which is important from the aspect of confirming this type of morphology in the Carpatho-Balkan mountains of Eastern Serbia. Based on correlation with the mountains of Balkan Peninsula, cryoplanation on Rtanj probably comes from the late Pleistocene cooling. Singling out relict cryoplanation morphology on Rtanj and the mountains of the Carpatho-Balkan syste...

The Iberian Peninsula plays a central role in the current debates on the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition and the Neanderthal extinction. This is largely due to the chronological data which some authors have suggested show a clear divide between Northern Iberia, where the Upper Palaeolithic appeared as early as 36.5 ka 14 C BP, and Southern Iberia, where the Middle Palaeolithic survived until ca. 32e30 ka 14 C BP or later. The best example of this view is the Ebro Frontier hypothesis. However, there are chronological data in both Northern and Southern Iberia that do not fit this pattern, and some of the evidence supporting the Ebro Frontier hypothesis has been questioned in recent years. This paper focuses on the chronology of the final Middle Palaeolithic of Northern Iberia, where several assemblages have been found to post-date the first Upper Palaeolithic in the region, and be of a similar age to the final Neanderthal occupations of the south. In order to improve the chronological framework of the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic boundary in the Northern Iberian Peninsula, a radiocarbon dating program is focused on sites from both the Cantabrian and Mediterranean regions. The first results of this program are presented in this paper. New radiocarbon dates have been measured by two laboratories using a range of pre-treatment methodologies. These do not support a late Middle Palaeolithic in Northern Iberia.

Model of the Economically Efficient Mammoth Technocomplex

John Dewar Gleissner [email protected] or [email protected]
ORCID ID = 0000-0001-5275-5518
Independent Researcher & Writer
4232 Vestview Circle, Vestavia Hills, Alabama 35242 USA

Abstract  1
1. Introduction  3
2. Established Facts & Analysis 5
    Weight & Mass of Mammuthus primigenius
    River Site Selection
    All Parts of Skeletons at Technocomplexes
3. Segments of Efficient Mammoth Economy
A. Procurement within Riverbeds
B. Efficient Transportation in Rivers
C.  Efficient Processing of Mammoth Carcasses 
                Cold-Smoking
    Other Methods of Meat Processing Inadequate
4. Artifacts & Structures Supporting a Smokehouse Hypothesis  14
    Dolní-Věstonice
    Kostenki 1
    Avdeevo
    Kostenki 4
    Zaraysk
    Pushkari 1
    Gontsky/Ginsy
5. The Entire Production Process within the Mammoth Economy
    Mezhyrich Map or Process Chart 21
6. Discussion  23
7. References  27
8. Dedication to the Ukrainian People  34
9. Acknowledgements  35
10. Declaration Regarding Funding & Conflicts of Interest  35

Figure 1: Mammoth Sites Drawing  5
Figure 2: Hearths at Kostenki 1 - Layer I  18
Figure 3: Hearths at Avdeevo  19
Figure 4: Hearths in Long Smokehouses at Kostenki  19
Figure 5: One Drawing of Mezhyrich Map or Process Chart  22

