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The lower/middle paleolithic periodization in western Europe
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Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 5, October 2006
709
The Lower/Middle Paleolithic Periodization in
Western Europe
An Evaluation
by Gilliane F. Monnier
In the late nineteenth century, the European Paleolithic was divided into stages, each of which was
characterized by a distinct stone tool type known historically as a fossile directeur, or index fossil.
Today, these index fossils are no longer explicitly used to date assemblages because they are known
to overlap widely, but they continue to be used as key components in the periodization of the
Paleolithic. This study addresses two major questions: (1) How have archaeologists justified retaining
these index fossils to distinguish the Lower from the Middle Paleolithic? and (2) Does the diachronic
patterning of these tool types support this periodization? The results reveal (1) that the overlap of
index fossils was a known problem from the beginning and prehistorians repeatedly modified the
classification to accommodate data which documented this overlap without rejecting its fundamental
index-fossil-based core and (2) that, while temporal trends agreeing with the Lower/Middle Paleolithic
periodization can be identified, they are insignificant compared with the chronological variation
observed in each of these tool types. The Lower/Middle Paleolithic periodization should therefore
be revised on the basis of a comprehensive examination of multiple lines of evidence, not just lithic
typology.
The past two decades have witnessed intense research and
debate regarding the Middle/Upper Paleolithic transition in
Europe and its relationship to the origins of modern humans.
There has been little interest, however, in the Lower/Middle
Paleolithic transition (but see, e.g., Ronen 1982a). There are
several reasons for this lack of interest. First, the Lower/Middle
Paleolithic transition is less dramatic than the later one, its
exact date being unclear and its existence sometimes called
into question (e.g., Tuffreau, Lamotte, and Marcy 1997). Second, the chronological resolution from this time period has
been extremely poor, although it is improving. Finally, the
Lower and even the Middle Paleolithic have generally been
regarded as static and unchanging (Kuhn and Hovers 2005).
Therefore, while recent volumes have focused on variability
in the Middle Paleolithic (e.g., Roebroeks and Gamble 1999;
Hovers and Kuhn 2005) and on the earliest occupation of
Europe (Bonifay and Vandermeersch 1991; Roebroeks and
van Kolfschoten 1995a), very few have tried to refine our
knowledge of what happened at the interface of the Lower
and the Middle Paleolithic. Yet, a comparison of the two
Gilliane F. Monnier is Instructor and Fellow in the Department of
Anthropology at the University of Minnesota (301 19th Ave. South,
Minneapolis, MN 55455, U.S.A. [monni003@umn.edu]). The present paper was submitted 11 V 05 and accepted 6 XII 05.
transitions reveals that they are hampered by similar problems. The first problem is that an archaeological transition
tends to dichotomize the archaeological record, producing a
“before” and an “after” which are often seen as internally
cohesive. Many years ago, Straus (1983) pointed out that the
treatment of the Middle and the Upper Paleolithic as single
entities has magnified the differences between the two while
reducing the variation within each period. Upon closer examination, it turns out that there are more continuities across
the transition than is generally acknowledged (e.g., d’Errico
et al. 1998). Recent studies have also shown that the transition
varied geographically: in Africa, for example, the Middle/Later
Stone Age transition was “gradual and episodic,” occurring
over a span of at least 200,000 years (McBrearty and Brooks
2000), while in China the Middle/Upper Paleolithic transition
(ca. 27,000–30,000 years ago) appears to have been so abrupt
and change in the period preceding it so gradual that Gao
and Norton (2001) have proposed eliminating the Middle
Paleolithic altogether.
The second problem with these transitions is that we often
forget that they are artificial boundaries designed to provide
structure to a complex record and, rather than being conceived of as permanent or real, should be frequently examined
and revised (Roebroeks and Corbey 2001). Yet, the Lower and
Middle Paleolithic index-fossil-based definitions created over
䉷 2006 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved 0011-3204/2006/4705-0001$10.00
710
100 years ago, when the Acheulean was characterized by bifaces and the Middle Paleolithic by Levallois technology and
retouched flake tools, are still defined the same way despite
the vast temporal distribution of each type and huge overlaps
between them. Representative definitions are as follows:
Lower Paleolithic:
[The Acheulean includes] biface assemblages older than
the Middle Paleolithic, where the Middle Paleolithic includes
all assemblages with or without bifaces that have Mousterian-like flake tools and may be as old as stage 8 in the
oxygen isotope chronology. (Villa 1991, 199)
The majority of specialists recognize in the Acheulean an
assemblage of lithic industries characterized by the presence
of bifaces. (Tuffreau 1996, 7)
In both Africa and Europe the Mousterian/MSA differs
from the preceding Acheulean mainly in the absence of large
bifacial tools (hand axes and cleavers). (Klein 1999, 408)
Middle Paleolithic:
The most basic innovation marking the Middle Paleolithic
remains the emergence of prepared-core technique. (Rolland 1988, 179)
Most of these [MP] industries share one or more of a
number of characteristics, including the use of preparedcore flaking techniques and a limited range of major tool
classes (principally racloirs [i.e., “scrapers”], denticulates/
notches, and bifaces). (Dibble and Rolland 1992)
The prime hallmark of Middle Paleolithic technology
[is] the emergence of more complex and sophisticated patterns of prepared-core flaking, classically illustrated by the
various Levallois and allied techniques. (Mellars 1996, 4)
[The Middle Paleolithic] is a stage anterior to the Upper
Paleolithic where lithic assemblages are characterised by a
high proportion of standardised flake-supports and flaketools. These are based on débitage which generally, but not
always, involves the Levallois technique. (Gamble and Roebroeks 1999, 5)
By the Middle Paleolithic we mean the period in which,
at least in Europe, the first standard techniques of flake
manufacture were developed (Tuffreau 1979; Bosinski 1982).
(Vega Toscano et al. 1999, 23)
Middle Paleolithic industries, as characterized by the occurrence of fully developed Levallois technology, seem to
start about 300,000 years ago. (Roebroeks and Tuffreau
1999, 121)
Well-made Levallois flakes and cores appear in some later
Acheulean assemblages, dating between perhaps 400 and 200
ky ago, but they become common only in Mousterian and
Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 5, October 2006
MSA assemblages after 200 ky ago. Not all Mousterian/MSA
people produced Levallois flakes, but many did, and Levallois technology is sometimes regarded as a hallmark of
the Mousterian/MSA. (Klein 1999, 411)
Unfortunately, the continued use of these criteria and the
absence of a serious examination and revision of the definition
of the Lower/Middle Paleolithic periodization have led to a
focus on limited aspects of variation while neglecting other
questions.
For example, the meaning of the presence or absence of
bifaces in industries such as the Acheulean and Clactonian
has been debated ever since bifaces became the defining criterion for the Lower Paleolithic. It has now been demonstrated conclusively that these two industries are contemporaneous (Ashton and McNabb 1996) and that there is no
cultural distinction between them (Ohel 1979; Ashton and
McNabb 1992; Roberts, Gamble, and Bridgland 1995); they
differ only on the basis of the presence or absence of bifaces
(Ashton et al. 1994). In fact, bifaces have even turned up in
Clactonian contexts, providing the final blow to the notion
of the Clactonian as a real tradition (Ashton and McNabb
1996; McNabb 1996; Conway 1995). In other contexts the
meaning of a distinction between early biface- and non-biface-bearing assemblages has been questioned (e.g., Jelinek
1977; Mussi 1995), and many have noted that the only distinction between certain Acheulean and Mousterian assemblages is the presence or absence of bifaces (e.g., Tuffreau
1982; Bosinski in Ronen 1982b; Villa 1991; Bordes 1950a).
Finally, it is becoming increasingly apparent that biface typology has no consistent temporal patterning (e.g., Bosinski
1995; Tuffreau and Antoine 1995; Roberts, Gamble, and
Bridgland 1995; Milliken 2001; Villa 1991). In other words,
biface morphology and presence/absence seem to vary independently of any other variable except for raw material (e.g.,
McPherron 2000; Gamble and Marshall 2001). Bifaces are
probably simply a basic component of Lower and Middle
Paleolithic toolkits throughout much of the world and as such
carry a limited amount of cultural and temporal information.
The continued focus on index fossils such as bifaces, which
are so widespread spatially and temporally that they carry
almost no meaning, and their continued use in defining the
Lower and Middle Paleolithic lead to two key questions: (1)
How have archaeologists justified retaining these index fossils
to distinguish the Lower from the Middle Paleolithic? and (2)
Does the diachronic patterning of these artifact types in welldated, well-excavated sites support the traditional Lower/Middle Paleolithic periodization? The first question requires a
historical treatment. The second relies upon detailed information from absolutely dated sites in western Europe to trace
the diachronic patterning of each index fossil through time.
Monnier The Lower/Middle Paleolithic Periodization
The Identification of Handaxes, Levallois
Technology, and Flake Tools as Index
Fossils
The history of the periodization of the Paleolithic from its
initial formulation in the 1860s to its essentially modern form
in the 1960s reveals that the wide temporal overlap between
index fossils was recognized at the time of the very first artifact-based classification of the Paleolithic but no prehistorian
ever suggested abandoning them. Instead, prehistorians created increasingly convoluted frameworks to account for their
overlapping distribution. Further, the decades-old debate on
the significance of biface versus flake industries stems from
a dichotomy created in the first classification of the Paleolithic
and subsequently reified and amplified through time. Finally,
each new classification was the product of a dialectic between
research paradigms and the ever-increasing resolution of the
data.
Gabriel de Mortillet and the Identification of Paleolithic
Index Fossils
The term “Paleolithic” was coined by John Lubbock (1865,
2–3) to distinguish the Old Stone Age (“Age of Flaked Stone”)
from the New Stone Age (“Age of Polished Stone,” or Neolithic). The Paleolithic then began to be subdivided and
refined, initially on the basis of faunal sequences. The French
paleontologist Edouard Lartet, working in the Dordogne
Valley of France, excavated key sites such as Le Moustier, Pech
de l’Azé, and La Madeleine and divided the Paleolithic into
three epochs: the epoch of the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus), the
epoch of the mammoth (Elephas primigenius), and the epoch
of the reindeer (Cervus tarandus) (Lartet and Christy
1865–75). His classification was initially adopted by antiquarians and geologists, but they soon favored an artifactbased classification proposed in northern France by Gabriel
de Mortillet.
De Mortillet rejected Lartet’s paleontological classification
on the basis of three arguments (Mortillet 1872). First, he
argued (1869) that the animal species upon which Lartet’s
classification was based are found throughout the Paleolithic
(a limitation Lartet acknowledged) whereas lithic industries
are more variable and provide a stronger foundation for a
chronology. Second, he argued (1872, 1883) that species abundance will be affected by site locality and type (e.g., cave versus
open-air). Finally, he suggested (1872) that the classification
of the Paleolithic, like that of later periods, should be based
upon artifacts, which he felt would provide the best means
of tracing phases of human development. Ironically, the same
problems he criticized in the faunal classification were later
to plague his own artifact-based classification, as demonstrated below.
Although he eschewed the paleontological approach, de
Mortillet did borrow two concepts from geology. The first
711
was the practice of naming periods after the best-known and
most typical locality (Mortillet 1869). Thus, he named the
Acheulean after the site of Saint-Acheul in northern France,
the Mousterian after the site of Le Moustier in southwestern
France, and so on. Second, he defined each period on the
basis of a single characteristic tool type or fossile directeur, a
notion borrowed from the geological concept of index fossils.
De Mortillet’s methodology, therefore, was derived primarily
from geology and viewed artifact sequences as analogous to
fossil sequences (Sackett 1981, 1991).
As director of the Musée des Antiquités Nationales, de
Mortillet was asked to classify the prehistoric exhibitions for
the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1867. This led to his first
classification of the prehistory of France, published in a guide
to the exposition “Promenades préhistoriques à l’exposition
universelle” (Mortillet 1867). In this and a similar classification published in 1869, he defined the Mousterian as the
first epoch of the Stone Age and characterized its index fossils
as “almond-shaped handaxes” (also called bifaces) and “unifacial points” (table 1; Mortillet 1869). In a subsequent classification published in 1873, however, he changed the name
of the first epoch to “Acheulean” and identified its index
fossils as “large almond-shaped stone tools” (bifaces; table 2).
He named the following epoch “Mousterian” and characterized it in terms of “unifacially worked flint points and scrapers.” In other words, in the 1873 version he removed handaxes
as one of the index fossils of the Mousterian and made them
the sole index fossil of the Acheulean and points, scrapers,
and other flake tools of the Mousterian. He did not reject the
presence of handaxes in the Mousterian, which he suggested
persisted into this epoch from the preceding Acheulean before
gradually becoming extinct. He did, however, insist that retouched flake tools did not occur in the Acheulean, on which
Table 1. De Mortillet’s 1869 Classification of the Paleolithic
Epoch
Characteristic Tool-Type
La Madeleine
Bone points and harpoons, art
Aurignac
Split-base bone points,
bola stones
Solutré
Finely worked bifacial
points, bola stones
Almond-shaped handaxes, unifacial points
Moustiers
Representative Sites
La Madeleine, Les
Eyzies, LaugerieBasse, Bruniquel,
Massat
Aurignac, Gorged’Enfer, Cro-Magnon, Châtel-Perron,
Grotte de la Chaise
Solutré, LaugerieHaute, Pont-à-Less
Grotte du Moustiers,
Grotte de Pey-del’Azé, Grotte de
l’Ermitage, ChezPouré, Quaternary
alluvial deposits of
the Somme Valley
and the Seine Valley
712
Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 5, October 2006
Table 2. De Mortillet’s 1873 Classification of the Paleolithic
Ancient Divisions
Industrial
Divisions
Epochs Based
on Industry
Polished stone or
Neolithic
Polished stone
Robenhausian: polished stone axes
and barbed flint
arrowheads
Flaked stone, Archeolithic or Paleolithic
Flaked stone with
bone tools
Magdalenian: barbed
bone arrowheads
and flint blades
Flaked stone
only
Solutrean: bifacially
worked laurel-leaf
flint points
Mousterian: unifacially worked
flint points and
scrapers
Acheulean: large almond-shaped stone
tools
point he was challenged by several prehistorians during the
discussion following the appearance of his paper (Bourgeois
and Frank in Mortillet 1872).
The debate regarding handaxes as the sole retouched tool
type of the earliest Paleolithic epoch was not resolved, and
in 1883, in Le préhistorique, de Mortillet changed the name
of the earliest Paleolithic epoch from “Acheulean” to “Chellean” (table 3), identifying as its sole index fossil handaxes.
