The Aurignacian is one of the first cultural-technological traditions commonly associated with th... more The Aurignacian is one of the first cultural-technological traditions commonly associated with the expansion of Homo sapiens in Europe. Early Homo sapiens demographics across the continent are therefore typically inferred using the distribution of Aurignacian assemblages. Western Romania has been used as a tie-point to connect the well-researched lithic assemblages from the eastern Mediterranean and Western Europe through its early Homo sapiens fossils. However, Romania’s archeological record remains underexplored thereby hindering our ability to directly connect better understood regions through time and space. Here we report on excavations from the open-air Middle/Upper Paleolithic site of Românești-Dumbrăvița I in southwestern Romania. Three stratified Paleolithic assemblages were extensively excavated within a 1-m-thick eolian-deposited sequence. Spatial, geochemical, raw material, techno-typological, and use-wear analysis of the site reveal patterns of artifact configuration, ...
The Aurignacian is one of the first cultural-technological traditions commonly associated with th... more The Aurignacian is one of the first cultural-technological traditions commonly associated with the expansion of Homo sapiens in Europe. Early Homo sapiens demographics across the continent are therefore typically inferred using the distribution of Aurignacian assemblages. Western Romania has been used as a tie-point to connect the well-researched lithic assemblages from the eastern Mediterranean and Western Europe through its early Homo sapiens fossils. However, Romania's archeological record remains underexplored thereby hindering our ability to directly connect better understood regions through time and space. Here we report on excavations from the open-air Middle/ Upper Paleolithic site of Românești-Dumbrăvița I in southwestern Romania. Three stratified Paleolithic assemblages were extensively excavated within a 1-m-thick eolian-deposited sequence. Spatial, geochemical, raw material, techno-typological, and use-wear analysis of the site reveal patterns of artifact configuration, resource exploitation, fire history, knapping objectives, and functionality. Taken together, Românești-Dumbrăvița I is the first well-contextualized archeological site in close spatiotemporal proximity to many early, well-preserved human fossils and in East-Central Europe.
This paper reports on the excavation of a Late Pleistocene site at Temerești Dealu Vinii in Weste... more This paper reports on the excavation of a Late Pleistocene site at Temerești Dealu Vinii in Western Romania, one of only four sizeable lithic assemblages with similarities to the tradition known from open-air localities in this region. The site consists of a flint scatter covering an area of at least 15 square meters and is comprised of blade, bladelet and flake cores, knapping debris and retouched tools including endscrapers and burins. An interesting feature of Temerești Dealu Vinii is that it is on the same river system as the Upper Palaeolithic sites of Românești and Coșava that are about 10 km upstream. Similarities in the tools and blade technology imply that the sites may have been roughly contemporary. Here, we report on new artifacts, geochemistry, grain size, GIS analysis and geochronology that point to a Holocene reworking of the site. It also highlights the importance of rivers to humans as communication routes in the Upper Palaeolithic in the region. Zusammenfassung-Dieser Artikel berichtet von der Ausgrabung der jungpleistozänen Fundstelle Temerești Dealu Vinii im Westen Rumäniens. Die Fundstelle ist eine von insgesamt nur vier umfangreichen Sammlungen prähistorischer Steinwerkzeuge aus Freilandfundstellen in der Region, die sich ähnliche Traditionen hinsichtlich der Steingeräteherstellung teilen. Die Lokalität Temerești weist eine Fundstreuung von Silices auf, die über einen Bereich von mindestens 15 Quadratmetern reicht. Die Sammlung beinhaltet Klingen, Lamellen, Kerne, Schlagabfälle und retuschierte Werkzeuge wie Kratzer und Stichel. Bemerkenswert ist die Lage von Temerești an demselben Flusssystem wie die 10 km flussaufwärts liegenden jungpaläolithischen Fundstellen Românești und Coșava. Gemeinsamkeiten in der Werkzeug-und Klingentechnologie zeigen, dass die Fundstellen zeitgleich besiedelt waren. Unsere Analyse der Artefakte, Geochemie, Korngrößen, sowie GIS-gestützte Auswertung der Geomorphologie und die Geochro-nologie legen nahe, dass die Sedimente der Fundstelle holozän überprägt wurden. Außerdem wird gezeigt, dass Flüsse wichtige Kommunikationswege während des Jungpaläolithikums in der Region darstellten.