                                                    Abstract

The mass and weight of Mammuthus primigenius and river site selection substantially drove, defined, necessitated, predetermined, and largely explained the hunting locations, architectural designs, transportation and preparation methods, and economic systems for the mammoth-bone structure technocomplexes in the drainage basins of the Don and Dnieper Rivers approximately 30,000 to 10,000 years ago. Mature woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) weighed between 4 and 6 metric tons. Applying a reasonable dressing percentage of 50%, the slaughter of an adult woolly mammoth resulted in 2 to 3 metric tons of meat and fat. This mass was highly desired by hunters, although the methods for obtaining, transporting, and processing the meat, fat, and bones at a central ___location were constrained by various factors, thus defining the proposed model.
Mammoth hunters in the Don and Dnieper basins consistently established their Eastern Gravettian technocomplexes on terraces overlooking navigable rivers, which were integral to their economy. All parts of mammoth skeletons were routinely found within these technocomplexes containing mammoth-bone structures, commonly referred to as mammoth-bone circles, as well as larger oval and elongated mammoth-bone structures. Single-kill sites near technocomplexes were neither found nor expected. Given the weight of mammoths, logistical necessity dictated that the carcasses had to arrive below the technocomplexes via downstream movement. Consequently, they were killed or found upstream in hunter-friendly rivers.
A crucial element of the proposed economic model is that the arrival of whole carcasses required handling the derived meat in bulk. After butchering the whole carcass at the river docks, the meat was typically transported uphill to large smokehouses, the shortest available land transport route. Here, cold-smoking and drying processes prepared two to three tons of raw meat en masse behind smoke containment hides or glued birch bark.
The Mezhyrich Map—the oldest process chart or flowchart in the world—depicts on ivory the docking of mammoths and the routine route for transporting meat to smokehouses, turnaround, and return for additional meat. It includes depictions of the river flowing left to right, mammoth carcass, butchery incisions, dock, dock and mammoth securement, bone beds, four smokehouses, and elevated meat caches. The smokehouses are stylistically shown receiving raw meat and producing smoked meat.
Artifacts supporting the smokehouse hypothesis include charcoal, micro-lithics, ash found in floors and pits, floor dimensions consistent with the quantities of meat, structural use of large mammoth bones, skulls, and tusks, pits surrounding the smokehouses, multiple hearths in rows, partially burned bones and tusks, the Mezhyrich Map, and notably, the absence of designed ingress/egress to and from the smokehouses. Several larger structures featured nine hearths aligned on a NW/SE axis, consistent only with cold-smoking large quantities of meat in smoke containment structures.
This economic system allowed sedentary hunter-gatherers to arrange for mammoth carcasses to be brought to their technocomplexes for mass handling with minimal transportation labor, fire fuel, and attendant labor. Cold-smoking using small smoldering fires simultaneously prepared the meat for immediate consumption, consumption after heating over fire, and storage, providing consumers with flexible options.
In this model, mammoth hunters efficiently employed batch production methods with a division of labor in a pre-industrial production line, including water transport. Smokehouses were essential for managing the mass of mammoth meat, just as river procurement and transport of mammoth carcasses were vital in this economic model of Eastern Gravettian technocomplexes.

This paper presents exciting new environmental results from the analysis of cereal drying kilns excavated in North Dublin, Ireland at a site called Quantum. The kilns were arranged in a semicircular fashion. Two of the kilns and one vessel containing charcoal were dated to the Middle Bronze
Age, while one kiln, located south of the semi-circle was dated to the Iron Age. Cereal-drying kilns were used primarily to dry large quantities of cereals before storage and were common in Ireland from the Late Iron Age as Irelands weather was wet and damp. There are very few Bronze Age examples which made this site very unique to Ireland where so many kilns together were found dating from this period.

В коллекции II слоя Костёнок 8 (ранний граветт) представлено несколько категорий находок, уникальных для палеолитического времени: крупный абразив с проточкой для обработки твердого органического материала, ударное орудие из железистой конкреции – не имеющий пока аналогов пример использования в качестве орудия природного металла в палеолите, а также нуклевидный предмет из кремня с комплексом макро- и микроследов, характерных для орудий, используемых для высекания искр в паре с пиритом/марказитом (кресальных кремней).

From this perspective, the region bordering the eastern Adriatic and Ionian seas, with its diverse geographic, climatic, and ecological characteristics-including coastal plains, rolling hills, and mountain ranges reaching elevations of 2,600-2,700 m a.s.l.-deserves consideration as an area that has witnessed significant population movements since the Middle Pleistocene. Its rugged terrain, intersected by major SE-NW orientated fluvial valleys connecting the southernmost part of the Balkans with the Adriatic region, may have provided refugia for temperate species and favoured Pleistocene zoogeographic diversity from the earliest times (Palombo & Mussi, 2006). However, given the scarcity of Middle Palaeolithic sites in this region, our current understanding of Neanderthal occupations, locations, territories, and adaptations to environmental and ecological diversity remains limited. It is expected that Neanderthals adapted to this geographic diversity through varying mobility strategies and technological traditions, resulting in a cultural mosaic featured by a mix of expedient and curated technologies, shifts between continuity and disruption in different productions

“The great majority of Sami belong to U5b Haplogroup U (mtDNA), and other U5-connected cultures are Gravettian (33,000 to 21,000 years ago), Magdalenian (17,000 to 12,000 years ago), and Sami (Haplogroup N  Y-DNA) at least by 3,500 years ago until the fifteenth century) were all nomadic peoples of Ancient Europe. Sami people, haplogroup U5, are consistent with multiple migrations to Scandinavia from the Volga-Ural region, starting 6,000 to 7,000 years before present.”