He was apparently convinced by a collector named Ernest
d’Acy that the deposits of Saint-Acheul were disturbed (Mortillet 1883) because d’Acy’s collections showed mixing in both
the fauna (Elephas antiquus and E. primigenius bones in the
same layers) and the artifacts (Mousterian tools and handaxes
in the same deposits). Although the integrity of d’Acy’s collections is doubtful today, his arguments at the time were
sufficient to persuade de Mortillet to select a “more pure,
characteristic locality” to apply to the first Paleolithic epoch:
the site of Chelles (Mortillet 1883, 132–33). De Mortillet emphasized, however, that the name “Acheulean” could still be
ascribed to what he saw as a transitional phase between the
Chellean and the Mousterian (1883, 254), denoting industries
which contained a combination of more finely worked, perfected handaxes and some Mousterian tools (see also Mortillet
Principal Sites
Robenhausen, Meilen,
Mooseedorf, Wangen
(lacustrine occupations), Grand Pressigny (workshop),
Chastay (camp or
oppidum)
La Madeleine, Les Eyzies,
Laugerie-Basse, Bruniquel, Massat, Montrejeau, Arcy, Schussenried
Solutré, Laugerie-Haute,
Badegols, Saint-Martin
d’Excideuil
Moustiers, Chez Pourré,
La Martinière,
L’Ermitage, La Mère
Grand, Buoux, Néron,
Grenelle, Levallois,
Clichy, Le Pecq,
Montguillan
Saint-Acheul, Abbeville,
Thenne, Sotteville les
Rouen, Vaudricourt,
San Isidro (Madrid),
Tilly, La Ganterie,
Sausse and Ceillone
Valleys
Geology and
Meteorology
Fauna
Current
climate
Domesticated animals;
human races very
mixed, brachycephalic
and dolichocephalic,
analogous to moderns
Postglacial
Reindeer, aurochs, and
bears very abundant;
also mammoths, hyenas, large felids
Brachycephalic and mesaticephalic man, close
to the modern race
(La Laisse, Cro-Magnon Laugerie-Basse,
Solutré)
Cave bears, rhinoceros:
inferior, dolicocephalic
man (Engis, Oimo)
Cold and
dry climate
Glacial; cold and
humid climate
Preglacial temperate climate
Hippopotamus, Elephas
antiquus; man the
most inferior type
(Neanderthal, Eguisheim, La Naulette,
Denize)
and Mortillet 1903, pl. 6). Thus, ironically, he rejected SaintAcheul on the grounds that it was mixed but held that industries containing handaxes and Mousterian flake tools did
exist. In the third, posthumous edition of Le préhistorique,
the “Acheulean” appeared once again in the table, between
the Chellean and the Mousterian, but was little discussed in
the text (Mortillet and Mortillet 1900). Apparently his son,
Adrien de Mortillet, had decided to reinstate it as an autonomous, transitional epoch, as evidenced in other publications
of the time (e.g., Mortillet and Mortillet 1903; table 4).
De Mortillet identified the Acheulean as a transitional epoch between the Chellean and the Mousterian for two reasons.
First, increasing numbers of collections from Quaternary deposits found in the quarries and railroad trenches of northern
France revealed industries containing both handaxes and retouched flake tools, and he was forced to incorporate these
new data into his scheme. Secondly, one of the dominant
themes in the social sciences of his time was that cultures
evolved gradually and continuously in a unilinear fashion.
This view and the notion that technological development was
progressive were the bases of his classifications. Both themes
stemmed from the Enlightenment paradigm, which, though
developed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in
Monnier The Lower/Middle Paleolithic Periodization
713
Table 3. De Mortillet’s 1883 Classification of the Paleolithic
Times
Modern
Ages
Historic
Periods
Iron Age
Protohistoric
Prehistoric
Merovingian
Roman
Galatian, Etruscan
Bronze Age
Bohemian
Stone Age
Neolithic, polished stone
Quaternary
Paleolithic, flaked stone
Tertiary
Eolithic, fire-split stone
Western Europe, continued to influence scientific thought well
into the nineteenth. In fact, some of the major tenets of the
Enlightenment, such as that technological as well as cultural
progress was a main feature of human development, meshed
particularly well with the nineteenth century’s emerging theory of evolution. According to Trigger, these Enlightenment
ideals not only were a prerequisite for the acceptance of Darwinian evolution but also were subsequently reinforced by the
scientific study of evolution, both in biology and in archaeology, where the latter was seen as demonstrating the reality
of progress in prehistoric times (Trigger 1989, 94, 101). Thus,
when we place de Mortillet’s classifications of the Paleolithic
in this context, it becomes clear that his emphasis on continuous evolution within a framework of technological progress toward perfection was the product of Enlightenment
Epochs
Wabennian, Frankish, Burgonde, Germanic
Champdolian, Roman decadence
Lugdunian, Roman
Marnian, Gaulish, 3rd Lacustrian
Hallstattian, Tumulus, 1st Iron
Larnaudian (du marteleur), 2nd Lacustrian
(part)
Morgian (du fondeur), 2nd Lacustrian
(part)
Robenhausian, 1st Lacustrian, Dolmens
Magdalenian, Caves, Reindeer (most)
Solutrean, Reindeer (part), Mammoth
(part)
Mousterian, Cave Bear
Challean, Acheulean, Mammoth (part),
Elephas antiquus
Thenaisian
ideals. By placing the industries which contained a mix of
Chellean and Mousterian index fossils between these two epochs and labeling them transitional (Acheulean), he was able
to accommodate data showing that these index fossils overlapped while adhering to the notion of gradual development
and continuity from one epoch to the next.
In defining the Mousterian, de Mortillet also emphasized
continuity by selecting a type site which “contains Chellean
tools which link it to the previous epoch, as well as forms in
the upper levels which link it to the subsequent period” (1883,
252). He emphasized technological progress from the Chellean to the Mousterian, claiming that handaxes were “big and
heavy” in the Chellean and became “lighter and more finely
and elegantly worked” as they approached the Mousterian (p.
254). He saw them as slowly disappearing from the Mous-
Table 4. De Mortillet and de Mortillet’s 1903 Classification of the Paleolithic
Times
Modern
Ages
Historic
Iron Age
Protohistoric
Prehistoric
Periods
Merovingian
Roman
Galatian
Bronze Age
Tsiganian
Stone Age
Neolithic, Polished Stone
Quaternary
Paleolithic, Flaked Stone
Tertiary
Eolithic, Exploded Stone
Epochs
Wabenian (Waben)
Champdolian (Champdolent)
Lugdunian (Lyon)
Beuvraysian (Mont Beuvray)
Marnian (Marne Department)
Hallstattian (Hallstatt)
Larnaudian (Larnaud)
Morgian (Morges)
Robenhausian (Robenhausen)
Tardenoisian (Fère-en-Tardenois)
Tourassian (La Tourasse)
Magdalenian (La Madeleine)
Solutrean (Solutré)
Mousterian (Le Moustier)
Acheulean (Saint-Acheul)
Chellean (Chelles)
Puycournian (Puy Courny)
Thenaysienne (Thenay)
714
terian, to be replaced by more complex, specialized flake tools
such as scrapers, points, saws, and blades.
De Mortillet linked the Mousterian and the Chellean not
only through continuity in handaxes but also by suggesting
that the flaking technology of the Mousterian arose in the
Chellean: “The Chellean instrument is simply the natural rock
perfected by flaking on both sides; it is these flakes that gave
rise to the Mousterian industry” (1883, 254). Although he
mentioned the presence of Levallois flakes in some Mousterian assemblages, he did not use Levallois technology as an
index fossil of the Mousterian. He firmly believed, however,
that the Mousterian was primarily a flake-based industry while
the Chellean was handaxe-based.
De Mortillet’s classification has been revised and modified
many times, but it still forms the basis for the scheme we use
today. The most lasting impact arose from his choice of handaxes as the index fossil of the earliest stage of the Paleolithic
and his insistence that retouched flake tools were not a significant component of those early industries. This choice set
up the fundamental handaxe/biface–versus-flake-tool dichotomy that has spurred controversy and debate to this day (e.g.,
Warren 1926; Breuil 1932a; Movius 1948, 1949; Ohel 1979;
Ashton and McNabb 1992; Schick 1994). What is not fully
understood is why he persisted in his assertion that the earliest
industry, the Chellean, did not contain retouched flake tools.
Perhaps it was because this was the simplest way of ordering
the Paleolithic record at the time and if he had accepted the
co-occurrence of bifacial implements and retouched flake
tools in both the Acheulean and the Mousterian, he would
have had no other way of distinguishing the two epochs.
Victor Commont: First Modification of de Mortillet’s
Paleolithic Classification
Victor Commont, the first prehistorian to modify de Mortillet’s classification after his death in 1898, developed a
method for distinguishing the Mousterian from the Acheulean
that did not involve denying the presence of flake tools in
the earlier industries. In the early 1900s, Commont traveled
extensively throughout the Somme Valley in northern France,
investigating excavations, road cuts, and quarries for their
artifact contents. He made detailed maps of geological sections
and carefully noted which types of artifacts were found in
each level in an effort to clarify the river-terrace sequence of
the valley and the sequence of industrial types within it.
Through these rigorous studies, he gradually developed a geological model of the Somme Valley which divided it into four
major terraces and identified the types of artifacts found in
various gravel, sand, and loess deposits on each of them.
Since Commont’s field methods were much more rigorous
than de Mortillet’s, he recognized more variation. First of all,
in contrast to de Mortillet, he accepted the presence of retouched flake tools in pre-Mousterian industries such as the
Chellean. This is probably because he personally observed
excavations and therefore saw what came out of the ground
Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 5, October 2006
rather than retrieving artifacts from workers later. He himself
stated that workers were only looking for belles pièces and
frequently rejected flakes (Commont 1906). Secondly, he emphasized the fact that handaxes occurred across a very long
period of time, from the pre-Chellean all the way into the
Mousterian. In other words, he recognized that de Mortillet’s
index fossils—handaxes and flake tools—occurred together
in all of these industries. Yet, like de Mortillet, he was operating under a paradigm of gradual and progressive cultural
evolution and therefore needed a means of differentiating the
Paleolithic industries while adhering to this paradigm. This
he did by introducing two changes to de Mortillet’s classification. First, he posited that handaxe morphology changed
gradually through time, becoming increasingly refined and
perfected. Thus his first epoch, the Pre-Chellean, was characterized by crude, partly cortical handaxes and utilized flakes
(table 5). The succeeding epoch, the Chellean, was characterized by the ficron: a pointed, elongated bifacial tool with
a thick, often cortical butt and sinuous edges. The Acheulean
was characterized by the limande, an oval, flat, straight-edged
handaxe, more finely flaked and more refined than the ficron
(Commont 1908). Finally, the “Acheuléen supérieur,” or Upper Acheulean, represented the epitome of the Acheulean; the
lanceolate handaxes of this period were so finely worked that
flintknappers of his day could not reproduce them (Commont
1906). As did de Mortillet, Commont emphasized gradual
progress and continuity, stressing continuous development
from one handaxe index fossil to the next and noting that
transitional forms were common and occurred between all
handaxe types (Commont 1906, 1908, 1913). He also stated
that the flake tools accompanying each industry became more
finely retouched through time (Commont 1906).
The second change that Commont introduced to de Mortillet’s classification was in the definition of the Mousterian.
As noted above, he was aware that handaxes were also present
in the Mousterian. Thus, the Mousterian contained the same
basic tool types—handaxes and retouched flake tools—as earlier industries, and the problem was how it could be distinguished from them. Commont accomplished this objective
by introducing a new variable: flake technology. He argued
that although Acheulean and Mousterian retouched flake
tools resembled each other superficially, they could be distinguished because Mousterian flakes were the product of LeTable 5. Commont’s 1908 Classification of the Paleolithic
Epoch
Mousterian
Upper Acheulean
Acheulean
Chellean
Pre-Chellean
Type Artifacts
Levallois technology; numerous retouched flake tools
Lanceolate handaxes; flake tools
Limande handaxes; flake tools
Ficron handaxes; other handaxes, utilized flakes, flake tools
Partly cortical handaxes, utilized flakes
Monnier The Lower/Middle Paleolithic Periodization
vallois technology. The term “Levallois” was used as early as
the 1860s to refer to large, flat flakes discovered in the Levallois-Perret suburb of Paris and was briefly mentioned by
de Mortillet in Le préhistorique (de Mortillet 1883, 256). Commont made Levallois technology the index fossil of the Mousterian, arguing that certain features of the platform and bulb
could be used to distinguish Mousterian from Acheulean
flakes (Commont 1913, 65). Levallois technology has remained the hallmark of the Mousterian to this day.
In sum, Commont’s detailed fieldwork led him to realize
that de Mortillet’s index fossils were too broad, and he refined
them by introducing two new variables: handaxe morphology
and flake technology. He also added a few epochs but did not
otherwise alter the framework of de Mortillet’s classification
or its fundamental emphasis on handaxes and flake tools.
Like his predecessor, he was guided by a paradigm of unilinear
cultural evolution and progress. More so than de Mortillet,
he emphasized continuity between the successive Paleolithic
epochs and the gradual development of stone tools toward
perfection over time. He stressed that the transition from
Acheulean to Mousterian was slow and gradual, with Levallois
technology appearing toward the end of the Acheulean and
gradually replacing bifaces during the Mousterian (Commont
1913, 68). He also argued that Levallois technology itself
evolved throughout the Mousterian, producing massive flakes
in the beginning but gradually yielding flakes that were
smaller, thinner, and had a more complex dorsal scar pattern
(p. 70). Toward the end of the Mousterian, burins and blades
appeared, foreshadowing the Upper Paleolithic (p. 70). Interestingly, although Commont believed that Acheulean populations were descended from Chellean ones, he suggested
that the Mousterian population was a separate group which
slowly infiltrated the Acheulean population. Perhaps this was
the best explanation he could devise to account for increasingly evident variability within the Mousterian, such as the
fact that bifaces, having decreased in frequency throughout
the Mousterian, sometimes reappeared toward the very end
or in Aurignacian deposits (e.g., at Le Moustier, Hauteroche,
and Laussel [pp. 129–31]), and discrepancies such as an
Acheulean-like industry in the lower Mousterian levels at
Montières (p. 132).
Denis Peyrony: Explaining Variation in Terms of Dual Phyla
Denis Peyrony spent much of his career elucidating the problem of Mousterian variation in southwestern France. Though
Commont’s contemporary, he lived much longer, and his
publications reveal important differences in his views on cultural evolution. Peyrony spent most of his life in the Dordogne
Valley, where he excavated many sites, several with his teacher
and collaborator of many years, Louis Capitan, himself a student of de Mortillet. Among the Middle Paleolithic sites Peyrony excavated were Le Moustier (Peyrony 1930), La Ferrassie
(Peyrony 1934b), Combe-Capelle (Peyrony 1934a, 1943), and
La Micoque (Peyrony 1938). Using data from these excava-
715
tions, he began to refine the Mousterian sequence, doing for
the Middle Paleolithic essentially what Commont had done
for the Lower Paleolithic in northern France.