The earliest human dispersals into Europe has been intrinsically linked to patterns of Pleistocen... more The earliest human dispersals into Europe has been intrinsically linked to patterns of Pleistocene climate and environment though spatio-temporal correlations are still poorly understood. To clarify this, one focus of the Collaborative Research Center 806 has been the concept of contextual areas that outlines the systemic environment of prehistoric populations and their specific adaptive relationships triggered by biological, geographical and cultural parameters. Using the cultural area concept as a model to explain archaeological variability (e.g. site distribution, tool kit structure, etc.) a contextual area has a confined spatial and temporal dimension. This suggests that systemic relationships deducible from archaeological data may have persisted for a certain period and in a specific region. From a methodological point of view, the contextual area concept operates on a low to medium scale as opposed to models working on a pan-European scale, such as the Eco-Cultural Niche Model. By concentrating on sites with similar structures and compositions shaped by comparable parameters such as environment and demographics, it attempts to outline the geographical and chronological range where similar adaptive relationships are observable in time and space. This is the contextual area. In this talk we apply the contextual area model to examples of the Southeast European Aurignacian focusing specifically on the case studies of Lower Austria (Willendorf), the Romanian/Serbian Banat (Romanesti, Cosava, Tincova, At-Crvenka, Pestera cu Oase). Observations made for Early Aurignacian sites in the Romanian Banat show that their spatial distribution and structure of lithic assemblages are neatly correlated with distinct palaeoenvironmental parameters the range of which is likely extendable to Lower Austria and other adjacent regions. Regions beyond that range show different patterns, and hence belong to different contextual areas. This structure explains the existing heterogeneity of the Early Aurignacian landscape that is largely overlooked by current models proposing uniform Aurignacian cultural units and unilinear distribution trajectories. Our results show that certain environmental parameters were important to the site locales selected by early Modern Humans including water resources, raw material accessibility, game, wind intensity and local topography. We also demonstrate that sites were exclusively located during GIS 11-10 at ecotones where forest and cold-steppe environments intersected. These results suggest that the earliest dispersal of Modern Humans into Europe is intrinsically correlated with specific landscapes and environments than previously thought.
River processes are widely assumed to have impacted the integrity of lithic assemblages when arti... more River processes are widely assumed to have impacted the integrity of lithic assemblages when artifacts are found in fluvial sediments, but the specifics of these influences remain largely unknown. We conducted a real-world experiment to determine how the initial stages of fluvial entrainment affected lithic artifact assemblages. We inserted replica artifacts with radio frequency identification tags into a gravel-bedded river in Wales (UK) for seven months and related their transport distances to their morphology and the recorded streamflow. In addition, nine arti-facts were recovered at the end of the experiment and analyzed for microwear traces. In sum, our results show that in a gravel-bedded river with a mean discharge of 5.1 m 3 /s, artifact length and width were the main variables influencing artifact transport distances. The experiment also resulted in characteristic microwear traces developing on the artifacts over distances of 485 m or less. These results emphasize the multifaceted nature of alluvial site formation processes in a repeatable experiment and highlight new ways to identify the transport of replica Paleolithic material.
The northern Carpathian Basin has important geological, paleoenvironmental, and archeological rec... more The northern Carpathian Basin has important geological, paleoenvironmental, and archeological records that are key to our understanding of the first modern human occupation of Europe. However, the nature and timing of hominin settlements in the region during the Late Pleistocene remain poorly understood. New fieldwork at Seňa I, Slovakia, has identified the only known stratified open-air Aurignacian site in the region and assigned the assemblage to at least 33.5 ± 2.4 ka ago through infrared-stimulated luminescence dating. Additionally, new archeological and geoscientific data are presented. This paper discusses the Seňa I findings in the context of the regional archeological record and shows how they contribute to the establishment of clear time constraints for the Aurignacian in eastern central Europe.
