Questioning Aurignacian/Chatelperronian interstratification at Grotte de Fees

[Daryl Habel]

In November last year, Brad Gravina, Paul Mellars, and Christopher Bronk Ramsey published a 5-page paper in the journal Nature:

Gravina, B., Mellars, P. & Bronk Ramsey, C. (2005). Radiocarbon dating of interstratified Neanderthal and early modern human occupations at the Chatelperronian type site. Nature 438: 51-56.
Abstract:
The question of the coexistence and potential interaction between the last Neanderthal and the earliest intrusive populations of anatomically modern humans in Europe has recently emerged as a topic of lively debate in the archaeological and anthropological literature. Here we report the results of radiocarbon accelerator dating for what has been reported as an interstratified sequence of late Neanderthal and early anatomically modern occupations at the French type-site of the Chatelperronian, the Grotte des Fées de Châtelperron, in east-central France. The radiocarbon measurements seem to provide the earliest secure dates for the presence of Aurignacian technology—and from this, we infer the presence of anatomically modern human populations—in France.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7064/abs/nature04006.html

The paper gives results of new radiocarbon determinations for the stratigraphical layers at the Grotte des Fées. These layers consist of (top to bottom) layers A, B (subdivided into sublayers B1-B5, top to bottom), and C.  The main points argued by Gravina et al. is that the new radiocarbon determinations show the existence of the earliest presence of Aurignacian technology in France, and that an Aurignacian assemblage exists in the layer B4 of the Grotte des Fées which is interstratified between Chatelperronian assemblages beneath it in layers C and B5 and above it in layers B1-3.

After converting the raw 14C dating data to calendar years, Gravina et al. made the assertion that the Chatelperronian “occupation of B5 centered on ~42,000-43,000 yr BP and that of B1-B3 on ~40,000-41,000 yr BP...” (Gravina et al. 2005 :54).  This would place the “Aurignacian” occupation in layer B4 at ~42,000-41,000 yr BP (the actual 14C dates for layer B4 are 35,540 +/-280 and 39,780 +/-390 BP).

One of the main purposes for the assertion that Aurignacian/Chatelperronian interstratification existed in the Grotte des Fées is that the validity of the only other reported interstratifications of Aurignacian and Chatelperronian (at Roc de Combe and Le Piage in France and at El Pendo in northern Spain) have become the subject of serious doubts (see  Joao Zilhao and Francesco d'Errico. The Chronology and Taphonomy of the Earliest Aurignacian and Its Implications for the Understanding of Neandertal Extinction. JOURNAL of WORLD PREHISTORY, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1999).   Therefore, the possible existence of  interstratification at the Grotte des Fées is important support for the idea that Neanderthals producing the Chatelperronian were influenced by contemporary and spatially nearby Aurignacian “modern” humans (the "acculturation" hypothesis).

However, serious questions were raised by several commentators about whether Grotte des Fées layer B4 actually represents an Aurignacian occupation assemblage.  Among these was John Hawks, who wrote in his weblog: “...But I would be more convinced by a statistical answer to that question than a typological one. Out of those 65 backed points, how many of them have some retouch on the backed side? Any extensive? There are 750 artifacts in the Chatelperronian levels. Where did they come from? How many of them come from level H4? From the description here, it appears that the Aurignacian-type artifacts come directly from Chatelperronian layers -- that is to say, they are not "interleaved", they found with Chatelperronian-type artifacts. Is that accurate? If not, why not?
These are questions that I could ultimately answer myself through the magic of interlibrary loan, but that would take weeks. They ought to be in this paper. There is no possibility of understanding the importance of 10 atypical artifacts without some assessment of the range of variation of the "typical" ones. All this paper gives is an assertion that they are in fact Aurignacian. That they may be, but how do we know it?...”

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/neandertals/gravina_chatelperron_2005.html

In this, Hawks expresses what I felt at the time, and complements a comment I made on the sci.anthropology.paleo usenet forum (available through Google, with a search), quoting myself on January 10, 2006, “...But I will say that of all the questions that can be
raised about the evidence presented in the Gravina et al. 2005 Nature
paper, the one that stands out above all others is the question of the
10 or 12 "diagnostic Aurignacian" artifacts in layer B4. That's not
very many artifacts, and the question arises about the nature of the
"other" artifacts found in layer B4. How many are there? And what are
they? According to Gravina et al.(p. 52), the total lithic assemblage
collected in layers B1-B5 contained >750 artifacts, including >200
retouched tools, a high frequency (>85%) of typical blade technology,
65 backed points ("Chatelperronian points") and "the richest levels
were those of B5, B4 and B3 in the lower part of the sequence". Surely
there must be more than 12 artifacts from layer B4....”

Essentially, Gravina et al. failed to describe the total assemblage content at the Grotte des Fées in a manner which made it possible for any reader to determine exactly what was found in layer B4 that would permit its attribution to an Aurignacian occupation. 

