A Data‐Driven Paradigm Shift for the Middle‐to‐Upper Palaeolithic Transition and the Neandertal Debate

Bibliographic Data

ID9307792
AuthorsJoão Zilhão (0000-0001-5937-3061, University of Lisbon, corresponding author), Francesco D’errico (0000-0002-2422-3079, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, corresponding author), William E Banks (0000-0003-1835-6315, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Nicolas Teyssandier (0000-0001-7026-1968, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
Year2024
Volume2
Issue6
Pages100037-100037
Publication date2024-11-06
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueQuaternary Environments and Humans (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2950-2365 • E-ISSN: 2950-2365
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.qeh.2024.100037
OpenAlexW4404116633
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited287

Based on morphologically undiagnostic human remains from the southern Balkans and central Europe, it has been argued that the Bachokirian and Ranisian industries stand for modern humans, have roots in the IUP (Initial Upper Palaeolithic) of the Near East, and emerge ~45,000 years ago. Coevally, Siberia and Central Asia would also have been reached by IUP moderns and, in the process, Western Europe’s Neandertals would have been acculturated, explaining the innovations (namely, body ornamentation) seen in the Châtelperronian. However, current usage of the IUP label confuses terminology and conceals issues of association raised by syn- and post-depositional disturbance, genomic patterns do not correlate with skeletal morphology, and the people of the Bachokirian and the Ranisian had Neandertal ancestors who lived many centuries after those technocomplexes’ start dates, as did a Neandertal from Spy (Belgium), a site of the Ranisian. Moreover, the stratigraphic provenience and taxonomic affinity of the fossils associated with the Uluzzian, the Protoaurignacian, and the Ahmarian are uncertain. The former is coeval with the Châtelperronian, the latter two emerge no earlier than ~41,500 years ago, and the sufficiently complete fossils of broadly the same age are of mosaic anatomy and mixed ancestry. For western Eurasia, our review supports the Assimilation model, whereby ten millennia of converging cultural developments and increased demic interaction bridge the initial (Neandertal) and final (Cro-Magnon) terms of a complex evolutionary and historical process. Throughout, the observed diversity cannot be reduced to a taxonomic dichotomy. As human biology varied in a continuous space and material culture varied in a discrete space, no one-to-one correspondence between the two domains can exist. Advancing our understanding of the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition requires abandoning outdated frameworks and fully embracing the taphonomic perspective and the potential of genetics to approach the evidence in terms of communities, populations, and short-term history

Biology · Epistemology · Geography · Paradigm shift · Transition (genetics · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · History · Image Processing and 3D Reconstruction · Philosophy · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Geology

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