Aurignacian Lithic Economy: Ecological Perspectives from Southwestern France PDF
Preview Aurignacian Lithic Economy: Ecological Perspectives from Southwestern France
Aurignacian Lithic Economy Ecological Perspectives from Southwestern France INTERDISCIPLINARY CONTRIBUTIONS TO ARCHAEOLOGY Series Editor Michael A. Jochim, University of California at Santa Barbara Founding Editor: Roy S. Dickens, Jr., Late of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Current Volumes in This Series THE ARCHAEOLOGIST’S LABORATORY The Analysis of Archaeological Data E. B. Banning AURIGNACIAN LITHIC ECONOMY Ecological Perspectives from Southwestern France Brooke S. Blades DARWINIAN ARCHAEOLOGIES Edited by Herbert Donald Graham Maschner EARLIEST ITALY An Overview of the Italian Paleolithic and Mesolithic Margherita Mussi FAUNAL EXTINCTION IN AN ISLAND SOCIETY Pygmy Hippopotamus Hunters of Cyprus Alan H. Simmons and Associates A HUNTER–GATHERER LANDSCAPE Southwest Germany in the Late Peleolithic and Mesolithic Michael A. Jochim HUNTERS BETWEEN EAST AND WEST The Paleolithic of Moravia Jir(cid:155)i Svoboda, Vojen Loz(cid:155)ek, and Emanuel Vlc(cid:155)ek MISSISSIPPIAN COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION The Powers Phase in Southeastern Missouri Michael O’Brien MISSISSIPPIAN POLITICAL ECONOMY Jon Muller PROJECTILE TECHNOLOGY Edited by Heidi Knecht VILLAGERS OF THE MAROS A Portrait of an Early Bronze Age Society John M. O’Shea A Chronological Listing of Volumes in this series appears at the back of this volume. A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series A continuation order will bring delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment For further information please contact the publisher. Aurignacian Lithic Economy Ecological Perspectives from Southwestern France Brooke S. Blades Lehigh University Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Kluwer Academic Publishers New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow eBookISBN: 0-306-47188-4 Print ISBN: 0-306-46334-2 ©2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow All rights reserved No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written consent from the Publisher Created in the United States of America Visit Kluwer Online at: http://www.kluweronline.com and Kluwer's eBookstore at: http://www.ebooks.kluweronline.com To MegandEmma Foreword It is agreat pleasure tointroducethisexcellentpiece ofscholarshipdevoted to the adaptationofthe Aurignacian in southwestern France. On theone hand, it is an important study ofwhat is arguably one ofthe most significantperiods ofhuman evolution, and onthe other, it represents an important contributionin both method and theory to Upper Paleolithic studies. The Aurignacian has enjoyed a long history of attention in Paleolithic research. The eponymous site of Aurignac, a small cave located in the département of the Haute-Garonne in southwestem France, was excavated by the paleontologistEdouard Lartet (at the verybeginningsofthediscipline) in 1860. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the chronological placement of the Aurignacian as following the Mousterian was established by Henri Breuil. Later, in the 1930s, Denis Peyrony applied the concept of parallel phyla to separate the Perigordian from the Aurignacian proper. More recently Perigordian systematics have also undergone significantrevision and now what was thoughtto be the earliest stage, the Châtelperronian, has been shown to be associated with Neandertals. It seems quite likely, then, that the Aurignacian represents the first adaptation in Europe by modern Homo sapiens. This fact alone makes the Aurignacian an important topic for current research as wetry tounderstandtheoriginsand spreadofmodernhumans inthe late Pleistocene. Bringing us closer to an understanding of the nature of that adaptation is what this book is about. The author pulls together a wealth of evidence of various kinds, including paleoclimatological, faunal, and (especially) lithicdata. It is notjust acompilationoftypes and species, however. Rather, by applying the very latest archaeological theory regarding mobility, subsistence, and lithic economy, he presents a vivid picture of what life was like so many millennia ago. vii viii FOREWORD It is the application of this theory that most clearly separates the approach taken from that which has been the norm in Paleolithic research. Drawing on the intellectual roots established 150 years ago, Paleolithic archaeologists have traditionally viewed their evidence from a paleontological perspective, where classification of the industries is one of the primary goals. In this perspective, stone tools are most important for telling us who made them, the faunal evidence tells us what they ate, and data on climate were most useful for organizing everything into a chronological framework. There is much more to adaptation than that, of course, but to build a more accurate reconstruction of a prehistoric lifeway requires a much more sophisticated suite of archaeological methods and theory. One of the more important aspects of this is the development of a better understanding of what lithic artifacts and assemblages can tell us about past behavior. In the first place, it is far too simplistic to assume that different lithic types and technologies reflect only different cultural traditions tempered to some extent by functional needs, and it is just as simplistic to think that a lithic assemblage represents the accumulated remains ofasinglegroup. Rather, aPaleolithiclithic assemblage reflects an enormously complex history of manufacture, use, and reuse; of importation and exportation of different materials and products as people came and went; and of the behaviors that took place over the scale of geologic time. And within that context, lithic technologies responded to differences in raw material quality and accessibility and even to the sizes of cores as they were being reduced; and the forms of lithic artifacts themselves continuously changed, whether through maintenance during a single use or through modification as the tool was altered for other uses. So when we approach a Paleolithic assemblage, do we have in front of us a slice of time, frozen in place just as