New data from the Middle Palaeolithic Cotencher cave (Swiss Jura): site formation, environment, and chronology

摘要

Cotencher cave is one of the oldest Palaeolithic sites of Switzerland and is known for its rich faunaland Mousterian artefacts, the latter suggesting one or several passages of Neanderthal hunter–gatherertribes. This interdisciplinary study summarises novel data concerning site formation processes and anthropic attendance of the site. While the lithic artefacts indicate tool production at the site, the faunalremains do not yield any evidence of a link to human occupation. The sedimentary sequence permitsus to unravel several important environmental changes that occurred during the Late Pleistocene. Thepresence of a local glacier around 70 ka (Marine Isotope Stage, MIS 4) is revealed followed by ice-freeconditions characterised by alternating soil formation processes and landscape destabilisation duringMIS 3. Solifluction processes suggesting recurrent frozen ground were responsible for the displacements of part of the artefacts and faunal remains. Evidence of local glacier development around 36 kais related to the particular geomorphological conditions of the studied region and shed new light onthe complexity of glacier dynamics. The recognition and dating of recurrent hostile glacier landscapesmight contribute to understanding the reasons for the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic attendance hiatuses known in the studied region.