Initially, Peyrony adhered to the notion of unilinear cultural
evolution, as exemplified in a 1912 publication on the excavations at La Ferrassie (Capitan and Peyrony 1912). Capitan
and Peyrony emphasized the continuity of occupation from
the Acheulean through the Aurignacian and the gradual evolution from one industry to the next, with the Mousterian
sequence showing increasing perfection of the retouched
tools. This was in keeping with the themes of linear cultural
evolution and technological progress through time emphasized by de Mortillet and Commont.
Peyrony’s views began to change, however, in his solo
publications a few years later. In 1920 he published a short
note in which he suggested that the Mousterian was composed
of two distinct but contemporaneous facies: (1) the “Classical
Mousterian,” characterized by Mousterian points and scrapers
with invasive retouch and utilized bone flakes, and (2) the
“Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition” (MAT), characterized
by numerous handaxes, backed knives, and utilized flakes.
This dual-facies model was a radical departure from the unilinear model of cultural evolution, but Peyrony emphasized
continuity by proposing that the MAT was derived from the
Acheulean and was analogous to the Upper Acheulean found
by Commont (1908) at Saint-Acheul.
What caused Peyrony to depart from the unilinear cultural
evolution model? Along with the prehistorians before him,
he seems to have been influenced both by archaeological data
and by overarching scientific paradigms. The archaeological
record of the time was becoming increasingly detailed as excavation and geological methods were refined. Although his
methods were crude by today’s standards, Peyrony generally
excavated sites more carefully than his predecessors and paid
more attention to the geological formation of the sites. He
also tried correlating sites and began building a regional
chrono-stratigraphic scheme. These endeavors led him to two
conclusions which called unilinear evolution into question.
The first was that a Classical Mousterian level (C) at La Ferrassie was contemporaneous (on the basis of stratigraphy,
fauna, and lithics) with the MAT deposits (levels F–H) at Le
Moustier (Peyrony 1920, Peyrony 1934 table 6). According
Table 6. Peyrony’s 1920 Sequence of Industries at La Ferrassie and Le Moustier
La Ferrassie
Lower Aurignacian
Mousterian
Classical Mousterian:
reindeer, bovids
Acheulean: handaxes, utilized
flakes, no reindeer
Le Moustier
Mousterian
[sand, floods]
MTA: reindeer, bovids,
Abri Audi forms
Utilized flakes, handaxe
waste flakes, no
reindeer
716
to the existing paradigm, handaxes were an index fossil of
the Chellean and Acheulean and were supposed to be replaced
by flake tools in the Mousterian. The contemporaneity of a
handaxe industry at Le Moustier and a flake tool industry at
La Ferrassie was therefore not reconcilable with a unilinear
scheme. The second conclusion was that there were “reversals”
of the Acheulean-to-Mousterian progression. In 1930, in a
reanalysis of the Lower Terrace deposits at Le Moustier, Peyrony realized that level B was more accurately described as
Classical Mousterian than as Acheulean (the term he had used
in 1920). This meant that the MAT industries at Le Moustier
(levels F–H) followed a Classical Mousterian industry (level
B). Since Peyrony believed that evolution was progressive, the
only way he could explain such a reversal in the normal
cultural sequence was by invoking dual phyla.
The synchronic variation observed by Peyrony was reinforced by a new paradigm in archaeology. The concept of the
archaeological culture arose in the late nineteenth century and
resulted in the culture-historical approach to the study of
prehistory (Trigger 1989, 161). By the 1920s, Trigger argues,
cultural evolutionism had largely been replaced by this new
approach, exemplified in the works of V. Gordon Childe (pp.
148–50). Childe’s The Dawn of European Civilization, published in 1925, interpreted European prehistory in terms of
a complex mosaic of cultures and forever changed the face
of European archaeology (p. 168): “The primary aim of archaeologists who adopted this approach was no longer to
interpret the archaeological record as evidence of stages of
cultural development. Instead they sought to identify often
nameless prehistoric peoples by means of archaeological cultures and to trace their origin, movements, and interaction”
(p. 172). Whether Peyrony was directly influenced by Childe’s
work is difficult to determine, but he was clearly a part of
this new movement. In his writings, unlike those of his predecessors, there are clear references to groups of people—their
origins, movements, and interactions with each other (e.g.,
Peyrony 1930, 43-45).
In sum, Peyrony’s archaeological thinking was affected by
the general shift in the current intellectual paradigm which
marked early-twentieth-century Western European archaeology. He still believed in continuous cultural evolution, as
can be seen in his placing the roots of the MAT in the Chellean
(Peyrony 1930). However, in proposing multiple facies and
in actively attributing them to different populations, he differed greatly from his predecessors (although Commont, for
example, had occasionally referred to populations).
It is notable that Peyrony’s initial observations regarding
the contemporaneity of handaxe- and non-handaxe-based industries did not lead him to question the appropriateness of
the index fossils, especially handaxes, but instead led him to
propose dual facies so that the existing Paleolithic framework
could be retained. While he did introduce some new index
fossils, such as backed knives for the MAT and scrapers with
invasive retouch for the Classical Mousterian, the presence or
absence of handaxes remained one of the most critical factors
Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 5, October 2006
in assigning an assemblage to one industry rather than another and in fact formed the basis for his dual facies.
Henri Breuil: Biface versus Flake Industries
The presence or absence of handaxes or bifaces (as they came
to be more commonly known) was also the basis for Henri
Breuil’s classification of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic.
Abbé Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil, one of the most influential figures in the history of Paleolithic archaeology, is
known for his synthetic revisions of the entire chronology of
the Paleolithic, as well as his worldwide travels documenting
parietal art. His studies of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic
were published in a series of detailed articles with L. Kozlowski
which focused on the stratigraphy of valleys in northern
France, Belgium, and England (Breuil and Kozlowski 1931,
1932a, 1932b, 1934a, 1934b). Essentially, as Peyrony envisioned two separate phyla for the Mousterian, Breuil envisioned two separate phyla for the whole of the Lower as well
as the Middle Paleolithic. These phyla were based on what
he saw as a natural dichotomy in the industries: some contained flake tools and bifaces while others contained flake
tools and lacked bifaces (according to Groenen [1994, 199],
a similar idea was presented by Hugo Obermaier in his 1925
El hombre fósil). This was, to some extent, the basis for Peyrony’s facies, but Breuil went farther by pushing this dichotomy back into the Lower Paleolithic and defining more culture groups along each line. Like Peyrony, he linked each
phylum to a distinct population group, but he also linked
each to certain climates and regions, postulating that the biface-making population was centered in southwestern Europe
while the flake-only population was centered in northeastern
Europe. As the climate oscillated, he suggested, these populations migrated south during glacials and north during interglacials (following the fauna), thereby replacing each other
in various sites. Finally, they fused during the Middle Paleolithic (Breuil 1932a).
Breuil identified two major industrial traditions in the
Lower and Middle Paleolithic. Breuil’s flake sequence (1932a;
fig. 1) began with the Ipswichian (defined from sites in the
English Crags and characterized by small flakes with irregular
retouch and variable platforms) and was followed by the Clactonian (defined by Breuil 1932b), which gave rise to the Levalloisian and the Tayacian, the latter of which culminated in
the Mousterian. His biface sequence began with the Chellean,
which he renamed “Abbevillian” when the integrity of Chelles
was questioned on the discovery of an upper Acheulean assemblage in its lowest layer (Breuil 1932b). The Abbevillian,
characterized by massive bifaces and some retouched flakes,
was followed by the Acheulean. The sequence culminated with
the Micoquian, which Breuil described as a smaller version
of the Acheulean with very delicate working and many flake
tools such as points and scrapers.
Breuil’s scheme was no doubt an attempt, like his predecessors’, to reconcile the archaeological data with the legacy
Monnier The Lower/Middle Paleolithic Periodization
717
Figure 1. Breuil’s correlation of Paleolithic industries with glacial periods.
of an outdated classification. In addition, Breuil, like Peyrony,
was a product of the shift from a cultural evolutionary paradigm to a culture-historical one. In fact, culture history’s
emphasis on diffusion, migrations, and so forth, provided
some convenient ways of making his new scheme work. His
use of de Mortillet’s index fossils to structure his scheme led
to great difficulties. For example, whereas de Mortillet and
Commont had seen bifaces as a perfectly natural component
of the Mousterian, Breuil placed the Mousterian in his flakeindustries sequence. However, he was forced to admit that
some assemblages contained Mousterian flake tools as well as
bifaces. Thus, he suggested that the Mousterian and Levalloisian eventually mixed (interbred) with the Micoquian stage
of the biface tradition, producing assemblages which contained both bifaces and flake tools (1932a). Another difficulty
arose from his separation of Levalloisian and Mousterian industries, which he portrayed as being derived independently
from the Clactonian. In other words, not only did he remove
Levallois technology from his definition of the Mousterian
but he made it the defining characteristic of a separate industry. However, he also realized that many assemblages contained a combination of Mousterian flake tools and Levallois
technology, so he reconciled this fact with his scheme by again
proposing that the two industries, though separate, affected
each other through time, resulting in increasing proportions
of Levallois debitage in Mousterian assemblages (1932a). His
description of material cultures’ blending as a result of contact
between separate populations exemplifies the culture-historical approach. In conclusion, Breuil’s bilineal cultural evolutionary scheme had two major difficulties; he had to fit all
of the variation into two lines, and the biface/flake dichotomy
turned out to be very problematic in that the two variables
crosscut culture types (e.g., some Mousterian assemblages had
bifaces while others did not).
François Bordes: Evolution buissonante and the Quantitative
Method
Breuil’s parallel-phyla scheme was rejected by François Bordes
in his seminal 1950 article “L’evolution buissonante des industries en Europe Occidentale” (Bordes 1950b). In this paper
Bordes dismantled the stratigraphical reconstructions of
Breuil, pointed out flaws in his reasoning, and refuted the
idea of linear cultural evolution, mono- or diphyletic. Instead,
he presented detailed arguments and stratigraphic evidence
to support his complex “branching evolution” scheme (fig.
2). The basis for this scheme was the construction of a tree
of evolutionary relationships between lithic industries classified on the basis of (1) the presence or absence of bifaces,
(2) the percentage of Levallois technology, (3) the percentage
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Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 5, October 2006
Figure 2. Bordes’s “Evolution of Lower and Middle Paleolithic Industries.”
of faceted platforms, and (4) the Levallois typological index.
The resulting classes of industries were then arranged in chronological order, with putative evolutionary relationships linking the most similar. Bordes retained many of the terms that
Breuil, Peyrony, and other early prehistorians had created to
apply to similar types of industries.
Throughout the 1950s, Bordes continued elaborating his
methodology (Bordes and Bourgon 1951; Bordes 1954;
1961a). He noted that subdivisions of the Mousterian had
been recognized but not adequately defined. In addition, he
stated that true index fossils were rare and that assemblages
should be classified on the basis of many tool types (1961a,
2). Therefore, he introduced a methodology for quantifying
assemblage variation based upon relative tool-type frequencies
in his newly created typology. This yielded five main Mousterian variants which, he argued, represented separate, contemporaneous cultures that had little interaction with each
other (Bordes and de Sonneville-Bordes 1970). According to
Bordes, each of these Mousterian cultures had evolved
through time, with roots in the Lower Paleolithic, and had
descendants in the Upper Paleolithic (Bordes 1961b; Bordes
and de Sonneville-Bordes 1970). For example, he frequently
stated that the MAT-A was derived from the Upper Acheulean
and evolved into the MAT-B and finally the Lower Perigor-
dian. Clearly, then, Bordes, like his predecessors, believed in
cultural evolution, though he differed in the sense that he
saw it not as mono- or diphyletic but as diversifying through
time, branching out (buissonante). In fact, this branching notion, combined with his view that typological or technological
characteristics were lost or acquired through time (Bordes
1950b), made his scheme essentially cladistic in structure.
The source of this difference from his predecessors, as suggested by Groenen (1994, 140), was that Bordes was a Darwinist, trained by Marcellin Boule, whereas his predecessors
were essentially Lamarckian. Thus, rather than envisioning
cultures as progressing unilinearly toward perfection, Bordes
saw them as diversifying through time, each adapting to the
unique constraints imposed by climate, fauna, and the environment. His view of technological progress also differed
from that of earlier prehistorians. He did not believe that
types evolved toward perfection. Rather, he believed that tools
were originally undifferentiated and over time became more
and more specialized and standardized (Bordes 1961b, 1970;
Bordes, Rigaud, and de Sonneville-Bordes 1972), again an
essentially biological evolutionary view. This is the idea of
progress which still pervades the field today (e.g., Bosinski
1996, 167; Moncel and Combier 1992a; Tattersall 1995, 244).
Bordes clearly showed a great deal more sophistication and
Monnier The Lower/Middle Paleolithic Periodization
detailed knowledge than his predecessors of the variation inherent in the Middle Paleolithic archaeological record. However, when it came to distinguishing between the Lower and
the Middle Paleolithic, he used a very standard definition,
pointing to the presence or absence of bifaces, faceted platforms, and Levallois debitage (Bordes 1950b). This oversimplification is surprising given that he was clearly aware that
Levallois technology could occur in the Lower Paleolithic and
bifaces in the Middle Paleolithic. In fact, in the same paper,
Bordes described a northern type of Upper Acheulean which
contained Levallois debitage (Bordes 1950b), and in other
papers he frequently stated that Levallois technology appeared
in the Upper or even the Lower Acheulean (Bordes 1961b,
1970). Likewise, he clearly accepted the occurrence of bifaces
in some Middle Paleolithic contexts, since one of his Mousterian variants was Peyrony’s MAT. In sum, while Bordes
explicitly rejected index fossils and proposed that most lithic
variation during the Middle Paleolithic was random and had
no chronological significance, when it came to the Lower
Paleolithic and the Lower-to-Middle Paleolithic transition his
outlook was old-fashioned and involved two index fossils:
bifaces and Levallois technology.