Early Upper Paleolithic sites in the Danube catchment have been put forward as evidence that the ... more Early Upper Paleolithic sites in the Danube catchment have been put forward as evidence that the river was an important conduit for modern humans during their initial settlement of Europe. Central to this model is the Carpathian Basin, a region covering most of the Middle Danube. As the archaeological record of this region is still poorly understood, this paper aims to provide a contextual assessment of the Carpathian Basin's geological and paleoenvironmental archives, starting with the late Upper Pleistocene. Subsequently, it compiles early Upper Paleolithic data from the region to provide a synchronic appraisal of the Aurigna-cian archaeological evidence. It then uses this data to test whether the relative absence of early Upper Paleolithic sites is obscured by a taphonomic bias. Finally, it reviews current knowledge of the Carpathian Basin's archaeological record and concludes that, while it cannot reject the Danube corridor hypothesis, further (geo) archaeological work is required to understand the link between the Carpathian Basin and Central and Southeastern Europe. Keywords Early modern humans · Danube corridor hypothesis · Carpathian Basin · Loess · Early Upper Paleolithic · Aurignacian
The way in which modern humans first entered Europe has been a recent focus of Upper Paleolithic ... more The way in which modern humans first entered Europe has been a recent focus of Upper Paleolithic research. A leading theory posits that the Danube served as a conduit for migration from Southeastern into Central and Western Europe. However, a challenge to this has been the scarcity of Early Upper Paleolithic sites along the Middle Danube (Carpathian) Basin. Though several sites with Early Upper Paleolithic features (Szeletian, Aurignacian) are known from surface prospections, few have been archeologically investigated in detail. Here, our aim is to elucidate this long-standing deficiency by evaluating two unknown and three known sites from the northern Carpathian Basin in Hungary and Slovakia through a series of " keyhole " excavations. The objectives were to see if in situ stratified material still existed and to characterize the sites' archeological assemblages and sedimentological contexts. To do this, field observations supplemented by granulometry were employed to determine if the surrounding sedimentary matrix was eolian loess and/or if it had been mixed with underlying older deposits. The results indicate that the lithics represent Early Upper Paleolithic assemblages that experienced post-depositional mixing. However, two sites (Se na I, Nagyr ede 1) showed more nuanced site formation processes and may contain in situ artifacts warranting further exploration. These studies highlight the importance of including sedimentological research into archeological investigations, because the paucity of sites may not simply mean a lack of human occupation, but can indicate a dynamic geomorphological evolution of the Pleistocene landscape that may have erased past traces of human settlements through insufficient sedimentation. The results provide new insights into the Early Upper Paleolithic settlement and the sedimentary dynamics of the Carpathian Basin ultimately leading to a greater understanding of the early modern human settlement patterns in Europe.
The way in which modern humans first entered Europe has been a recent focus of Upper Paleolithic ... more The way in which modern humans first entered Europe has been a recent focus of Upper Paleolithic research. A leading theory posits that the Danube served as a conduit for migration from Southeastern into Central and Western Europe. However, a challenge to this has been the scarcity of Early Upper Paleolithic sites along the Middle Danube (Carpathian) Basin. Though several sites with Early Upper Paleolithic features (Szeletian, Aurignacian) are known from surface prospections, few have been archeologically investigated in detail. Here, our aim is to elucidate this long-standing deficiency by evaluating two unknown and three known sites from the northern Carpathian Basin in Hungary and Slovakia through a series of " keyhole " excavations. The objectives were to see if in situ stratified material still existed and to characterize the sites' archeological assemblages and sedimentological contexts. To do this, field observations supplemented by granulometry were employed to determine if the surrounding sedimentary matrix was eolian loess and/or if it had been mixed with underlying older deposits. The results indicate that the lithics represent Early Upper Paleolithic assemblages that experienced post-depositional mixing. However, two sites (Se na I, Nagyr ede 1) showed more nuanced site formation processes and may contain in situ artifacts warranting further exploration. These studies highlight the importance of including sedimentological research into archeological investigations, because the paucity of sites may not simply mean a lack of human occupation, but can indicate a dynamic geomorphological evolution of the Pleistocene landscape that may have erased past traces of human settlements through insufficient sedimentation. The results provide new insights into the Early Upper Paleolithic settlement and the sedimentary dynamics of the Carpathian Basin ultimately leading to a greater understanding of the early modern human settlement patterns in Europe.