Археологічний збірник Полтавського краєзнавчого музею: зб. наук. ст. Пам’яті Ф. І. Камінського (1845–1891) / [за ред. Супруненка О. Б.]; ПКМ. – Полтава: [РВВ Полтав. облстатуправління], 1992. – Вип. 2. – 98 с.: іл.
Другий випуск «3бірника» присвячений пам’яті Федора Івановича Камінського (1845–1891) – одного із зачинателів археологічних досліджень на Полтавщині, фундатора музеїв К. М. Скаржинської у Круглику під Лубнами та Лубенської чоловічої гімназії, першовідкривача українського палеоліту. До випуску ввійшли матеріaли наукових читань, присвячених пам’яті вченого, котрі npoвели Полтавський краєзнавчий музей і Державний архів Полтавської області навесні 1992 р. Публікації висвітлюють діяльність Ф. І. Камінського, вводять до наукового обігу матеріали досліджень пам’яток кам’яного віку на Полтавщині останніх років. Вміщені й кілька персоналій відомих полтавських музейників та археологів, зокрема В. М. Щербаківського та М. О. Олеховського, спадкоємців справи лубенського археолога і краєзнавця. /
Archaeological Collection of the Poltava Museum of Local Lore: Collection of Scientific Articles. In Memory of F. I. Kaminskyi (1845–1891) / [Ed. O. B. Suprunenko]; Poltava Museum of Local Lore. – Poltava: [Publishing Department of the Poltava Regional Statistical Office], 1992. – Issue 2. – 98 p.: ill.
The second issue of the ‘Zbirnyk’ is dedicated to the memory of Fedir Ivanovych Kaminskyi (1845-1891), one of the founders of archaeological research in Poltava region, founder of the K.M. Skarzhynska Museum in Kruhlyk near Lubny and the Lubny Men's Gymnasium, and a pioneer of the Ukrainian Paleolithic. The issue includes materials of scientific readings dedicated to the memory of the scientist, which were held by the Poltava Museum of Local Lore and the State Archives of Poltava Region in spring 1992. The publications cover the activities of F.I. Kaminskyi, introduce into scientific circulation the materials of recent research on Stone Age monuments in Poltava region. Several personalities of well-known Poltava museum workers and archaeologists are also included, including V. M. Shcherbakivskyi and M. Olekhovskyi, the heirs to the work of the Lubny archaeologist and local historian.

Граб В. І., Супруненко О. Б. АРХЕОЛОГ ОЛЕКСАНДР ТАХТАЙ. – Полтава: Полтавський краєзнавчий музей, 1991. – 78 с..
Робота присвячена життєвому шляху, науковій і музейній діяльності відомого українського радянського археолога, співробітника музеїв Полтави, Херсона, Севастополя, Донецька Олександра Кузьмича Тахтая /1890-1963/. На основі архівних матеріалів розкрита складна і трагічна доля вченого, уродженця Полтавщини.
Для археологів, істориків, широкого кола читачів. /
Grap V. I., Suprunenko O. B. Archaeologist Oleksandr Takhtai. – Poltava: Poltava Museum of Local Lore, 1991. – 78 p.
This work is dedicated to the life, scientific, and museum activities of the famous Ukrainian Soviet archaeologist, employee of the museums in Poltava, Kherson, Sevastopol, and Donetsk, Oleksandr Kuzmych Takhatai (1890-1963). Based on archival materials, the complex and tragic fate of the scholar, a native of Poltava region, is revealed.
For archaeologists, historians, and a broad audience.

