New Neandertal remains from the Grotte du Bison at Arcy-sur-Cure, France

摘要

The transition from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic in Europe has been complicated by recent finds juxtaposing hominin fossil remains with unexpected stone tool industries. Older models of a Neandertal-made Middle Paleolithic succeeded by an anatomically modern human-made Upper Paleolithic have been replaced with more complex and nuanced models of cohabitation and interaction, themselves the subject of considerable debate (Farizy, 1990; Bailey and Hublin, 2005, 2006; Adler and Jo ris, 2008;Jo ris and Adler, 2008). The key question concerns the identity of the makers of lithic assemblages found in Europe between 45,000 and 30,000 BP. The discovery of new Neandertal fossil specimens at the Grotte du Bison at Arcy-sur-Cure adds to previous knowledge about the authorship of final Middle Paleolithic industries.These finds underlie the stratigraphic position of the transitional Chatelperronian hominins, but their taxonomic identification and technology make them important for investigating Neandertal ecology and adaptation closely prior to that transition. In comparison with known hominin fossils from adjacent archaeological sites, these new discoveries hold potential for clarifying the transition from flake to blade industries within the context of a pre-modern hominin species (i.e., Mousterian to Chatelperronian Neandertals).