The regular and systematic production of long blades (>120 mm) that maintain a thickness (<10 mm)... more The regular and systematic production of long blades (>120 mm) that maintain a thickness (<10 mm) of regular blades (<120 mm) is a particular phenomenon of the Upper Palaeolithic (40–10 ka BP) archaeological record of Eastern Central Europe. However, the mechanical underpinnings of manufacturing these long blades are still not fully understood. This paper presents experimental research that used heavy (∼800 g) and light (∼570 g) antler percussors to test the effect of percussor weight on the manufacture of Upper Palaeolithic type blades. Statistical analyses showed that a heavier percussor effectively increased the ability to achieve a fine thickness for long blades. The results are then compared to other experimental and archaeological assemblages to suggest that the use of heavy percussors may have played a role in lithic economy of Upper Palaeolithic mobile hunter-gatherers.
Advances in hominin bioenergetics and paleoclimate reconstructions suggest that morphology was an... more Advances in hominin bioenergetics and paleoclimate reconstructions suggest that morphology was an insufficient buffer against the cool climate of Pleistocene Europe. To maintain homeostasis, hominins must have supplemented endothermy with various extrasomatic behavioral solutions. It is commonly suggested that one such solution was the use of simple windbreaks, though to date no studies have assessed the thermo-regulatory benefits, if any, they may have conferred on their users. In the experimental project discussed in this article, computer simulations and practical models of simple windbreaks in controlled wind tunnels were used to evaluate their performance. The results were integrated into models of Neandertal cold tolerance and climatic reconstructions of known occupation sites during the Last Glacial Maximum in Northern Europe, in order to assess their usefulness to Pleistocene hominins. It was clear that, within the constraints of their toolkits, early hominins could have constructed habitation structures that would have been highly effective aids to help them stay warm. These new data permit a functional understanding of the archaeological record and have implications for hominin technology as well as range.
Topographic position index (TPI) is an algorithm increasingly used to measure topographic slope p... more Topographic position index (TPI) is an algorithm increasingly used to measure topographic slope positions and to automate landform classifications. We applied TPI to a geoarchaeological research project in northwestern Belgium but its use led to erroneous landform classifications in this heterogeneous landscape. We asked whether deviation from mean elevation (DEV) was a better method for landform classification than TPI. We found that it enabled more accurate geomorphological assessment when using northwestern Belgium as a case study.
The Aurignacian is one of the first cultural-technological traditions commonly associated with th... more The Aurignacian is one of the first cultural-technological traditions commonly associated with the expansion of Homo sapiens in Europe. Early Homo sapiens demographics across the continent are therefore typically inferred using the distribution of Aurignacian assemblages. Western Romania has been used as a tie-point to connect the well-researched lithic assemblages from the eastern Mediterranean and Western Europe through its early Homo sapiens fossils. However, Romania’s archeological record remains underexplored thereby hindering our ability to directly connect better understood regions through time and space. Here we report on excavations from the open-air Middle/Upper Paleolithic site of Românești-Dumbrăvița I in southwestern Romania. Three stratified Paleolithic assemblages were extensively excavated within a 1-m-thick eolian-deposited sequence. Spatial, geochemical, raw material, techno-typological, and use-wear analysis of the site reveal patterns of artifact configuration, ...
The Aurignacian is one of the first cultural-technological traditions commonly associated with th... more The Aurignacian is one of the first cultural-technological traditions commonly associated with the expansion of Homo sapiens in Europe. Early Homo sapiens demographics across the continent are therefore typically inferred using the distribution of Aurignacian assemblages. Western Romania has been used as a tie-point to connect the well-researched lithic assemblages from the eastern Mediterranean and Western Europe through its early Homo sapiens fossils. However, Romania's archeological record remains underexplored thereby hindering our ability to directly connect better understood regions through time and space. Here we report on excavations from the open-air Middle/ Upper Paleolithic site of Românești-Dumbrăvița I in southwestern Romania. Three stratified Paleolithic assemblages were extensively excavated within a 1-m-thick eolian-deposited sequence. Spatial, geochemical, raw material, techno-typological, and use-wear analysis of the site reveal patterns of artifact configuration, resource exploitation, fire history, knapping objectives, and functionality. Taken together, Românești-Dumbrăvița I is the first well-contextualized archeological site in close spatiotemporal proximity to many early, well-preserved human fossils and in East-Central Europe.