Which brings us to the present day and a new paper in PNAS this week.  The abstract from the “early edition” is available at:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0605128103v1

But I have already obtained and read a pdf of the paper, which will appear in print in next week’s issue, August 15, 2006 PNAS:
Zilhão J, d'Errico F, Bordes J-G, Lenoble A, Texier J-P, Rigaud J-P. 2006. Analysis of Aurignacian interstratification at the Châtelperronian-type site and implications for the behavioral modernity of Neandertals. Proc Nat Acad Sci USA 103 (33):12643-12648.

Again, I refer you to John Hawks’ weblog for comment on this newest paper.
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/archaeology/upper/zilhao_chatelperron_type_interstratification_2006.html

As usual, Hawks has hit the nail on the head, and I have to agree with him. Zilhão et al., while not answering all questions about the lithic assemblage contents in the stratigraphy of the Grotte des Fées, do provide much more specific information on the assemblage, including, quantitatively, what diagnostic artifacts were found in each of the layers, as well as quantity of undiagnostic lithics in each layer, and IMHO they have, with their discussion, done an adequate job of showing that there is no clear indication that layer B4 represents an interstratified Aurignacian “occupation” layer.  This means that no longer is there any reported  unequivocal Aurignacian/Chatelperronian interstratifaction in western Europe.  Or, in other words, if all this is accepted as true, Zilhao and d'Errico are asserting that whenever both industries are found present on any (undisturbed) site, the Chatelperronian is always found stratigraphically beneath the Aurignacian, and never above it .

My apologies for the length of this post, but it seems there has been no previous discussion of the Grotte des Fées interstratification issue here at Palanth, so I felt the need to provide a bit of background before mentioning the new PNAS paper.

[lagarvelho]

Dar:

Like you, I kind of have to agree with Zilhao et. al, based on what I've read so far(I haven't finished the latest "round").  But it looks to me, from what the papers say, that this site has been seriously disturbed stratigraphically, by one means or another.  This is apparently something which Gravina et.al did not take into account.  But assuming, for the sake of argument, what Zilhao and his colleagues say is actually the case, then it seems to me that it would be difficult to date anything in that site, in a way thiat would indicate exactly *when* any "Aurignacian" tools first appeared.  Or maybe we just have to do what workers have done with "Mousterian" tools --- namely stop associating certain tool types with certain kinds of humans.
Anne G

[trehinp]

Very interesting development indeed... It seems to be in favour of an autonomous culture development by  Neanderthals without the ned to borrow it from Modern Humans.

One question: why should it be assumed that a so called  "more advanced technology" would be coming from the arriving population of Modern Human? Couldn't some technologies developped by Neanderthalians have been copied by Modern Human?

Neanderthals had been there for a longer time and must have developped tools and techniques well adapted to the European environmental conditions which Modern Humans may well have taken and probably enhanced.

Paul TREHIN

[Chatelperron]

Well, this is a very heated topic nowadays. A lot of papers are being written about this, and sometimes I wonder wheter we have data enough to affirm such kind of conclusions regarding chronology, authorship, colonizations and so on.

I do like better Zilhao et al. conclusions than Mellars' and colleagues, but sometimes I think that both of them talk about sites and stratigraphies without and actual look at the places in question. We need more fieldwork, and I am sure we will have more surprises on this topic.

In any case, in spite of having the first papers regarding this debate (D'Errico et al. 1998; Mellars 1999; Zilhao & D'Errico 1999, 2003, etc.), I still don't have these newest papers on the Chatelperronian type site (Gravina et al. 2005; Zilhao et al. 2006). So, if anybody have pdfs of these papers, I would be very grateful if he or she could send them to me. In the same sense, I could send any of the previous papers I mentioned.

Regards,
Chatelperron.
mac0088@hotmail.com

Note from Dar: request granted - both should be in your email today.

[lagarvelho]

Chatelperron and all:

My problem with all these claims is that I get kind of irritated by the *assumptions* behind some of them.  In the case of Mellars et al., there seems to be an assumption that Neandertals were by their nature, somehow *incapable* of producing sophisticated and(for the EUP) up-to-date tool types.  So, Mellars and others tend to assume that if you find such tool types in a "Neandertal" context, they just "borrowed and copied", rather than invented.  But the flaw in this argument is, that *all* cultures "borrow and invent" to a certain extent.  If they have lots of contact with some other culture, they will "borrow and invent" more frequently.  If they have less contact --- as Neandertals apparently did for a long time --- there won't be so much of it. 

OTOH, this does *not* mean that Neandertals could *not* come up with new ideas, which is what d'Errico, Zilhao, et al, seem to be implying.  They go a little farther than this, however, and in their reply to Mellars et all, they point out that the stratigraphy of the Grotte des Fees is decidedly, well, "confused".  So their agrument that Neandertals "invented" the Chatelperronian may well be valid.  Certainly Neandertals seem to have come up --- on their own --- with several useful processes(such as making "glue" out of birch sap to haft their tools, for example.  Which does not mean, I think, that Neandertals were incapable of "knowing a good thing when they saw one" and modifying it for their own purposes, as some have suggested.  I would like to suggest that both processes occurred.

Oh, and finally, I'm sure "moderns" probably "borrowed" ideas from Neandertals, too, at times and in places. But don't tell that to certain prehistorans such as Mellars.  They would never agree.
Anne G