The Paleolithic Classification since Bordes’s Time
Around the time that Bordes began defending his Mousterian
cultures against American and British critiques (Binford and
Binford 1966; Binford 1973; Collins 1970; Freeman 1966; Mellars 1965, 1969; Bordes 1969, 1970; Bordes and de SonnevilleBordes 1970; Bordes, Rigaud, and de Sonneville-Bordes 1972),
Grahame Clark proposed a new scheme for classifying lithic
industries based on modes of production (Clark 1969). Thus,
Mode 1 industries were defined on the basis of chopper-tools
and flakes and corresponded to the Lower Paleolithic as conventionally defined, as did Mode 2 industries, which were
characterized by bifaces. Mode 3 industries were defined on
the basis of flake tools from prepared cores and corresponded
to the Middle Paleolithic. Clark viewed technology as subject
to evolutionary forces such as selection and emphasized progress throughout time as new technologies replaced obsolete
ones. He stressed that although not all modes of production
existed everywhere, their order was inviolable. The strength
of Clark’s scheme was that it conceived of each mode of
production as independent and allowed for temporal overlap.
In addition, by using the modes to signify technologies rather
than cultures, his scheme was much more logical when applied throughout the world. Unfortunately, it also reflected
the notion of progress which was still characteristic of his
time, and his insistence that the order of acquisition of technologies was inviolable was clearly inaccurate—some regions
seem to have skipped Mode 2 almost entirely.
Shortly after Bordes’s death in 1981, participants in a conference on the Lower/Middle Paleolithic transition organized
by Avraham Ronen in Haifa, Israel, agreed that the boundary
could no longer be equated with the Riss/Würm boundary
719
and that the transition was more gradual and continuous than
had previously been acknowledged. Many advocated pushing
the boundary back into the penultimate glacial (e.g., Bosinski
1982; Laville 1982; Tuffreau 1982; Valoch 1982), and some
went farther, arguing that there was no evident cultural break
that could be used to divide the two (e.g., Bar-Yosef 1982;
Jelinek 1982).
Since then, there have been few major revisions of the
Lower/Middle Paleolithic periodization. In fact, the 1970s and
1980s witnessed a shift away from questions of culture history
and diachronic patterning to interpretations of synchronic
variability and cultural explanation driven in large part by the
New Archaeology. In continental Europe, the new technological approach based upon Leroi-Gourhan’s work (1943,
1964) began to manifest itself in the late 1980s and became
dominant in the 1990s (e.g., Tixier, Inizan, and Roche 1980;
Tixier 1984; Boëda, Geneste, and Meignen 1990). It also came
to be combined with the attribute-analysis approach characteristic of Anglo-American archaeology, creating a new
methodology (Tostevin 2003a, 2003b). During this time there
have been few studies on diachronic patterning in the Middle
and early Upper Pleistocene. One topic of interest has been
the timing of the initial colonization of Europe, which has
witnessed a debate between long (Bonifay and Vandermeersch
1991) and short (Roebroeks and van Kolfschoten 1995b; Dennell and Roebroeks 1996) chronologies, with a recent compromise which accepts incursions of humans into Europe
prior to 500,000 years ago (e.g., Parfitt et al. 2005) but not
their permanent occupation (Dennell 2003). Lately, too, a
series of workshops sponsored by the European Science Foundation has focused deliberately on issues within each Paleolithic period rather than across transitions (Roebroeks and
van Kolfschoten 1995a; Roebroeks and Gamble 1999; Roebroeks and Mussi 2000). Most recently, the Middle Paleolithic
and Middle Stone Age have become the focus of efforts aimed
at identifying the origins of behavioral modernity (McBrearty
and Brooks 2000; Henshilwood et a1. 2001; d’Errico 2003).
In summary, while the wide overlap between index fossils
was known from the very beginning, de Mortillet’s Paleolithic
classification, once adopted, assumed an almost tyrannical
hold over systematics and became impossible to remove. Every prehistorian who grappled with the Paleolithic record had
to modify de Mortillet’s classification in order to accommodate new data within the index-fossil-based framework.
This was done by a variety of means, including renaming
epochs on the basis of sites whose typological assemblages
seemed a better fit with the classification, introducing intermediate epochs and index fossils to emphasize continuity, and
creating additional facies. Rather than replace the index-fossilbased definitions, these early prehistorians created increasingly convoluted schemes in order to retain them.
Given the persistence of these tool types in the definitions
of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic, the questions facing us
today are (1) What is the actual temporal patterning of these
tool types? and (2) Does it justify a continued division of the
720
archaeological record into a Lower and a Middle Paleolithic
period? These questions could not have been answered until
recently because of the lack of an independent means of assessing the chronological patterning of these artifact types.
Fortunately, today we have an unprecedented number of absolutely dated sites which can be used to evaluate how well
the actual archaeological record agrees with the index-fossilbased definitions of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic.
Chronological Patterning of the Index
Fossils
Assemblage Sampling Strategy
In order to investigate the questions listed above, a database
of absolutely dated Middle and early Upper Pleistocene assemblages in Western Europe was created. Strict criteria were
employed in an effort to produce a database with the greatest
possible integrity. Sites and assemblages were included only
if they met the following criteria, formulated in order to ensure typology-free dating, statistically valid sample sizes, integral data, and, finally, feasibility: (1) Assemblages had to
come from sites dated by absolute (radiometric) methods. (2)
The minimum assemblage size required was 100 total lithic
pieces. (3) Tool counts had to be published or otherwise
accessible. (4) Assemblages had to come from stratified, recently excavated (post–World War II) sites. (5) The geographical limits were Western and Southern Europe.
The first criterion was the most important. Investigating
the diachronic patterning of tool types required a chronological assessment of assemblages independent of their typological content, and the most reliable and consistent way
of achieving this was to restrict the sample to sites dated by
absolute (radiometric) methods. It is important to note that
the sample is restricted not to absolutely dated assemblages
but to absolutely dated sites; if only the former had been used,
the sample would have been too small for any meaningful
analysis. In addition, probably none of the Middle Pleistocene
sites in this study have uncontroversial dating. It is rare for
the various methods used to date sites—radiometric, biostratigraphic, geochronological, and the like—to coincide to
provide a clear picture of a site’s chronology (for a useful
description of some specific issues, see Gamble 1999, 99–110).
Undoubtedly the chronological interpretation of some of the
assemblages used here will change. Thus, it is important to
keep in mind that in selecting assemblages for this study, care
was taken to ensure that they came from well-dated sites,
meaning sites where various dating techniques (absolute and
relative) had been carefully applied in order to obtain the
most accurate date possible. In all cases, the final interpretation of the excavator based upon all lines of evidence (not
just radiometric dates) was used.
The third criterion was a logistical one. Many sites and
assemblages could not be included because their tool counts
remained unpublished. In many other instances, tool counts
Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 5, October 2006
were incompletely published and crucial elements such as the
Levallois index (IL) were missing (e.g., Roebroeks 1988).
Where Bordesian counts had not been used (e.g., Singer, Gladfelter, and Wymer 1993; Conway, McNabb, and Ashton 1996;
Darlas 1994; Kuhn 1995; Moncel 1999), the published counts
were converted to Bordesian counts as carefully as possible,
but their true comparability remains open to question. It is
unfortunate that many recent Paleolithic site publications,
especially those in which the focus of analysis is primarily
technological, no longer report Bordesian counts (e.g., Delagnes 1992; Pelegrin 1995; Carbonell et al. 1999). While Bordesian typology can be criticized in many ways, it is the only
framework we have for systematically comparing assemblages
on the basis of tool counts and other important measures of
variation such as percentages of Levallois flakes. Its continued
use as a standard for reporting data is therefore vital. Finally,
other aspects of lithic variation which should be reported
more consistently include pebble tools, core types, and flake
definitions such as minimum size and whether broken or
fragmentary flakes are counted separately from complete ones.
Most sites included in the database come from France,
Britain, Italy, or Spain. There are several reasons for this focus:
first, Western Europe is the region where the index fossils
were initially defined, and thus the patterning used to define
them should be reflected in this region if nowhere else. Second, a restricted geographical area permits a more thorough
synthesis of the sites relevant to the research questions. Third,
given its long research tradition in this domain, this is one
of the best-documented regions of the world for this time
period, and the density of sites here is therefore much greater
than in most other locations.
Methods
A literature search using these five criteria yielded 89 assemblages from 26 sites (table 7). Information regarding the context, chronology, and nature of the lithic industries of each
assemblage was entered into the database. Then, frequency
calculations of the main index fossils were made using total
lithic material as a baseline. It was decided that total lithic
material (i.e., all the lithic artifacts from an assemblage except
for chips [as defined in each publication]) should be used
rather than other denominators such as Bordes’s real or essential count, because the research questions in this study
required comparisons between assemblages from time periods
where amounts of flake versus core tools and retouched versus
unretouched tools might be very different. In other words,
traditional Bordesian indices, in which frequencies of bifaces,
scrapers, and so forth, are calculated as a percentage of the
retouched component of flake tools, might not have provided
adequate comparability between core-tool-dominated and
flake-tool-dominated assemblages. In addition, total lithic
material is one of the few quantitative assessments that is
always reported, and it is less subject to interpretation than
Monnier The Lower/Middle Paleolithic Periodization
721
Table 7. Sites Included in the Analysis
Site
Grotte Vaufrey (France)
Orgnac 3 (France)
Abri Suard (France)
Abri Bourgeois-Delaunay (France)
Biache-Saint-Vaast (France)
Pech de l’Azé II (France)
Pech de l’Azé I (France)
Abri des Canalettes (France)
Combe-Capelle (France)
Fonseigner (France)
Grotte du Lazaret (France)
Cagny-la-Garenne (France)
Absolute Dates
References
Levels II–X: 74 Ⳳ 18 to 246 Ⳳ 76 kya
(Th/U and TL)
Level 2: 280–300 kya (ESR); Level 6:
288 ⫹ 82, to 374 ⫹ 165, ⫺ 94 kya (U-series); Level 8: 309 Ⳳ 34 kya (ESR)
Travertine 101 Ⳳ 7 kya (Th/U), Level 53:
245 ⫹ 42, –28 kya (Th/U); Level 51:
126 Ⳳ 15 kya (TL)
Level 7: 97 Ⳳ 6, 106 Ⳳ 10 kya (Th/U and
TL); Level 11: 151 Ⳳ 15 kya, (bottom)
and 112 Ⳳ 5 kya (top) (Th/U), 146 Ⳳ
16 kya (TL)
Level IIA: 175 Ⳳ 13 kya (TL)
Levels 3–9: 60–162 kya (ESR)
Level 4: OIS 3 (ESR)
Level 2: 82 kya (TL)
Levels I-1B–I-1E: 48–57 kya (TL)
Levels Ds, Dmi, E: 50 Ⳳ 5, 53 Ⳳ 6, 56 Ⳳ
7 kya (TL)
Level E travertine: 114 Ⳳ 61 kya (U-series)
Level I2: 448 Ⳳ 68 kya (ESR/Th/U); alluvium: 443 Ⳳ 53 kya (ESR [Quartz])
Rigaud (1988), Blackwell and Schwarcz (1988),
Delpech and Laville (1988)
Moncel (1999), Moncel and Combier (1992a,
1992b), Debard (1988), Debard and Pastre
(1988), Falguères et al. (1988)
Debénath (1974), Blackwell et al. (1983),
Schvoerer et al. (1977), Schwarcz and Debénath (1979), Schwarcz et al. (1983)
Debénath (1974), Blackwell et al. (1983),
Schwarcz and Debénath (1979), Schwarcz et
al. (1983)
Boxgrove (Britain)
Level I1b: 318 Ⳳ 48 to 231 Ⳳ 35 kya
(ESR/Th/U); Level H: 253 Ⳳ 38, 260 Ⳳ
40 kya (ESR/Th/U)
175–1350 kya (ESR, OSL, Th/U)
La Cotte de St.-Brelade (Britain)
Swanscombe (Britain)
Levels H–5: 190–250 kya
Lower Loam: 228 kya (TL)
Hoxne (Britain)
Lower Industry: 319 Ⳳ 38 kya (ESR),
210 Ⳳ 20 kya (TL)
Grotta Guattari (Italy)
Levels 1, 4, 5: 54 Ⳳ 4 to 78 Ⳳ 10 kya
(ESR-LU)
Levels 1, 2, 3: 43 Ⳳ 9 to 54 Ⳳ 11 kya
(ESR-LU)
Level 5: 736 Ⳳ 40 kya (K/Ar)
Cagny-l’Epinette (France)
Grotta di San Agostino (Italy)
Isernia la Pineta (Italy)
Peña Miel (Spain)
Gran Dolina TD6 (Spain)
Maastricht-Belvédère
(Netherlands)
Level e: 39.9 Ⳳ 11 kya; Level g 14C: 45 Ⳳ
1.4 kya–1.2 kya
1 780 kya (paleomagnetism, ESR, Useries)
Unit IV (Sites A–D F–H, K) 270 Ⳳ 22 kya
(TL); 220 Ⳳ 40 kya (ESR); site K:
250 Ⳳ 22 kya (TL)
Tuffreau and Sommé (1988)
Grün et al. (1991), Bordes (1972)
Bordes (1972), Soressi et al. (2002)
Meignen (1993)
Dibble and Lenoir (1995), Valladas et al. (2003)
Geneste (1985), Valladas et al. (1987)
Darlas (1994), Shen (1985) in Darlas (1994)
Tuffreau, Lamotte, and Marcy (1997), Tuffreau
and Antoine (1995), Bahain et al. (2001),
Tuffreau (2001a), Antoine (2001), Lamotte
and Tuffreau (2001a)
Tuffreau, Lamotte, and Marcy (1997), Tuffreau
et al. (1995), Bahain et al. (2001), Tuffreau
(2001b), Lamotte and Tuffreau (2001b)
Roberts (1986), Roberts et al. (1994), Roberts
and Parfitt (1999a, 1999b)
Callow and Cornford (1986); Huxtable (1986)
Conway (1996), Conway, McNabb, and Ashton
(1996), Bridgland et al. (1985), Stringer and
Hublin (1999)
Singer, Gladfelter, and Wymer (1993), Schwarcz
and Grün (1993), Bowman (1993), Wymer
and Singer (1993), Wymer et al. (1993)
Taschini and Bietti (1979), Schwarcz et al.
(1990-91), Kuhn (1995)
Tozzi (1970), Schwarcz et al. (1990–91), Kuhn
(1995)
Anconetani et al. (1992), Cremaschi and Peretto (1988), McPherron and Schmidt (1983),
Peretto et al. (1983), Peretto (1991)
Utrilla et al. (1987)
Carbonell et al. (1999), Falguères et al. (1999),
Parés and Pérez-Gonzalez (1999), Carbonell
and Rodriguez (1994)
Roebroeks (1988)
Note: Th/U, Thorium/uranium; TL, thermoluminescence; U-series, uranium-series; ESR, electron spin resonance; OSL, optimally stimulated luminescence; LU, linear-uptake; 14C, radiocarbon; K/Ar, potassium/argon; kya, thousand of years BP.
other quantitative measures of lithics such as total number
of flakes.
