EFCHED
The chronology of the Aurignacian in Eastern Europe: the changing distribution of modern humans in the environmental context
We set out to answer key questions about the spread of the earliest modern humans (Homo sapiens) into Europe. In particular: what directions might they have taken, how long did they take and what were the climatic conditions?
The archaeological entity known as the 'Aurignacian' is generally assumed to be the signature of this earliest modern human dispersal. But it quickly became apparent that the quality and reliability of dates for relevant sites in Eastern Europe were far worse than for Western Europe.
This situation needed to be improved if we were to test the assumption of many archaeologists that the earliest modern humans entered Europe from the east, and spread westwards. Therefore we set ourselves a target of 160 AMS radiocarbon and 40 luminescence dates from key sites in Eastern Europe, in order to improve our chronological resolution for the Aurignacian and the region in general.
So far, the dates we have obtained for the Aurignacian of central and Eastern Europe do not exceed approximately 36ka, making it difficult to demonstrate that its appearance in the east was earlier than in the west of Europe.
The earliest known date for an Eastern European site is approximately 38.5ka.
Taken at face value this would suggest that the Aurignacian arose in Western Europe, and then spread eastwards. But to prove this we would need to apply the same stringent sample selection criteria that this project has only applied to Eastern Europe. This would require another project to do it justice.
In any case, the Aurignacian of central and Eastern Europe appears to have spread when the climate was getting cooler after around 40ka, rather than during the predominantly warm conditions before 40ka.
Four of our major findings
1. We have improved the chronological resolution of dated stratigraphies from several key Eastern European Aurignacian sites, bringing together datable materials from different excavation campaigns, for example at Dzeraváskálá, Mamutowa and Istállós-kö caves.
2. We have also obtained dates of over 40ka ago for Bohunice, the type site of the Bohunician, which might have been made by modern humans. These new dates will be further tested by comparison with additional AMS radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates from the new excavations at the site.
3. We have obtained a date of approximately 30.3ka on a modern human occipital fragment with possible deliberate cut marks, from the Hungarian site of Görömböly-tapolca.
4. As of May 2006 we had received six direct dates from Aurignacian organic projectile points, but we expect this number to increase significantly to between 20 and 30 as new samples are dated.
The current chronological findings are leading us to begin questioning how well the Aurignacian is understood in Eastern Europe. The direct dates we have obtained from bone and ivory projectile points so far imply that they occur comparatively late (31-34ka) in the settlement of the Aurignacian which begins before 40ka.
The bone-point date from Istállós-kö cave, which has traditionally been thought to be early in the Aurignacian sequence, is 33.6ka, indicating that it is not especially old.
The chronological concentration of our direct dates allows us to test the new idea that such organic points represent a particular chronological phase within the Aurignacian rather than being characteristic of the period as a whole. This phase, if it can be supported by new dates, might be related to behavioural changes in response to the deteriorating climatic conditions seen after about 40ka, when people had to adapt to rapidly changing environments.
We are plotting the positions of the dated Aurignacian (and other early Upper Palaeolithic) sites in our database onto the climate simulations generated by the Stage Three Project, to see whether any clear environmental and climatic preferences can be identified.
In particular, we want to know whether specific habitats were being targeted by the earliest modern humans in Europe, and, if there are identifiable patterns, do they change over time?
This summary was compiled by William Davies (Oxford). Robert Hedges (Oxford) is the PI for this project.
Other researchers collaborating in the project include:
Árpád Ringer (Miskolc University, Hungary), Viola Dobosi (Budapest), Janusz Kozlowski (Kraków, Poland), Piotr Wojtal (Kraków), Jacek Rydzewski (Kraków), Jirí Svoboda (Brno, Czech republic), Karel Valoch (Brno), Martin Oliva (Brno), Lubomira Kaminská (Kosice, Slovakia), Walpurga Antl (Vienna), Martina Pacher (Vienna), Florian Fladerer (Vienna), Gerhard Trnka (Vienna), Philip Nigst (Leipzig), Alexander Verpoorte (Leiden, Netherlands), Ivor Karavanic (Croatia), Vasile Chirica (Romania), Daniel Richter (Leipzig), Jean-Luc Schwenninger (Oxford).