Late Mousterian lithic technology. Its implications for the pace of the emergence of behavioural modernity and the relationship between behavioural modernity and biological modernity

Abstract

Abstract An analysis is presented of several Mousterian industries of Acheulian tradition from Western Europe dated to the first half of IOS 3 and manufactured by Neanderthals before the arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe. It is shown that some behaviours previously thought to be characteristic of recent behaviours associated with anatomically modern humans were in fact shared with another species. Among those are: the variability of Mousterian technologies across time and space; the use of Upper Palaeolithic methods of production immediately prior to the arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe; and the long-term planning of knapping activities across the territory. This paper also demonstrates that some of these specific behaviours (the scheduling of lithic tool production within the territory) might eventually have been abandoned by Neanderthals, while others (the use of a volumetric method of producing blanks) were kept alive by them. These results show that models of the development of behavioural ‘modernity’ have to take into consideration every line of evidence, including the testimony of the behaviour of anatomically non-modern humans. We do not have to consider a priori that anatomically modern humans were better suited or were the only ones capable of behavioural ‘modernity’. On the contrary, it is necessary to demonstrate how they were better adapted than Neanderthals. Evolutionary trajectories might be punctuated, and resulting from a combination of biological and contingent events which created a patchwork of changes. Resume Le lien causal entre la ‘modernite’ culturelle, synthese des changements comportementaux qui deviendront la norme a la fin du Pleistocene, et la modernite biologique doit etre discute a partir de l'ensemble des documents dont nous disposons. L’etude des comportements des Neandertaliens avant l'arrivee des hommes anatomiquement modernes en Europe, en s'appuyant sur les industries lithique MTA de la premiere moitie du stade isotopique 3, montre que des comportements d'abord juges specifiques de notre espece ont en fait ete partages avec les Neandertaliens. Elle montre egalement que certains de ces comportements, comme l'organisation a long terme de l'activite de taille dans le territoire, ont ete finalement abandonnes par les Neandertaliens, tandis que d'autres, comme l'utilisation d'une methode de taille volumetrique, ont ete conserves par les memes Neandertaliens.

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