The Levallois index was used as reported or calculated according to Bordes’s definition (1950a). The typological indices
used in this analysis are as follows: (1) total lithic material p
all flakes, retouched tools, bifaces, pebble tools, and cores; (2)
biface frequency p bifaces/total lithic material; (3) scraper
frequency p scrapers (Bordesian types 9–29)/total lithic material; (4) flake tool frequency p retouched flake tools (Bordes’s “essential count” minus choppers and chopping tools)/
total lithic material; (5) Levallois index (IL) p Levallois
blanks/Levallois and non-Levallois blanks.
722
Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 5, October 2006
Once the typological indices were calculated, their chronological patterning throughout the late Middle and early
Upper Pleistocene was investigated by plotting average frequencies per oxygen isotope stage for all assemblages. Figures
3–6 show the median, quartile, and extreme value according
to oxygen isotope stage for each tool-type frequency as defined
above. Medians and quartiles were chosen because means are
often skewed by outliers in cases of small sample sizes. However, when statistical tests were conducted, these were based
on means and standard deviations (table 8). [All the raw data
used in this study are listed in an appendix in the electronic
edition of this issue on the journal’s web page.]
The oxygen isotope stages (OIS) represented are 3–9, calculated separately, 12–14 (combined), and 17⫹ (there are no
assemblages dated to 15 and 16). While the length of time
spanned by oxygen isotope stages varies and therefore might
be argued to represent inadequately the pace of change
through time, the greatest difference between time spans—
OIS 4, which lasts approximately 10,000 years, and OIS 6,
which lasts for about 60,000 years—is still less than one order
of magnitude. The only exceptions are the oldest segments,
OIS 12–14 and 17⫹, in which several stages had to be combined because of small sample sizes. However, these combined
stages still showed strong patterning for most of the variables
examined.
The following assessment examines each of the three main
index fossil tool types individually in order to determine (1)
its chronological patterning and (2) whether, by itself, it provides support for the Lower/Middle Paleolithic periodization.
Subsequently, the three tool types are considered together in
order to determine the existence of any concordances between
the three patterns which would justify a division between the
two periods.
Results
Bifaces
Figure 7, created using the database described above, shows
the temporal patterning of assemblages in which at least one
biface is present and those lacking bifaces. The earliest assemblages, older than ∼600,000 years (only four are represented here: Gran Dolina TD6 and Isernia La Pineta I-3a, I3c, and II-3a), do not contain bifaces. From ∼500,000 to
∼300,000 years ago, almost all of the assemblages in the sample (15 out of 16; the exception is the Lower Loam at
Swanscombe) contain bifaces. Finally, from 300,000 to 35,000
years ago, there is a continued occurrence of both assemblages
with bifaces and those lacking bifaces. Boxplots of biface frequency in figure 3 (data in table 8) support these presence/
absence data: median biface frequencies are 0 in OIS 17⫹,
rise to 1.13 and 1.70 in OIS 12–14 and 9, respectively, and
then decrease in OIS 8 and remain low (but greater than 0)
through OIS 3. These patterns seem to confirm the notions
Table 8. Tool-Type Frequencies by Oxygen Isotope Stage
Oxygen Isotope Stage
Tool Type
Biface
N
Median
Mean
s.d.
Flake tool
N
Median
Mean
s.d.
Scraper
N
Median
Mean
s.d.
Levallois
N
Median
Mean
s.d.
Chopper
N
Median
Mean
s.d.
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
12–14
17⫹
14
0.00
0.11
0.21
12
0.00
0.12
0.28
7
0.18
0.17
0.16
15
0.17
0.44
0.85
8
0.00
0.03
0.05
11
0.32
0.38
0.36
11
1.70
1.89
1.36
7
1.13
1.21
0.72
14
15.29
15.59
10.72
11
12.82
13.13
7.56
7
12.68
12.55
2.36
15
12.72
14.33
7.62
8
7.58
7.56
1.05
11
10.71
9.59
6.60
11
6.73
8.91
6.51
7
5.19
4.63
4.69
4
27.49
30.26
19.54
14
7.60
9.92
8.28
11
7.26
8.80
6.71
7
6.14
5.87
1.40
15
7.81
7.71
3.07
8
3.57
3.27
1.28
10
3.93
3.83
2.37
11
1.35
2.62
3.38
7
0.42
0.78
1.03
4
2.65
2.35
1.03
14
0.32
6.67
10.00
12
9.71
8.35
6.23
7
8.32
9.53
3.82
15
19.35
15.40
11.50
8
3.09
5.67
5.52
8
2.40
4.21
4.31
11
0.00
0.04
0.14
7
0.24
0.49
0.64
4
0
0
0
14
0.21
0.50
0.91
12
0.09
0.97
1.76
7
0.00
0.07
0.09
15
0.18
0.58
0.71
8
0.01
0.03
0.04
11
0.31
0.30
0.24
11
0.28
0.45
0.59
7
0.16
0.31
0.35
4
0
0
0
4
0.88
5.75
10.35
Monnier The Lower/Middle Paleolithic Periodization
723
Figure 3. Biface frequency by oxygen isotope stage (lower and upper
edges of boxes indicate 25th and 75th percentiles, respectively; bold horizontal lines inside boxes indicate the statistical median; asterisks indicate
outliers, circles indicate extreme cases; boxplot widths reflect relative
counts).
that (1) the earliest European industries do not contain bifaces
(e.g., Villa 1991) and (2) biface assemblages are most frequent
between 500,000 and 300,000 years ago, the time span most
often equated with the Acheulean.
The data show a statistically significant drop in biface frequency from OIS 9 to 8, from a median of 1.70 in OIS 9 to
0.32 in OIS 8 (a T-test on mean biface frequencies between
OIS 9 and OIS 8 yields a P p .004, N p 22, d.f p 11.4). The
timing of this event, ca. 300,000 years ago, agrees with most
current definitions of the Lower/Middle Paleolithic boundary.
However, there are several problems with using this event to
justify a division into two phases. First, bifaces do not disappear after this drop in frequency. They continue to occur,
albeit in lower frequencies, throughout the archaeological rec-
Figure 4. Flake tool frequency by oxygen isotope stage (lower and upper
edges of boxes indicate 25th and 75th percentiles, respectively; bold horizontal lines inside boxes indicate the statistical median; asterisks indicate
outliers, circles indicate extreme cases; boxplot widths reflect relative
counts).
724
Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 5, October 2006
Figure 5. Scraper tool frequency by oxygen isotope stage (lower and upper
edges of boxes indicate 25th and 75th percentiles, respectively; bold horizontal lines inside boxes indicate the statistical median; asterisks indicate
outliers, circles indicate extreme cases; boxplot widths reflect relative
counts).
ord until at least 35,000 years ago. Second, overall biface
frequencies are extremely low: the highest frequency in a single
assemblage in this sample is 4.93%, occurring in Level I of
Cagny l’Epinette. Median biface frequencies for each oxygen
isotope stage never rise above 2%. This lack of numerical
importance calls into question the significance of bifaces. Are
they really such an important aspect of Paleolithic variability,
or is our continued emphasis on them the result of historical
bias? Further analysis shows that, from a sample of 126 Middle
and early Upper Pleistocene assemblages (including some excluded from the database because of a lack of absolute dates
but meeting all other criteria), 49% of them contain no bifaces
while 51% contain at least one biface. In other words, half
of the assemblages from this time period contain one or more
bifaces. The third problem with using the decrease in biface
frequency between OIS 9 and 8 to support a division into a
Figure 6. Levallois index frequency by oxygen isotope stage (lower and
upper edges of boxes indicate 25th and 75th percentiles, respectively; bold
horizontal lines inside boxes indicate the statistical median; asterisks indicate outliers, circles indicate extreme cases; boxplot widths reflect relative counts).
Monnier The Lower/Middle Paleolithic Periodization
725
Figure 7. Biface presence/absence through time.
Lower and a Middle Paleolithic is the number of outliers in
assemblages postdating this period. According to the boxplots
in figure 3, there are seven outliers dating to OIS 6 or younger.1
Some of these outliers fall within the frequency range seen
in OIS 9 and 12–14. This means that, while biface frequencies
are on average lower after OIS 8, there are situations in which
1. Interestingly, of the seven outlier assemblages with unusually high
biface frequencies which date to OIS 6 or younger, only two are considered MAT: Fonseigner ABC (combined), and Pech I level 4. Levels 8 and
9 of Pech II, which contain some of the higher frequencies on the plot,
were labeled Acheulean by Bordes. The other outliers are considered
Mousterian (Vaufrey Level 1 and Bourgeois-Delaunay Level 9) or Quina
(Peña Miel Level e).
biface frequencies rise again to levels more common before
OIS 8. These three observations suggest that bifaces, far from
being a useful chronological marker, are in fact scattered in
very low frequencies across the entire European Paleolithic
landscape from 500,000 years ago onwards, occurring in
roughly half of the assemblages and achieving peaks of 3–5%
frequency in only a tiny fraction of these (fig. 8).
Scrapers and Flake Tools
The presence of retouched flake tools from the earliest assemblages on is an obvious and indisputable fact today (fig.
4), contrary to what de Mortillet argued when he created the
Figure 8. Biface percentage frequencies. Mean p 0.43, s.d. p 0.91, n p
126.
726
Chellean. The question remains, however, what is the actual
temporal patterning of this tool type? Figure 4 (based on data
in table 8) shows that there is a widely fluctuating but gradual
increase in percentage of flake tools through time, from a
median of 5.19 in OIS 12–14 to a median of 15.29 in OIS 3
(the extremely high median flake tool frequency in OIS 17⫹
is skewed by three assemblages from Isernia la Pineta and
should probably be treated as an outlier). Interestingly, a median of 12.72 is attained in OIS 6 and remains constant
through OIS 4.
A similar but slightly less fluctuating chronological pattern
emerges when median scraper frequencies are plotted through
time (see fig. 5). This subset of flake tools initially exhibits
very low frequencies in OIS 17⫹ and especially 12–14 which
gradually rise through time, although they dip fairly strongly
in OIS 7 and 5 (as do flake tool frequencies; the significance
of these dips will be explored below). The more restricted
variability in scraper tool frequencies probably reflects the
narrower range of types included in the former category. It
will be interesting to explore the chronological patterning of
other tool types, such as denticulates (which are included in
the flake tool category here), individually. The wide fluctuation of these retouched flake tool frequencies provides no
support for a division of this time period into a Lower and
a Middle Paleolithic.
Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 5, October 2006
of all blanks are typologically Levallois during OIS 7 and 8,
a percentage which many would interpret as too low to be
the product of Levallois technology. The final observation is
that, while some assemblages (such as levels V–VIII of the
Grotte Vaufrey) achieve extremely high values for the Levallois
index, many assemblages between 300,000 and 35,000 years
ago do not contain Levallois flakes at all. This is especially
true in OIS 3, where some assemblages have a Levallois index
as high as 20 (e.g., Fonseigner Levels D supérieur and D milieu)
but most have an index of less than 1. This reduction in the
Levallois index at the end of the Middle Paleolithic has previously been noted (Rolland 1988; Mellars 1969; 1996,
185–86), and it would be interesting to determine what exactly
is replacing it and why this technological shift occurred. In
sum, Levallois technology is absent before OIS 8, becomes
full-blown in OIS 6, and then disappears from many assemblages by OIS 3 although it remains quite high in a few sites.
The most widely used current boundary for the Lower to
Middle Paleolithic division is 300,000 years ago, or the OIS
9/8 boundary. The change in Levallois flake frequencies across
these two periods is, in fact, statistically significant (P p
.029, N p 19, d.f p 7.0). However, as noted above, the evidence for Levallois technology during OIS 8 is limited. A more
convincing transition is the dramatic rise in the Levallois index from OIS 7 to 6, which is also statistically significant (Ttests yield a P p .012, N p 23, d.f. p 20.9).
Levallois Technology
A plot of median Levallois index by oxygen isotope stage (fig.
6, based on data in table 8) shows that Levallois technology
is almost entirely absent until OIS 8 (traces of Levallois technology have been claimed to occur at Cagny la Garenne and
Cagny l’Epinette, dated to OIS 12 and 9, respectively). After
OIS 8, the Levallois index increases, peaking in OIS 6 with a
median of 19.35 before decreasing to a median of 0.32 in OIS
3. Interestingly, although median Levallois frequency in OIS
3 is very low, the range of values remains large.
Several important observations emerge from these data.
First, it is notable that most of the data for OIS 8 come from
one site, Orgnac 3. Most of Orgnac 3’s sequence has been
placed in OIS 8 (Moncel 1999). However, it is possible that
a portion of the sequence may be younger than that, since
the absolute dates come only from the bottom of the sequence,
and the standard deviations for the Th/U dates are very large
(Falguères et al. 1988). The dating is key to establishing Orgnac 3 as the earliest locale where Levallois technology was
used on a regular basis, and full publication of the dates is
awaited. Evidence for the next-earliest significant appearance
of Levallois technology occurs only toward the end of OIS 7,
at Biache-Saint-Vaast II and Maastricht-Belvédère (Levallois
frequencies from Maastricht-Belvédère are not published,
however). The second observation of note is that Levallois
technology becomes full-blown only in OIS 6, where the median Levallois index is 19.35. In OIS 7 and 8 the medians are
only 3.09 and 2.40, respectively. This means that only 2–4%
Concordance of Chronological Patterning across the Three
Artifact Types
When the chronological patterning of all three of the tool
types traditionally used as index fossils for the Lower and the
Middle Paleolithic is examined, what kind of support is generated for a Lower/Middle Paleolithic division? Two important chronological events have been identified in the previous
descriptions of the patterning of individual tool types. The
first is the drop in median biface frequency from OIS 9 to 8.
The second is the rise in median Levallois frequency from
OIS 7 to 6. To what extent are these events supported by the
patterning of the other tool types? There are no statistically
significant changes in frequencies of retouched flake tools and
scrapers across the OIS 9/8 boundary, but there is a statistically
significant increase in Levallois flake frequencies. In fact, Levallois index and biface frequency are inversely correlated
(P ! .005, N p 115, Pearson’s R p ⫺.344). This intriguing
relationship raises further questions. Do Levallois technology
and bifaces form end points of a single axis of variation? Does
Levallois technology originate in biface technology and eventually replace it, as some have suggested (e.g., Leroi-Gourhan
1966 in Rolland 1988; Tuffreau, Lamotte, and Marcy 1997)?
Further work will be needed to confirm and elucidate this
inverse relationship.