This paper reports on the excavation of a Late Pleistocene site at Temerești Dealu Vinii in Weste... more This paper reports on the excavation of a Late Pleistocene site at Temerești Dealu Vinii in Western Romania, one of only four sizeable lithic assemblages with similarities to the tradition known from open-air localities in this region. The site consists of a flint scatter covering an area of at least 15 square meters and is comprised of blade, bladelet and flake cores, knapping debris and retouched tools including endscrapers and burins. An interesting feature of Temerești Dealu Vinii is that it is on the same river system as the Upper Palaeolithic sites of Românești and Coșava that are about 10 km upstream. Similarities in the tools and blade technology imply that the sites may have been roughly contemporary. Here, we report on new artifacts, geochemistry, grain size, GIS analysis and geochronology that point to a Holocene reworking of the site. It also highlights the importance of rivers to humans as communication routes in the Upper Palaeolithic in the region. Zusammenfassung-Dieser Artikel berichtet von der Ausgrabung der jungpleistozänen Fundstelle Temerești Dealu Vinii im Westen Rumäniens. Die Fundstelle ist eine von insgesamt nur vier umfangreichen Sammlungen prähistorischer Steinwerkzeuge aus Freilandfundstellen in der Region, die sich ähnliche Traditionen hinsichtlich der Steingeräteherstellung teilen. Die Lokalität Temerești weist eine Fundstreuung von Silices auf, die über einen Bereich von mindestens 15 Quadratmetern reicht. Die Sammlung beinhaltet Klingen, Lamellen, Kerne, Schlagabfälle und retuschierte Werkzeuge wie Kratzer und Stichel. Bemerkenswert ist die Lage von Temerești an demselben Flusssystem wie die 10 km flussaufwärts liegenden jungpaläolithischen Fundstellen Românești und Coșava. Gemeinsamkeiten in der Werkzeug-und Klingentechnologie zeigen, dass die Fundstellen zeitgleich besiedelt waren. Unsere Analyse der Artefakte, Geochemie, Korngrößen, sowie GIS-gestützte Auswertung der Geomorphologie und die Geochro-nologie legen nahe, dass die Sedimente der Fundstelle holozän überprägt wurden. Außerdem wird gezeigt, dass Flüsse wichtige Kommunikationswege während des Jungpaläolithikums in der Region darstellten.
The earliest human dispersals into Europe has been intrinsically linked to patterns of Pleistocen... more The earliest human dispersals into Europe has been intrinsically linked to patterns of Pleistocene climate and environment though spatio-temporal correlations are still poorly understood. To clarify this, one focus of the Collaborative Research Center 806 has been the concept of contextual areas that outlines the systemic environment of prehistoric populations and their specific adaptive relationships triggered by biological, geographical and cultural parameters. Using the cultural area concept as a model to explain archaeological variability (e.g. site distribution, tool kit structure, etc.) a contextual area has a confined spatial and temporal dimension. This suggests that systemic relationships deducible from archaeological data may have persisted for a certain period and in a specific region. From a methodological point of view, the contextual area concept operates on a low to medium scale as opposed to models working on a pan-European scale, such as the Eco-Cultural Niche Model. By concentrating on sites with similar structures and compositions shaped by comparable parameters such as environment and demographics, it attempts to outline the geographical and chronological range where similar adaptive relationships are observable in time and space. This is the contextual area. In this talk we apply the contextual area model to examples of the Southeast European Aurignacian focusing specifically on the case studies of Lower Austria (Willendorf), the Romanian/Serbian Banat (Romanesti, Cosava, Tincova, At-Crvenka, Pestera cu Oase). Observations made for Early Aurignacian sites in the Romanian Banat show that their spatial distribution and structure of lithic assemblages are neatly correlated with distinct palaeoenvironmental parameters the range of which is likely extendable to Lower Austria and other adjacent regions. Regions beyond that range show different patterns, and hence belong to different contextual areas. This structure explains the existing heterogeneity of the Early Aurignacian landscape that is largely overlooked by current models proposing uniform Aurignacian cultural units and unilinear distribution trajectories. Our results show that certain environmental parameters were important to the site locales selected by early Modern Humans including water resources, raw material accessibility, game, wind intensity and local topography. We also demonstrate that sites were exclusively located during GIS 11-10 at ecotones where forest and cold-steppe environments intersected. These results suggest that the earliest dispersal of Modern Humans into Europe is intrinsically correlated with specific landscapes and environments than previously thought.