it was when people were actually living there? Unfortunately, the answer is no. What we have is an assemblage that was, for an enormously long time, in the continuous process of being altered and transformed. Tools were made, used, and discarded, only to be picked up, modified, andused again. Cores thatwere abandoned by one groupwere later picked up and reused by another-andso on until eventually, as the site became buried, those processes slowed and eventually stopped. Once it is recovered again by the archaeologist, our job is to unravel that complex history and to sort out as best we can the various factors that led to the formation of that assemblage. Only by doing that can we begin the next job of reconstructing a past adaptation. FOREWORD ix Through the application of such a perspective to a series of classic AurignaciansitesintheFrenchPérigord, wearefinallybeginningtomove away from the tired question ofwho the Aurignacian were; we can begin to address the more meaningful questions of what were they doing and how were they doing it. For most scholars, then, this book will represent one of the major turning points in the development of Paleolithic research. HAROLDDIBBLE University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Preface The analysis of ancient stone artifacts from the standpoint of the sources where the stone materials were obtained providesone ofthe very fewmeans of assessing the extent of the Paleolithic geographic realm. By examining the technological stages in which stones from differing sources appeared, modern researchers may understand aspects of movement within that geographical realm. When the cultural period under consideration is the Aurignacian in southwestern France, the spatial dimensions are those occupied and experienced by some of the earliest anatomically modern humans in Europe. Stones are the most durable elements in the Paleolithic archaeological record andmany stonematerial sourcesmay stillbediscoveredonthe landscape. We thus approach studies such as this one with a certain confidence that the observations we derive from the archaeological data do monitor a degree of reality in the Paleolithic past. It is important, therefore, to recognize that the source locations that have been identified even within a region as thoroughly surveyed as the Périgord represent only a portion of those available to or exploitedby Paleolithicpopulations. Therock shelterdeposits inthe Périgord contain lithicassemblages from a succession of stratigraphic levels, often with associated radiocarbon determinations, paleoenvironmental data, and well-preserved faunal remains. The fact that reconstructions of absolute geochronology, paleoenvironmental conditions, and human subsistence practices derived from these shelters have been questioned or at times rejected does not diminish the value of these shelters as archaeological loci. Such criticisms do require refinement of analytical technique and greater skepticism of, for example, intersite correlations. Data derived from lithic raw material economy, faunal remains, geochronological determinations, and paleoenvironmental indicators have been xi xii PREFACE combined to argue for shifting mobility strategies within the Aurignacian. However, such patterns may not have been undertaken solely to fulfill material subsistenceneeds. Indeed, it will be argued that the evolutionary significance of these early Upper Paleolithic mobility patterns lies in their integration with the intensified Aurignacian social realm. The suggestion of varying Aurignacian mobility strategies based upon comparisons of percentages of distantly derived raw material and faunal diversity may be somewhat controversial. Such controversies are hardly unusual in the time period under consideration. Even a cursory reading of current literature relating to the "Middle - Upper Paleolithic transition" will reveal the extent to which controversy and criticism governscholarly discourse. The entanglement of Aurignacian cultural interpretation with biological debate concerning the emergence of anatomically modern humans has served to intensify the disagreement, Although the geographic focus of this book is a portion of southwestern France, a much wider theoretical net is cast. Perspectives on lithic utilization from North America and Europe are invoked to discuss the problems and prospects of raw material interpretation. Ultimately, this study directs attention to the increasing importance of human cultural intensification at a time when manifestations of such intensification emerge in the archaeological record of southwestern Europe. I am indebted to the National Science Foundation (SBR-9311880), the Department of Anthropology at New York University, and the American Philosophical Society for generous financial support of this research. The encouragement of Eliot Werner and Roberta Klarreich at Kluwer/Plenum, series editor Michael Jochim, and Harvey Bricker made this book a reality. During my graduate studies and research, I benefited greatly from my association with many scholars in North America: Alison Brooks, Ariane Burke, Pam Crabtree, Eric Delson, Cliff Jolly, Ed Karp, Heidi Knecht, Roy Larick, Jim Mellett, Anta Montet-White, George Odell, Anne Pike-Tay, and especially Harold Dibble, Terry Harrison, and Randy White. Much of the analytical focus emerged from discussions with and ideas published by Harold. Terry has remained a steadfast source of support and wisdom both during and following my graduate studies. Randy’s insights on the complexities of the Paleolithic past and the scholarly present have been of inestimable value in formulating the research discussed herein. I am equally in debt to French researchers who readily shared their knowledge of Paleolithic culture in general and lithic raw materials in particular: Jean-Pierre Chadelle, Jehanne Féblot-Augustins, Jean-Michel Geneste, André Morala, Jean-Philippe Rigaud, and Alain Turq. Jacques Pelegrin quite willingly shared his time and experience during numerous discussions concerning Upper Paleolithic lithic technology and very generously provided me with space at the laboratory in Meudon to read and learn. My research in Les Eyzies was greatly
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