The second important chronological event identified above
is the increase in Levallois flake frequency from OIS 7 to OIS
6. Interestingly, biface frequencies also rise across this tran-
Monnier The Lower/Middle Paleolithic Periodization
sition, though not statistically significantly. Finally, there is a
statistically significant rise in scraper frequencies from OIS 7
to 6 (T-tests yield a P p .000, N p 23, d.f. p 20.3). In fact,
OIS 6 contains the highest median Levallois and scraper frequencies in the sample. Do these patterns signal a major
transition, or was OIS 6 simply a period that witnessed unusually high frequencies of these tool types for some unknown
(possibly climate-related) reason? In sum, equally significant
typological changes occur across both OIS 9/8 and OIS 7/6,
although the earlier event better agrees with the Lower/Middle
Paleolithic periodization. What other trends occur across the
Middle and early Upper Pleistocene among these tool types
in this region?
One pattern that emerges is that many tool-type frequencies
are higher during cold periods (OIS 3, 4, 6, 8, 12) than during
temperate periods (OIS 5, 7, 9; see table 9 and fig. 9; the pattern
is reversed for bifaces). T-tests comparing mean tool-type frequencies between cold and temperate periods are significant
for bifaces (P p .039), Levallois index (P p .011), scrapers
(P p .000), flake tools (P p .018), and “chopper/choppingtools” (P p .022). The pattern is especially clear for flake tool,
scraper, and chopper frequencies (see figs. 4, 5, and 10). The
most logical explanation for this trend is the scraper reduction
model (Dibble 1987, 1995). Specifically, measures of scraper
reduction are greater when access to raw material is diminished
(Dibble 1991). During cold periods, access to raw material was
presumably diminished by snow or ice cover. Therefore, scrapers were resharpened more, and available blanks were transformed into scrapers at a greater rate than during warm periods
(Rolland 1981; Rolland and Dibble 1990). This pattern was
observed by Laville (1973), who noted that Denticulate Mousterian industries characterize temperate periods whereas Quina
industries are most common in cold periods. Diminished access
to raw material during cold periods may also be the best explanation for higher chopper frequencies, although it is also
possible that certain functions existed during cold periods (e.g.,
disarticulating large mammals or frozen carcasses) that required
more heavy-duty tools. Mauran, a specialized open-air, bovidhunting site dated to OIS 3 whose lithics are dominated by
denticulates and chopper/chopping-tools (Jaubert et al. 1990;
Jaubert 1993), provides evidence for such a scenario.
The high frequencies of Levallois flakes, scrapers, and bifaces during OIS 6 may also partly reflect the climatic rigors
of that time period. Many OIS 6 assemblages, such as those
from Abri Suard, Grotte du Lazaret, and Pech II, used to be
labeled “Acheulean.” This was probably because of the presence of bifaces and the often rough appearance of the retouched flake tool component. For example, Bordes described
the flakes and tools from Layer 9 of Pech II as “often battered
by cryoturbation and difficult to characterize. . . . Side scrapers
were not very numerous (SI p 20) and usually rather poor
. . . . There were 10 handaxes (HI p 9.1), rather crude” (Bordes 1972, 56). The extremely cold climate of OIS 6 may have
increased intensity of occupation and, hence, use of raw ma-
727
Table 9. Mean Tool Frequencies by Cold (3, 4, 6, 8, 12) or
Temperate (5, 7, 9) stage
% bifaces
IL
% scrapers
% flake tools
% choppers
Climate
N
Mean
S.D.
Std. Error Mean
Warm
Cold
Warm
Cold
Warm
Cold
Warm
Cold
Warm
Cold
26
56
26
53
26
54
26
55
26
56
.8565
.3046
4.3292
8.7081
3.6968
7.3117
9.4750
13.0018
.2162
.5867
1.25303
.53831
5.32049
9.65978
2.71919
6.01765
4.74862
8.27035
.42705
1.00265
.24574
.07193
1.04343
1.32687
.53328
.81890
.93128
1.11517
.08375
.13399
terials and may also have reduced raw-material quality (by
resulting in frost fractures) or availability.
Another interesting diachronic pattern evident in these data
is the gradual increase in scraper frequencies through time
(see fig. 5). The preferred explanation here also involves intensity of raw-material utilization. It is quite possible that
over this immensely long span of time, raw materials in the
vicinity of sites were exhausted because of intense, long-term
occupation of sites (perhaps related to a shift from open-air
to sheltered sites), increasing population densities, or a combination of these factors. Decreased raw-material availability
would have resulted in greater frequencies of retouched tools,
since the supply of blanks would have diminished (Dibble
1991; Dibble and Rolland 1992). Alternatively, but more difficult to prove, the trend of increased scraper frequencies
through time could reflect technological or cultural factors
such as new uses or changing cultural norms surrounding the
production, use, and curation of stone tools.
Finally, there are diachronic trends in the patterning of site
types and geographical distribution. Most sites which predate
OIS 8 are open-air, whereas most of the younger ones are
sheltered. In addition, the earliest sites (earlier than 650,000
years ago) are Mediterranean, those dated to 550,000 to
300,000 years ago come from northern France and Britain,
and those younger than 300,000 years ago come mostly from
southwestern France, Spain, and Italy. This patterning may
tell us something about the nature of the Lower and Middle
Pleistocene occupation of Europe, but it may also bias the
results of this study in unintended ways (although no correlations were found between any of the three artifact types
and site type [open versus sheltered]). In summary, there are
a number of temporal trends which crosscut the broad Lower/
Middle Paleolithic scheme and deserve further investigation.
These trends represent only the tip of the iceberg; there are
doubtless many other trends reflecting different aspects of
lithic variability besides those included here which deserve
further study.
Conclusions
Two questions have been asked in this paper. The first is how
728
Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 5, October 2006
Figure 9. Tool frequency by temperate versus cold periods (diagonal
stripes, bifaces; black, choppers; white, scrapers; horizontal stripes, flake
tools; vertical stripes, Levallois index).
archaeologists have justified retaining the original index-fossilbased definitions of the Lower and the Middle Paleolithic despite increasing evidence of their widespread overlapping temporal distributions. We have seen that early prehistorians added
industries and facies to accommodate this overlap, creating
increasingly convoluted frameworks in an attempt to reconcile
the data with de Mortillet’s classification. Bordes was the first
to reject index fossils when he redefined the Mousterian facies
on the basis of type frequencies, but even he retained them to
contrast the Lower and the Middle Paleolithic.
The second question is whether the diachronic patterning
of these artifact types supports the traditional Lower/Middle
Paleolithic division. This study shows that between OIS 9 and
OIS 8, biface frequencies drop while Levallois flake frequencies
rise; the timing of this event agrees with the current Lower/
Middle Paleolithic periodization. However, and equally sig-
Figure 10. Chopper frequency by oxygen isotope stage (lower and upper
edges of boxes indicate 25th and 75th percentiles, respectively; bold horizontal lines inside boxes indicate the statistical median; asterisks indicate
outliers, circles indicate extreme cases; boxplot widths reflect relative
counts).
Monnier The Lower/Middle Paleolithic Periodization
nificant, between OIS 7 and OIS 6 Levallois, scraper, and
biface frequencies rise. Both events are important; how shall
we privilege one over the other to divide the period into two
phases? Conversely, are they an adequate basis for a periodization? Other diachronic trends have also been identified,
such as the drop in Levallois frequency from OIS 6 to OIS 3
and the higher frequencies of most types during cold periods.
These observations suggest that much temporal variation during the Middle and early Upper Pleistocene remains to be
discovered.
In sum, it is clear from the history of the Lower/Middle
Paleolithic periodization that we have known from the beginning that these three artifact types do not pattern into a
two-phase periodization. The analysis of current data confirms this beyond a doubt. Bifaces are useless as chronological
or cultural markers; they are spread across the European landscape in 51% of assemblages in very low frequencies from
500,000 years ago to the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic.
Scrapers and other retouched flake tools are not useful in
distinguishing the Lower from the Middle Paleolithic because
they occur in the earliest sites and their frequencies gradually
rise through time, with no clear breaks. Although they are
frequently claimed to be more “standardized” in later periods
(Tuffreau 1982; Valoch 1982; Roe 1982; Moncel and Combier
1992a; Hayden 1993; Gamble and Roebroeks 1999), evidence
for this has so far been lacking (Monnier 2006). Finally, the
appearance of Levallois technology could be used to distinguish the Lower from the Middle Paleolithic, but then this
boundary would have to be moved to the beginning of OIS
6 or somewhere within OIS 7, when Levallois technology
becomes numerically significant.
We must now define a behaviorally meaningful periodization of the archaeological record of the Pleistocene occupation of Europe. The first step in this process has been
accomplished here by demonstrating that the current system
is flawed; the index-fossil-based definitions of the Lower and
Middle Paleolithic should be abandoned. It is time for a comprehensive revision of the Lower/Middle Paleolithic periodization based upon a synthesis of multiple aspects of the archaeological record, including climate, subsistence, landscape
use, mobility and exchange, symbol use, cognition, and
biological evolution, in order to determine whether we should
maintain a two-phase system and, if so, how it should be
defined.
Acknowledgments
The core of the research presented here was originally carried
out as part of a Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania (Monnier 2000), and I thank the members of my
committee, Harold Dibble, Philip Chase, and Robert Preucel,
for their guidance during that process. In addition, I acknowledge the financial assistance during my graduate studies
provided by a William Penn Fellowship and a Traveling Fellowship from the French Institute for Culture and Technology
729
at the University of Pennsylvania. Much of the historical research presented here was carried out at the Museum Library
at the University of Pennsylvania and especially at the Tozzer
Library at Harvard University. The excellent collections
housed by both these institutions and the kind assistance of
the librarians made this study possible. Finally, I thank Harold
Dibble, Sally Kohlstedt, Greg Laden, Shannon McPherron,
Martha Tappen, Gilbert Tostevin, and four anonymous reviewers for providing useful comments and suggestions for
improving the paper and Nick Ashton for supplying some
tool counts from Swanscombe.
Comments
Michael S. Bisson
Department of Anthropology, McGill University, 855
Sherbrooke West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2T7
(michael.bisson@mcgill.edu). 22 IV 06
In arguing for a reevaluation of the concepts of the Lower
and Middle Paleolithic, Monnier joins a growing list of scholars who are questioning the analytical paradigms that paleoanthropologists have inherited from nineteenth-century biology, paleontology, and geology. As someone who has
recently advocated a replacement of the Bordes Middle Paleolithic artifact typology with a less ambiguous attributebased system of artifact description (Bisson 2000), I am entirely sympathetic with her goals. As Monnier notes, the
periodization of the Paleolithic coalesced in the 1960s and
has not changed appreciably since, and the creation of these
periods during the culture-historical phase of archaeology has
imposed an arbitrary boundary that implies a “transition”
between the two whereas the course of technological evolution
was undoubtedly more complex. This is a timely reminder
for professionals, and the historical analysis will be a useful
synthesis for students.
The diachronic quantitative analysis of the major “index
fossil” types is also a useful contribution, but it is subject to
some important flaws in the nature of the samples chosen
and in the assumptions that potentially undermine one of its
key conclusions. These flaws all stem from a failure to distinguish between typology and technology and to take into
account the inherent differences in the ratios of “finished
products” to unmodified flakes produced by different toolmaking strategies. These problems do not undermine the
overall conclusion that differentiating between the Lower and
Middle Paleolithic on the basis of the presence or absence of
artifact “index fossils” is a bad idea, but they do obscure some
patterns that are evident in these data.
Although the criteria applied to assemblages for inclusion
in the quantitative analysis are generally good, assemblage size
is potentially an issue. The appendix in the electronic version
730
omits the total number of specimens in each assemblage,
making assessment of sample-size effects impossible. More
important is the choice to base these comparisons on the
percentage of retouched (or technological, in the case of the
Levallois index) pieces in the total of lithic artifacts, including
unmodified pieces. Monnier admits that there may be interclassifier variability in what is listed in artifact inventories.
Did each source list every tiny retouch flake, or did it fail to
count pieces below an arbitrary size requirement (2 cm maximum dimension)? This is possibly significant because different technologies and different end products have the potential of producing significantly different numbers of
unmodified flakes or flake fragments per “formal” tool
category.
My impression as a flint knapper is that creating an oval
handaxe will produce more debris over 2 cm than producing
a retouched uniface such as a scraper, point, or denticulate.
As a quick check, I inspected five Acheulean biface forms
(oval, subtriangular, lanceolate, Micoquian, and ficron) from
France, ranging in length from 9 to 18 cm. Counts of scars
over 2 cm averaged ca. 20 per specimen, whereas an average
of scars over 2 cm on five large French Middle Paleolithic
scrapers was only 3.9. Differences such as these could account
for the fact that bifaces always make up a small proportion
of the total artifact inventory compared with unifaces. Thus
the statement that the “lack of numeric importance calls into
question the significance of bifaces” needs rethinking. Monnier seems to be trapped by typological categories rather than
thinking of the complex interrelationship between typology
and technology in assemblage composition. It is clearly true
that when presence/absence is used, bifaces are indeed “useless
as chronological or cultural markers,” but presence/absence
is an extremely crude analytical tool. A more appropriate
comparison would be the ratio of bifaces to other retouched
pieces, a comparison that could be made independent of the
constraints inherent in the specific flake-tool categories of
Bordes.
This criticism notwithstanding, I think that this paper is a
useful step in revising how we conceive of cultural processes
in early prehistory and how they are described. Categorization
is inherent in human thought and language. It is not surprising that categories defined more than a century ago on
incomplete data need to be revised. Abandoning the terms
“Lower” and “Middle” Paleolithic probably won’t do much
good, but the overlapping typological contents of the Lower
and Middle Paleolithic illustrated here show that typologically
based definitions will never be adequate. If we are to use any
archaeological criteria, they should probably be technological,
but given the changing definition of techniques that we have
seen over the last 30 years even this may be problematic.
Perhaps we should arbitrarily rely on chronology. Defining
the “Lower Paleolithic” as anything dated to OIS 9 and older,
with perhaps an “Intermediate” period of OIS 8 and 7, and
then the “Middle Paleolithic” proper as beginning at OIS 6
would free us from the typological straitjacket and allow us
Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 5, October 2006
to concentrate on the important questions of explaining the
considerable variability in the Paleolithic archaeological record in terms of charging behavior and adaptation.