River processes are widely assumed to have impacted the integrity of lithic assemblages when arti... more River processes are widely assumed to have impacted the integrity of lithic assemblages when artifacts are found in fluvial sediments, but the specifics of these influences remain largely unknown. We conducted a real-world experiment to determine how the initial stages of fluvial entrainment affected lithic artifact assemblages. We inserted replica artifacts with radio frequency identification tags into a gravel-bedded river in Wales (UK) for seven months and related their transport distances to their morphology and the recorded streamflow. In addition, nine arti-facts were recovered at the end of the experiment and analyzed for microwear traces. In sum, our results show that in a gravel-bedded river with a mean discharge of 5.1 m 3 /s, artifact length and width were the main variables influencing artifact transport distances. The experiment also resulted in characteristic microwear traces developing on the artifacts over distances of 485 m or less. These results emphasize the multifaceted nature of alluvial site formation processes in a repeatable experiment and highlight new ways to identify the transport of replica Paleolithic material.
The northern Carpathian Basin has important geological, paleoenvironmental, and archeological rec... more The northern Carpathian Basin has important geological, paleoenvironmental, and archeological records that are key to our understanding of the first modern human occupation of Europe. However, the nature and timing of hominin settlements in the region during the Late Pleistocene remain poorly understood. New fieldwork at Seňa I, Slovakia, has identified the only known stratified open-air Aurignacian site in the region and assigned the assemblage to at least 33.5 ± 2.4 ka ago through infrared-stimulated luminescence dating. Additionally, new archeological and geoscientific data are presented. This paper discusses the Seňa I findings in the context of the regional archeological record and shows how they contribute to the establishment of clear time constraints for the Aurignacian in eastern central Europe.
Early Upper Paleolithic sites in the Danube catchment have been put forward as evidence that the ... more Early Upper Paleolithic sites in the Danube catchment have been put forward as evidence that the river was an important conduit for modern humans during their initial settlement of Europe. Central to this model is the Carpathian Basin, a region covering most of the Middle Danube. As the archaeological record of this region is still poorly understood, this paper aims to provide a contextual assessment of the Carpathian Basin's geological and paleoenvironmental archives, starting with the late Upper Pleistocene. Subsequently, it compiles early Upper Paleolithic data from the region to provide a synchronic appraisal of the Aurigna-cian archaeological evidence. It then uses this data to test whether the relative absence of early Upper Paleolithic sites is obscured by a taphonomic bias. Finally, it reviews current knowledge of the Carpathian Basin's archaeological record and concludes that, while it cannot reject the Danube corridor hypothesis, further (geo) archaeological work is required to understand the link between the Carpathian Basin and Central and Southeastern Europe. Keywords Early modern humans · Danube corridor hypothesis · Carpathian Basin · Loess · Early Upper Paleolithic · Aurignacian
The way in which modern humans first entered Europe has been a recent focus of Upper Paleolithic ... more The way in which modern humans first entered Europe has been a recent focus of Upper Paleolithic research. A leading theory posits that the Danube served as a conduit for migration from Southeastern into Central and Western Europe. However, a challenge to this has been the scarcity of Early Upper Paleolithic sites along the Middle Danube (Carpathian) Basin. Though several sites with Early Upper Paleolithic features (Szeletian, Aurignacian) are known from surface prospections, few have been archeologically investigated in detail. Here, our aim is to elucidate this long-standing deficiency by evaluating two unknown and three known sites from the northern Carpathian Basin in Hungary and Slovakia through a series of " keyhole " excavations. The objectives were to see if in situ stratified material still existed and to characterize the sites' archeological assemblages and sedimentological contexts. To do this, field observations supplemented by granulometry were employed to determine if the surrounding sedimentary matrix was eolian loess and/or if it had been mixed with underlying older deposits. The results indicate that the lithics represent Early Upper Paleolithic assemblages that experienced post-depositional mixing. However, two sites (Se na I, Nagyr ede 1) showed more nuanced site formation processes and may contain in situ artifacts warranting further exploration. These studies highlight the importance of including sedimentological research into archeological investigations, because the paucity of sites may not simply mean a lack of human occupation, but can indicate a dynamic geomorphological evolution of the Pleistocene landscape that may have erased past traces of human settlements through insufficient sedimentation. The results provide new insights into the Early Upper Paleolithic settlement and the sedimentary dynamics of the Carpathian Basin ultimately leading to a greater understanding of the early modern human settlement patterns in Europe.