Understanding Palaeolithic hominin subsistence strategies requires the comprehensive taxonomic identification of faunal remains. The high fragmentation of Late Pleistocene faunal assemblages often prevents proper taxonomic identification based on bone morphology. It has been assumed that the morphologically unidentifiable component of the faunal assemblage would reflect the taxonomic abundances of the morphologically identified portion. In this study, we analyse three faunal datasets covering the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition (MUPT) at Bacho Kiro Cave (Bulgaria) and Les Cottés and La Ferrassie (France) with the application of collagen type I peptide mass fingerprinting (ZooMS). Our results emphasise that the fragmented component of Palaeolithic bone assemblages can differ significantly from the morphologically identifiable component. We obtain contrasting identification rates between taxa resulting in an overrepresentation of morphologically identified reindeer (Rangifer t...

Grandi catastrofi. Quando se ne parla viene in mente l'estinzione dei dinosauri. È avvenuta circa 66 milioni di anni fa. La causa fu la caduta di un enorme asteroide del diametro di 17 km che avrebbe colpito la Terra alla velocità di 30 km/secondo. L'astro liberò un'energia pari a 10.000 volte quella generabile da tutti gli arsenali nucleari dei tempi della guerra fredda. Ancora oggi se ne vedono gli effetti osservando la struttura del cratere sotterraneo di Chicxulub, nella penisola dello Yucatán, in Messico. Venendo alle grandi catastrofi che hanno cambiato la storia umana, facciamo un salto al 74-72.000 a.C. All'epoca vi fu l'esplosione di un super vulcano al di sotto del lago Toba, nell'isola di Sumatra (Indonesia). Fu una delle più catastrofiche eruzioni degli ultimi 25 mln anni. Vennero eruttati 2800 km cubi di materiale vulcanico.

One Gravettian feminine representation e the schematic Venus of P redmostí e is so different from all the others that it has always been regarded as unique. The engraving, which was closely examined for the purpose of comparison in this study, represents a woman composed of geometric shapes, including a triangular head with interior lattice-work, concentric ellipses for the breasts, belly and pelvis, a double ladder for the remaining arm, hatch marks, and a thigh made up of parallel vertical lines. This article presents the discovery and discusses the authenticity of a second, feminine anthropomorph engraved on a bone shaft fragment, which is labelled as coming from the same site and is highly similar to the one described at the end of the nineteenth century. The modern history of P redmostí reveals that the site was used as a quarry for the extraction of loess and limestone, and that tons of mammoth bones were extracted to produce spodium. Remarkable objects that were found both during early archaeological excavations and the site's commercial exploitation went towards private collections. The history of the piece under study traces it back through a succession of owners to the collection of René de Poilloüe de Saint-Périer (b.1877ed.1950) and Raymonde-Suzanne de Saint-Périer (b.1890ed.1978). The engraving is on the periosteal surface of a limb bone from a very large mammal, probably a proboscidian. Microscopic analysis of the bone surface and engravings identify the chronology of the grooves and their relations to the stages of the bone's alteration and fracturing, starting with: 1) heavy weathering of the bone surface that produced longitudinal cracks, which probably led to its breakage, 2) engraving of the feminine representation, 3) intense mechanical and chemical attacks that smoothed all of the bone's surfaces and wore down the engravings, 4) covering with a consolidation agent, and, most recently, 5) some abrasion, which resulted in the creation of a few straight lines. Since no evidence is found to suggest that the highly worn appearance of the engravings composing the feminine representation resulted from modifications that were meant to artificially age the periosteal surface of the bone, we conclude that the engraving can be plausibly attributed to the Gravettian and that further analyses are warranted.

Nelle gelide sale del Museo Pigorini di Roma riposa oggi il cranio dell'uomo di Neanderthal rinvenuto nella grotta Guattari. E' posto in una vetrina tra tante, sigillata ermeticamente a difesa di un ladro che non verrà mai. Il visitatore distratto e frettoloso non presta che una vaga attenzione a quel reperto scheletrico. Di rado qualcuno si ferma a leggerne la targhetta ossidata che lo distingue dalle altre ossa in esposizione.