Richard G. Klein
Program in Human Biology, Bldg. 80, Stanford University,
Stanford, CA 94305, U.S.A. (rklein@stanford.edu).25 IV 06
I agree with Monnier that neither flake tool typology nor
Levallois technology separates the Acheulean from the Mousterian, but I believe that biface forms commonly do. The
Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition is named for its bifaces,
but these tend to be triangular and heart-shaped handaxes
that can usually be distinguished from the often larger, more
variably shaped handaxes that characterize Acheulean assemblages (Bordes 1961a). Its assemblages also usually lack other
kinds of Acheulean bifaces, particularly cleavers. A problem
arises mainly because Acheulean people need not have left
bifaces at every site and some of their contemporaries never
produced them. In regions that the Acheulean Tradition never
penetrated, including east-central and eastern Europe (Bosinski 1995), it is harder to separate the Lower and Middle
Paleolithic on typology alone.
Although Monnier focuses on France and neighboring
countries, her argument raises the broader question whether
we can recognize culture-stratigraphic units anywhere before
the Upper Paleolithic. At least in Africa, western Asia, and
Europe, I think we can, and the key issues are how abruptly
these units succeeded one another and what relation they had
to human biological evolution. As a working hypothesis, I
offer the following outline:
The oldest stone artifact tradition, the Oldowan, appeared
suddenly about 2.6 million years ago (Semaw et al. 1997),
and it was largely if not exclusively confined to Africa. Oldowan assemblages consisted mainly of sharp-edged flakes
and the cores from which they came. Homo habilis (or one
of the variants into which it may be split) is usually assumed
to have made Oldowan tools. The Acheulean Tradition was
established in eastern Africa by 1.65 million years ago (Quade
et al. 2004; Roche et al. 2003), and it was distinguished from
the Oldowan by the presence of bifaces and of large flakes
that were often made into bifaces. H. ergaster (or African H.
erectus) probably invented the Acheulean, and future research
may show that H. ergaster and the Acheulean emerged
abruptly together 1.8–1.7 million years ago. It remains possible, however, that H. ergaster appeared first and that the
Oldowan continued alongside the Acheulean for hundreds of
thousands of years.
Numeric ages and biostratigraphy show that the African
Acheulean may be divided into early and late stages (Clark
and Schick 2000; Isaac 1975; Schick and Clark 2000; Wynn
2002). Late Acheulean bifaces were often thinner, more extensively trimmed, and more symmetrical than their early
Acheulean predecessors, and they were accompanied by a
Monnier The Lower/Middle Paleolithic Periodization
wider range of well-made flake tools. Late Acheulean assemblages also varied more through time and space, and it was
late Acheulean people who devised Levallois technology. The
transition from early to late occurred sometime between 1
million and 500,000 years ago, and future research may fix it
near 600,000 years ago, perhaps at the same time as the increase in encephalization that ushered in H. heidelbergensis
(or “archaic” H. sapiens). H. heidelbergensis took late Acheulean artifacts to Europe 600,000–500,000 years ago, and late
Acheulean technology may partly explain how H. heidelbergensis
and its descendants became the first permanent Europeans.
The late Acheulean differed from the early more than it
did from the industries that succeeded it—the Mousterian
(or Middle Paleolithic) in Europe and western Asia and the
Middle Stone Age (MSA) in Africa. The European Acheulean
is all “late,” and Monnier could cite this to buttress her argument for substantial similarity to the Mousterian.
The Middle Paleolithic/MSA may have supplanted the late
Acheulean at different times in different places, but the available dates suggest that both were in place everywhere by
250,000–200,000 years ago (Bar-Yosef 1995; Conard and Fischer 2000; Tryon and McBrearty 2002). Assemblage variation
is greater within the Middle Paleolithic and the MSA than
between them, and their separation depends mainly on scholarly tradition and geographic distance. They both differed
from the late Acheulean primarily in the absence of large
Acheulean bifaces, and they shared an emphasis on refined
flake tools and often but not always on Levallois technology.
If all we had were the artifacts, we might infer that Middle
Paleolithic and MSA people were physically the same. However, by 160,000 years ago MSA people in Africa were anatomically modern or near modern and their European Middle
Paleolithic contemporaries were Neanderthals. About 50,000
years ago, the Later Stone Age (LSA) descendants of MSA
people expanded rapidly from Africa to swamp or replace the
Neanderthals and other nonmodern Eurasians. LSA people
were fully modern in both anatomy and behavior, but specialists disagree about whether the LSA appeared abruptly
about 50,000 years ago (Klein and Edgar 2002) or developed
gradually over a long period within the MSA (McBrearty and
Brooks 2000).
John McNabb and Hannah Fluck
Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins, Department
of Archaeology, Avenue Campus, University of
Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BF, UK (j.mcnabb@
soton.ac.uk). 25 IV 06
Monnier’s use of the Bordes (1961a) system concerns us,
though her defence that it allows site comparison over large
distances will strike a chord with most researchers. One of us
(JM) has been analysing British Lower Palaeolithic assemblages for nearly 25 years and has repeatedly found that the
system’s complexity fails to describe the conservative nature
731
of these assemblages. Moreover, it does not address multiple
tools, flaked flakes (only some of which are typologically Clactonian notches) (Ashton, Dean, and McNabb 1991), or
wedges and nondiagnostic forms, which should not be conveniently buried in the miscellaneous categories. We recognize
the problems of comparability, but for the British data the
system is irrelevant.
Similarly, Monnier’s inclusion of debitage in calculations
of indices and percentages, even for the sake of comparability,
is inappropriate. Frequencies of flakes (broken or otherwise)
reflect site function, hominin transport behaviour, excavation
history, resharpening and reuse, and many other factors. With
intersite debitage frequencies being so variable, it would be
possible artificially to inflate or depress the true statistical
importance of significant tool types.
This highlights another failing of the Bordes system. Its
application requires an assemblage to include at least 50 tools
and preferably more than 100. In Britain it is rare to have
even 50, and most are flaked flakes (Ashton, Dean, and
McNabb 1991). It would be better to have calculated the
indices on the basis of all the shaped and modified pieces.
Monnier’s list of criteria for site inclusion is laudable, but
employed in the cause of comparability it has led to some
serious errors. A combined mammal (Schreve 2001) and geological (Bridgland 1994) signal places Swanscombe in OIS 11,
not 9. Radiometric age determinations have consistently underestimated the age of the Barnfield Pit sequence. Hoxne is
also an OIS 11 site (Schreve 2000, contra Bowen et al. 1989),
and so are the Clacton Golf Course site (Singer et al. 1973)
and the West Cliff sections at Clacton (Bridgland et al. 1999).
We could add Barnham (Ashton, Lewis, and Parfitt 1998),
High Lodge in OIS 13 (Ashton, Cook, and Rose 1992), Pontnewydd in OIS 7 and 6 (Aldhouse-Green 1998, 2001), and
even the recently published sites at Foxhall Road (White and
Plunkett 2004) and Elveden (Ashton et al. 2005), both OIS
11. Omitting sites such as these because they do not match
the check-list for consistency is a reflection of the weakness
of some of the selection criteria rather than the sites.
From the above it might be supposed that we dispute Monnier’s findings. We do not. We believe her conclusions are
valid; indeed, she provides empirical data supporting a pattern
that has often appeared in the literature only in anecdotal
form—that bifaces decrease in frequency over time as scrapers, other flake tools, and Levallois increase. In the British
sequence the patterning in Levallois first appears at the end
of OIS 9 at sites like Purfleet (Schreve et al. 2002), where
both Levallois (White in Schreve et al. 2002) and the simple
prepared-core variant (White and Ashton 2003) are present.
It is seen again in late OIS 8 and OIS 7 contexts (e.g., West
Thurrock, Bakers Hole, and Crayford [see Bridgland 1994 for
summaries]). The key point here is the presence of a persistent
prepared-core-technology/Levallois signal from the northwestern limit of the hominin world prior to the OIS 6 takeoff seen in Monnier’s data. It does not invalidate Monnier’s
interpretation, but it must be taken into account.
732
Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 5, October 2006
Figure 1. A reworking of Monnier’s data. (Hoxne and Swanscombe have
been placed in OIS 11.) Solid line, percentage scrapers; dotted line, percentage bifaces; broken line, percentage flake tools. The apparent crash
in OIS 10 reflects the absence of data from that period.
The decrease in bifaces and increase in flake tool and
scraper frequencies from OIS 6 onwards seems a reasonable
result given what we know about these assemblages. The link
between increase in flake tool frequency and the necessity of
utilizing more blanks from pre-existing debitage on cave
floors and resharpening as raw material becomes scarcer during glaciations is not in itself unreasonable. We are concerned,
however, by Monnier’s use of the OIS curve. OIS 3 and OIS
sub-stages 5.1–5.4 are not interglacials; to compare data from
them with those from OIS 5.5, 7, 9, 11, and 13 is wholly
inappropriate (see our fig. 1).
We agree with Monnier that the Lower/Middle Palaeolithic
boundary is an anachronism that is no longer helpful, but
we would caution against downgrading the significance of the
transition to Levallois/prepared-core-technology-dominated
assemblages, which represents a significant component of a
multidisciplinary definition of assemblage character that
tracks genuine changes in behaviour.
Marie-Hélène Moncel
Institut de Paléontologie Humaine, 1 rue René Panhard,
75013 Paris, France (moncel@cjmrs1.mnhn.fr). 20 IV 06
The transition between Lower and Middle Palaeolithic raises
questions about what criteria best characterize them when
only preserved lithic assemblages are available to our understanding. What indicators are relevant to describing the beginning of the technical world linked with the Pre-Neander-
thals? Should we focus on the shift to flake production as the
major knapping activity and the diversification of core reduction methods or on bifaces, which may be missing from
some Lower Palaeolithic assemblages? The earliest bifaces of
Western Europe date from more than 0.6 million years ago
(Despriee et al. 2005). Though tool kits are common, the
assemblages display wide variation that certainly reflects a
variety of environments and activities. For example, raw materials distinguish the great northern plains, with large tools,
bifaces, and hand-axes/cleavers shaped on flint nodules, from
southern Europe, with large flakes. Central European assemblages follow another trend, resulting in traditions such as
the Micoquian at about OIS 6 at least.
Southeastern French sites provide significant examples of
what happened during the second part of the Middle Pleistocene. Monnier suggests two phases of transition dated to
the OIS 9/8 and OIS 7/6. At the site of Orgnac 3, the Levallois
method was the main one in use from OIS 8 onwards. Bifaces
are rare throughout the sequence and all but disappear in the
latest occupations. The Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition
does not occur in this part of France. The Levallois method
appears at Baume Bonne at the end of OIS 8, but its main
development took place in the second half of OIS 6 (Gagnepain and 2005). In all the layers of these two sites, the main
activity was flake production. The development of long, complex, and varied core reduction sequences is suggested to be
the best indicator of changes in the relationship between humans and raw materials, and these changes are considered
Monnier The Lower/Middle Paleolithic Periodization
the best criteria for describing a gradual transition rooted in
the oldest flaking traditions (e.g., at Orce, dated to 1.2 million
years). However, at Payre, dated to OIS 7 and 5, and in the
lower levels of Abri Moula (OIS 5) the processing system is
discoid. The increasingly numerous sites around the Rhône
Valley during OIS 4 and the beginning of OIS 3 provide
evidence for the simultaneous use of Levallois, discoid, and
laminar methods (the laminar method is first attested during
OIS 4 in southern Europe). The Levallois method was still
being employed during the late Middle Palaeolithic, for example, at Abri Moula and Abri du Maras (Moncel 2003).
Flake tool frequency does not seem to be the right criterion
in southeastern France, since it is related more to activities
than to settlement age. Since retouches are not often invasive,
Dibble’s model cannot be applied in this case. Is the low
frequency of flake tools in the upper level of Orgnac 3 linked
with the extensive use of the Levallois method, providing
flakes which did not need retouching or resharpening, and
perhaps to the kinds of activities involved and the duration
of use of the cutting edges?
The technical behaviours in the Middle Rhône Valley show
great variability through time, and their meaning remains to
be interpreted precisely. Levallois flaking seems to be related
to cold periods (Orgnac 3 OIS 8, Maras laminar method OIS
4) and the discoid method with temperate ones (Payre OIS
7-5, Saint-Marcel OIS 3). However, at sites such as Le Figuier
(Quina) and Abri des Pêcheurs a discoid method was used
in a cold context (OIS 4). Even though one method was
preferentially applied, others were also employed in all occupations. At any given site, traditions and activities were
probably mixed rather than time-related. Nevertheless, in this
area, the cold climate opened up the landscape and made flint
outcrops more available. Severe conditions certainly influenced human mobility and subsistence activities and consequently technical choices.
In southeastern France, the transition toward Middle Palaeolithic behavior in the form of long and controlled flake
processing systems and standardized production appeared at
the OIS 9/8 border. The precocious disappearance of bifaces
is assumed to indicate a slow process which began before OIS
8 and ended around OIS 7-6-5. In all of western Europe, as
at the southeastern French sites, artifacts such as bifaces and
pebble tools are few; from the beginning, the tool kit is composed mainly of flake tools. When pebble tools are more
numerous, the assemblages are related neither to a specific
period nor to a particular climatic context (Payre OIS 7-5,
Abri des Pêcheurs OIS 5-4), instead corresponding to specific
activities and needs.
In short, there are still many questions open for debate.
Does site scarcity influence our interpretation of this period?
Are our observations biased by the comparison with openair sites on the great North European plains while southern
sites were in caves in narrow basins and valleys? The transition
appears to have depended upon the geographic setting.
733
Lawrence Guy Straus
Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico,
Albuquerque, NM 87131, U.S.A. (lstraus@unm.edu). 30 III
06
For a long time, most Paleolithic specialists have realized that
the hoary nineteenth-century subdivisions of the Old Stone
Age have unraveled even if many of the terms continue to
serve as shorthand indicators of the approximate temporal
placement and broad technological characteristics of artifact
assemblages. This is a very sensible and well-supported discussion of diachronic change and synchronic variability
within the “Early [Lower and Middle] Paleolithic.” Monnier
is to be applauded for going back to unresolved issues of
systematics and nomenclature in “paleo-lithic” studies—even
resurrecting application of the now-out-of-favor Bordesian
method of assemblage description.
Monnier is correct to insist on the use of dating methods
independent of the artifacts themselves; circularity must be
avoided if at all possible, even if the “dates” are imprecise.
This is the same argument that some (mostly Americans and
Britons) made for the application of radiocarbon dating with
regard to the Upper Paleolithic and even the so-called Middle/
Upper Paleolithic transition decades ago, while the traditional
French view was to rely on lithic and osseous fossiles directeurs
and sedimentological correlations tied to the modified Alpine
glacial chronostratigraphic framework (see Straus 1975, 1987,
1991; Straus and Clark 1986). Freed from the slavish reliance
on artifacts and artifact manufacturing techniques as essentially time-markers, we can approach an understanding of
interassemblage variability in terms of raw-material availability, site-specific place, and occupation function, as well as
site formation/disturbance and archeological sampling effects.
