Magdalenian (Other Keyword)
1-11 (11 Records)
In 1996 Lawrence Guy Straus embarked on new adventures in fieldwork at El Mirón Cave in Cantabria, northern Spain. As a young University of New Mexico graduate student the author joined him there from 1997–2000. Excavating literally thousands of Magdalenian artifacts and features in the cave’s corral area and visiting other Magdalenian caves on weekends made Lawrence’s fact-filled and captivating classroom lectures come alive. The author’s fascination with personal ornamentation and...
Culture-Environment Relationships and Heinrich Stadial 1 in Western Europe: Are Ecological Niche Shifts Implicated? (2015)
A common theme among Upper Paleolithic studies is how hunter-gatherer adaptations may be related to environmental variability, with some focusing on how culture-environment relationships during the Paleolithic are intertwined with ecological niche dynamics. The reason being that when faced with the rapid-scale climatic fluctuations and environmental reorganizations characteristic of MIS 3 and 2, Paleolithic populations could have responded in a variety of ways. Ecological niche modeling methods...
Discovery of a New Middle Magdalenian Site at Enval in the Massif Central of France (2018)
We present the discovery of a new Middle Magdalenian site at Enval, a rock shelter site in the Massif Central of France. Radiocarbon dates indicate a tight chronology at 17,000 years ago. The site is significant for several reasons. Faunal elements indicate the site is largely intact and not a palimpsest. Faunal studies also indicate the site was occupied during the winter. This is important because it demonstrates that late Pleistocene humans occupied the Massif Central during harsh conditions....
The Environmental Context of the Magdalenian in the Lone Valley of Southwest Germany (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Swabian Jura of Southwest Germany is home to some of the best studied Paleolithic archaeological sites in the world. These sites have diverse artifact assemblages that include bone and lithic artifacts, art objects, combustion features, microfaunal remains, and archaeobotanical remains. This diversity allows researchers to reconstruct past environments...
From Palethnography to Paleohistory: following a Magdalenian group through three successive occupations at Etiolles (2015)
Since the 1980s, spatially oriented techno-economical lithic studies of a few key open-air sites in the Paris basin have been essential to our comprehension of Upper Palaeolithic behavioral patterns. While these analyses have largely been synchronic in focus, and many others evaluate diachrony on the long-term, we hope to now bridge these two approaches through a study of the mid-term. One of the only Palaeolithic contexts that allow for such an approach is the three-level sequence that...
Investigating the symbolic aspects of flint in the making of prehistoric cultures: The case of the Middle Magdalenian of Southwestern France (2015)
Recent research on Magdalenian flint provisioning strategies in southwestern France, particularly from sites associated with decorated caves, have opened doors to new interpretations regarding the role that these materials played in the construction and maintenance of Magdalenian society. Beyond the traditional typological and technological factors that seem to mainly fluctuate according to circumstances, more consistent symbolic functions appear to have been imbedded in most of these materials,...
Late Magdalenian Lithic Technology at Lapa do Picareiro, Central Portugal (2017)
Lapa do Picareiro, a cave located in Portuguese Estremadura, contains continuous deposits dated to the Late Pleistocene. As one of the highest elevation Upper Paleolithic sites currently known in Portugal, questions are raised about the function of the site during this time. The high resolution data sets generated from the ongoing excavation allow for various types of analysis to help shed light on a broader understanding of the site’s function. This poster presents a comprehensive analysis of...
New Data on Late Magdalenian Lithic Technological Organization at Lapa do Picareiro (2016)
Few Paleolithic sites in Portugal possess enough data to provide for a comprehensive analysis of Upper Paleolithic site function. However, Lapa do Picareiro, a cave site in the Estremadura region of Portugal, is exceptional in that it possesses continuous chronology and is continuing to produce high resolution data sets pertaining to site function, lithic technological organization, and subsistence. This poster compares and contrasts old and new lithic data sets from the late Magdalenian at Lapa...
Nomadism in the Magdalenian groups of Monruz and Champréveyres (Switzerland) (2015)
Located in a region where flint is of mediocre quality, the Magdalenian sites of Monruz and Champréveyres (Neuchâtel, Switzerland) show the introduction of a high proportion of good quality flint from sometimes very distant (up to 200 km) regions. For this reason we can argue that flint was not a constraining factor on the selection of camp location. It is certain that favorable hunting grounds, as well as the proximity to water sources and combustible materials, were more important. The...
A Re-examination of Magdalenian Social Organization Ten Years Later (2015)
A decade ago this author completed a synthesis of information about the circulation of exotic lithic raw materials, items of personal ornamentation, and portable decorated objects across western Europe during the Magdalenian ca. 17,000 to 12,000 B.P. Tests of hypotheses about the relationship between population density and visual display suggested that population density was probably not the sole driving force behind the types and intensities of visual displays used by generations of Magdalenian...
Social geoarchaeology: A case study of structural organization at Peyre Blanque, Ariège (2015)
Recent studies of structural remains at Magdalenian open-air sites have provided valuable insights into patterns of occupation and intra-site spatial organization. However, interpretations of activities that may have occurred within the structures have primarily been limited to understandings of the repetition and duration of such activities. Determining more detailed use-of-space within the structures has been challenging at many sites due to site disturbance, not only from natural and...