The way in which modern humans first entered Europe has been a recent focus of Upper Paleolithic ... more The way in which modern humans first entered Europe has been a recent focus of Upper Paleolithic research. A leading theory posits that the Danube served as a conduit for migration from Southeastern into Central and Western Europe. However, a challenge to this has been the scarcity of Early Upper Paleolithic sites along the Middle Danube (Carpathian) Basin. Though several sites with Early Upper Paleolithic features (Szeletian, Aurignacian) are known from surface prospections, few have been archeologically investigated in detail. Here, our aim is to elucidate this long-standing deficiency by evaluating two unknown and three known sites from the northern Carpathian Basin in Hungary and Slovakia through a series of " keyhole " excavations. The objectives were to see if in situ stratified material still existed and to characterize the sites' archeological assemblages and sedimentological contexts. To do this, field observations supplemented by granulometry were employed to determine if the surrounding sedimentary matrix was eolian loess and/or if it had been mixed with underlying older deposits. The results indicate that the lithics represent Early Upper Paleolithic assemblages that experienced post-depositional mixing. However, two sites (Se na I, Nagyr ede 1) showed more nuanced site formation processes and may contain in situ artifacts warranting further exploration. These studies highlight the importance of including sedimentological research into archeological investigations, because the paucity of sites may not simply mean a lack of human occupation, but can indicate a dynamic geomorphological evolution of the Pleistocene landscape that may have erased past traces of human settlements through insufficient sedimentation. The results provide new insights into the Early Upper Paleolithic settlement and the sedimentary dynamics of the Carpathian Basin ultimately leading to a greater understanding of the early modern human settlement patterns in Europe.
The regular and systematic production of long blades (>120 mm) that maintain a thickness (<10 mm)... more The regular and systematic production of long blades (>120 mm) that maintain a thickness (<10 mm) of regular blades (<120 mm) is a particular phenomenon of the Upper Palaeolithic (40–10 ka BP) archaeological record of Eastern Central Europe. However, the mechanical underpinnings of manufacturing these long blades are still not fully understood. This paper presents experimental research that used heavy (∼800 g) and light (∼570 g) antler percussors to test the effect of percussor weight on the manufacture of Upper Palaeolithic type blades. Statistical analyses showed that a heavier percussor effectively increased the ability to achieve a fine thickness for long blades. The results are then compared to other experimental and archaeological assemblages to suggest that the use of heavy percussors may have played a role in lithic economy of Upper Palaeolithic mobile hunter-gatherers.
Advances in hominin bioenergetics and paleoclimate reconstructions suggest that morphology was an... more Advances in hominin bioenergetics and paleoclimate reconstructions suggest that morphology was an insufficient buffer against the cool climate of Pleistocene Europe. To maintain homeostasis, hominins must have supplemented endothermy with various extrasomatic behavioral solutions. It is commonly suggested that one such solution was the use of simple windbreaks, though to date no studies have assessed the thermo-regulatory benefits, if any, they may have conferred on their users. In the experimental project discussed in this article, computer simulations and practical models of simple windbreaks in controlled wind tunnels were used to evaluate their performance. The results were integrated into models of Neandertal cold tolerance and climatic reconstructions of known occupation sites during the Last Glacial Maximum in Northern Europe, in order to assess their usefulness to Pleistocene hominins. It was clear that, within the constraints of their toolkits, early hominins could have constructed habitation structures that would have been highly effective aids to help them stay warm. These new data permit a functional understanding of the archaeological record and have implications for hominin technology as well as range.
Topographic position index (TPI) is an algorithm increasingly used to measure topographic slope p... more Topographic position index (TPI) is an algorithm increasingly used to measure topographic slope positions and to automate landform classifications. We applied TPI to a geoarchaeological research project in northwestern Belgium but its use led to erroneous landform classifications in this heterogeneous landscape. We asked whether deviation from mean elevation (DEV) was a better method for landform classification than TPI. We found that it enabled more accurate geomorphological assessment when using northwestern Belgium as a case study.
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