(Monnier hints at this in her perceptive comment on the
unusually “crude” lithic assemblages associated with masses
of bison bones at late Middle Paleolithic Le Mauran.
We are finally coming to grips with the consequences of
our profession’s longtime fealty to the restrictive and misleading de Mortilletian stages. Monnier does an excellent job
of explaining how these stage names persisted across changes
in paradigms and in leading French prehistorians. Once it
became clear, for example, that small bifacial handaxes could
be found in the Mousterian, that many Acheulean-age assemblages lack classic handaxes, and that the Levallois technique
was invented in the Upper Acheulean, a simple bipartite division of the European Early Paleolithic into Acheulean and
Mousterian became untenable, but much of the profession
chose to ignore the fact. The increasing behavioral and technical complexity of some Acheulean sites (e.g., the Schöningen
wooden spears, the Bilzingsleben engraved bones) makes it
clear that cultural variability and change were just as “mosaic”
in the early–mid-Middle Pleistocene as they were during the
mid-Upper Pleistocene (see Straus 2005). True blade tech-
734
nology and bone points and even ritual or artistic expression
are now all acknowledged to be occasional aspects of the
Middle Paleolithic in Europe and in Africa, but we continue
to think in terms of de Mortilletian stages as if the differences
between them constituted chasms between prehuman incompetence and human genius. With little time in introductory
courses to devote to the vast span of early human evolution
or to nuanced explanations, we often find it necessary to resort
to simplifications. Thus we fall into the trap of talking about
the characteristics of the Acheulean, the Mousterian, and the
Upper Paleolithic even if we know how faulty such shortcuts
actually are. We see how problematic the use of cultural
“boxes” is when serious specialists talk of an Oldowan settlement of southern Europe long after the invention of the
bifacial handaxe in Africa some 1.6 million years ago, even
as we know that chopper/chopping tool assemblages (à la
Breuil’s parallel, nonbiface phylum) continue to pop up in
the record throughout much of the Middle Pleistocene and
beyond.
Although Monnier detects some new patterns that run
counter to the classic definitions of major periods in Homo
heidelbergensis and H. sapiens neanderthalensis cultural development, we should be cautious about adopting them as
normative characterizations, since the sample of “well”-dated,
recently excavated, and systematically analyzed sites used in
this study is rather small and may be unrepresentative of the
full range of human sites and activities in these vast spans of
time. As a “spoiler” argument, however, the case she makes
is impressive.
Monnier’s excellent description of the de Mortillet-Commont-Breuil-Peyrony periodization schemes brings me back
memories of the artifact collection cabinet of my grandfather,
Guy Magnant, in Bordeaux, the lower drawers of which are
labeled “Cheléen” and “Acheuléen” (Straus 1985). In the early
years of the discipline of prehistory, an instrument like the
de Mortillet framework was necessary to bring some semblance of order to a confusing situation. Trading artifacts from
“type sites” as they did, these early prehistorians had to
“know” into which étage and literally which étagère to put
their precious artifacts. But the idea of a rigid scheme of stages
has long since lost its utility with the development of chronometric dating methods and the increase in well-excavated
sites. It takes time to turn the Leviathan, but with careful,
deliberate steering by helmsmen such as Monnier, the great
ship does seem to be rounding a crucial buoy.
Alain Tuffreau
Laboratoire de Préhistoire et Quaternaire, Université des
Sciences et Technologies de Lille, F-59655 Villeneuve d’Ascq
cedex, France (alain.tuffreau@univ-lille1.fr). 4 V 06
The periodization of the Paleolithic into three phases—Lower,
Middle, and Upper—has regularly been called into question.
Fundamentally, it depends upon the inclusion or absence of
Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 5, October 2006
specific characteristics of important lithic industries that have
gradually appeared in the course of at least tens of thousands
of years. This does not, however, apply to the Upper Paleolithic, which developed rather rapidly after a period of transition of some thousands of years. In the identification of the
Upper Paleolithic, other characteristics are taken into consideration, especially stylistic features, a bone industry, and
art.
Following a well-documented historical analysis of the periodization of the Lower/Middle Paleolithic, Monnier examines whether the characteristics of tools justify a division between the two. Her sample consists of 89 assemblages dated
by radiometric methods to between OIS 17 and OIS 3. The
29 layers from which the lithic assemblages originate are located in Western Europe. The purpose of the study is to prove
that, although evolutionary tendencies are present, it is impossible to determine a precise chronological boundary based
on the presence or absence of features or variations in their
frequencies. Thus the percentage of bifaces tends to diminish
after OIS 8, whereas a significant presence of the Levallois
technique is later (OIS 7) and retouched flakes are found in
great quantities during the colder periods (OIS 6 and OIS 3).
My observations will focus on the sample selected and the
criteria employed to differentiate the Lower from the Middle
Paleolithic.
The sample consists entirely of assemblages organized chronologically according to radiometric dates. The undertaking
is fully justified for the karstic regions of southwestern Europe,
where it is impossible to use chronostratigraphy to date lithic
industries. In the north of France the data have been considerably augmented in the past 30 years because of the study
of open-air deposits excavated during salvage operations. The
lack of preservation of bone remains and the rarity of burnt
flint are responsible for the scarcity of radiometric dates for
these deposits. Because they are found in a loess environment,
however, they benefit from an excellent chronostratigraphic
framework, one which, for the last glacial (OIS 5 to OIS 3),
for example, allows them to be placed within a 10,000-year
range (in other words, offers as much precision as radiometric
dates). Including these lithic industries (Le Pucheuil and
Etoutteville for OIS 8 to 6 and Bennecourt-Saint-Ouen, Riencourt-les-Bapaume, Seclin, and the deposits in Senonais for
OIS 5 to OIS 3) would certainly have helped, as Monnier
stresses, to reduce the overrepresentation of lithic industries
from southwestern France as far as the more recent periods
of time are concerned.
Central Europe is not included in the scope of this study,
and, as a result, the Micoquian, a Middle Paleolithic industry
rich in bifaces, has been all but ignored. These tools, like most
bifaces starting with OIS 8, are not comparable to Acheulean
bifaces sensu stricto, which tend to vanish in Western Europe
around 280,000 BP. Many of them have retouched edges similar to those of flake tools. This means that they served as
blanks and their function differed from that of Acheulean
bifaces. The bifacial tools of the Micoquian, similarly to those
Monnier The Lower/Middle Paleolithic Periodization
from the Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition, also have obvious stylistic features. Finally, another characteristic that escapes a study based entirely on deductions from index fossils
in terms of the Bordes method is the greater diversity of
methods of knapping after OIS 7.
These comments do not in any way diminish the importance of Monnier’s study. As she points out, the Lower/Middle
Paleolithic periodization is even more complex than her article shows.1
Reply
I thank all of the commentators for the time and effort they
have spent reading this article and commenting on it. They
make important observations and critiques that I am happy
to have a chance to address. I hope that the following response
will clarify some misunderstandings related to the goals of
this study and illuminate the complexity of many of the issues
I faced.
Tuffreau mentions that I should have included sites from
northern France such as Le Pucheuil, Etoutteville, Riencourtles-Bapaume, and Seclin, which do not have absolute dates
(because of a lack of suitable dating material) but have
excellent chronostratigraphic control because of their
preservation in loess sediments. McNabb and Fluck argue that
I should have included Barnham (which has problematic
absolute dates and is assigned to OIS 11 on the basis of
sedimentology and biostratigraphy [Ashton, Lewis, and Parfitt
1998]), High Lodge (which does not have absolute dates),
and Pontnewydd (which does not meet the criterion for
minimum assemblage size), among others. As I explained, the
main objective of my study was to test whether the diachronic
patterning of the tool types originally used to define the Lower
and Middle Paleolithic (bifaces, Levallois technology, and
retouched flake tools) still supports the Lower/Middle
Paleolithic periodization. In order to achieve this objective,
it was imperative that the dating of the assemblages I used
be independent of artifact typology. Biostratigraphy and
geochronology are not entirely independent of typology (e.g.,
some mammalian species are dated on the basis of the
typological composition of key sites). Absolute dates may be
“imprecise,” in Straus’s words, but they should, in theory, be
independent of artifact typology. Therefore, while I would
have liked to augment my sample by including sites such as
High Lodge, for which convincing geological arguments are
made that it is pre-Anglian (the Anglian is correlated with
OIS 12), I had to be consistent in my application of selection
criteria or risk losing objectivity.
As regards the geographic boundaries of the study, I agree
with Tuffreau that the inclusion of Micoquian and other
1. Translated by Simone Monnier Clay.
735
industries from Central Europe would be a valuable addition
to this study. However, Central and Eastern Europe were
beyond the purview of this work, though they will certainly
be included in the future, along with the Near East and,
eventually, Africa.
McNabb and Fluck point out that the dating of Hoxne and
Swanscombe have been updated as a result of biostratigraphical
and sedimentological studies which place it in OIS 11 rather
than OIS 9 (Schreve 2001 and Bridgland 1994). However, this
would not substantially alter the results of my analysis. As can
be seen in table 8, I currently have no data from either OIS 10
or 11. I would therefore update Hoxne and Swanscombe by
changing the category currently listed as “OIS 9” to a new one
consisting of “OIS 9 through 11.” While a higher degree of
chronological resolution is desirable, at the present time there
are simply too few well-dated sites from this time period. The
next few years may see a resolution of the dating problems
surrounding these sites.
Finally, regarding figure 9, McNabb and Fluck mistakenly
state that I include OIS 3 along with OIS 5.5, 7, 9, 11, 13.
OIS 3 is included with OIS 4, 6, 8, and 12 and contrasted
with data from OIS 5, 7, and 9. In addition, they state that
OIS stages 5.1–5.4 are not interglacials and should not be
compared with OIS 7 and 9; however, they do not represent
the extreme glacial conditions of OIS 4–2, either.
Bisson and McNabb and Fluck object to my calculation of
artifact type frequencies relative to the total lithic material of
each assemblage. They would prefer that I calculate them in
the traditional (Bordesian) way, which is relative to the
retouched flake component only. As I have said, I used total
lithic material as the denominator for several reasons. First
of all, since the objective of the study was to trace the
diachronic patterning of bifaces, retouched flake tools, and
Levallois technology across the Lower and Middle Paleolithic,
it was essential that any variation in flake tool versus core
tool frequencies across this transition not confound the issues
being addressed. Second, the historic focus on certain artifact
types and the neglect of others have reified the periodization
scheme and ignored other aspects of variability. For example,
debitage, which is now known to contain valuable technological
data, was ignored for decades. What other aspects of the
archaeological record do we continue to ignore? Manuports?
Broken cores? Shatter? Calculating artifact type frequencies
relative to the total lithic assemblage shows us the true
frequencies of some supposedly key types (such as bifaces).
Of course, taphonomic factors such as breakage will have had
an effect on the number of lithic pieces in a given assemblage.
Thus, it would be more accurate to calculate artifact
frequencies on the basis of weights rather than counts.
Unfortunately, data on weights are rarely available in the
literature. Third, there is little consistency among researchers
when it comes to reporting artifact counts (e.g., inclusion or
exclusion of broken implements), but they do all report total
lithic materials. Fourth, McNabb and Fluck are concerned
that “site function, hominin transport behavior, excavation
736
history, resharpening and reuse” will affect debitage frequencies.
They forget that the same factors also affect retouched tool
frequencies. Finally, inherent in McNabb and Fluck’s arguments
that variable debitage frequencies can affect the “true statistical
importance of significant tool types” (my italics) and Bisson’s
statement that there are “inherent differences in the ratios of
‘finished products’ to unmodified flakes produced by different
tool-making strategies” is the assumption that twenty-firstcentury archaeologists are able to identify which tool types are
“significant” and “finished.” Davidson and Noble (1993, 365)
refer to this as the “finished artifact fallacy”—the “belief that
the final form of flaked stone artefacts as found by
archaeologists was the intended shape of a ‘tool.”’ However,
retouched flake tools are not necessarily finished, nor are they
necessarily more significant than unretouched blanks. Their
perceived significance is merely the product of an arbitrary,
historical focus on certain retouched tools.
Bisson argues that biface frequencies should not be
calculated relative to total lithic material, stating that the
manufacture of a biface produces more debitage than the
manufacture of a unifacial flake tool such as a scraper. As an
example, he calculates that French Acheulean bifaces have an
average of 20 flake scars each [over 2 cm], while French
Middle Paleolithic scrapers have an average of only 3.9 scars
each. Bifaces, however, are core tools; therefore, they will
surely have many more flake removals than flake tools, only
the edges of which are retouched. Furthermore, bifaces have
two faces, which approximately doubles the number of flake
scars relative to unifacial retouched flake tools. A more
appropriate comparison would be the number of flakes created
during the manufacture of a biface versus the number of flakes
created during the reduction of a core from which a flake was
then selected and retouched.
McNabb and Fluck are concerned by my use of Bordesian
typology, which they say does not apply to Britain, and Straus
remarks that I “even resurrect application of the now-out-offavor Bordesian method of assemblage description.” Tuffreau
suggests that I should have taken into account the greater
diversity of knapping methods after OIS 7. Moncel provides
a useful summary of technological trends in southeastern
France from OIS 8 to OIS 3, concluding that while some
climatic trends may be present, traditions and activities
transcend chronology. I agree with these commentators that
the Bordes method of assemblage analysis is old-fashioned
(although not useless, by any means) and that studies of lithic
technology, specifically core reduction sequences, are valuable
sources of information for answering many questions in
Paleolithic studies, not least of which are those regarding
changes through time. However, the objective of my study was
not to explore all aspects of change in lithic assemblages
throughout the Lower and Middle Paleolithic; it was merely to
test the diachronic patterning of the index fossils defined over
a century ago and still used to characterize the Lower and
Middle Paleolithic. Since my focus was on traditional tool types
(bifaces, flake tools, Levallois flakes), I decided to use Bordes’s
Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 5, October 2006
typology, which was designed for western Europe and has been
widely used there for decades. I agree with McNabb and Fluck
that there may be tool types unique to the British Lower
Paleolithic that deserve special treatment, but the categories I
used, such as “retouched flake tools” and “bifaces,” were
purposefully designed to be broad and to address the specific
questions of the study, not to document the idiosyncratic nature
of each regional sequence. Regarding core reduction methods,
I believe that syntheses of the diachronic patterning of debitage
methods such as Levallois, discoidal, laminar, etc., will be very
valuable once questions regarding methodology (see, e.g.,
Tostevin 1996) have been addressed.
—Gilliane Monnier
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