Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Since the early twentieth century, debates concerning the Aurignacian have focused largely on its definition and chronology. Research over the past three decades has helped ground both of these dimensions on much more solid empirical foundations, especially as concerns the reevaluation of material from classic sites complemented by the excavation of new archaeological deposits that have refined our understanding of its nature. This has led to a growing appreciation of the fact that, even at sites where it is well-dated and characterized, Aurignacian assemblages indicate a substantial amount of internal variability that opens up anthropological inquiry into human behavior over its course, eschewing prime movers and one-size-fits-all explanations. This session seeks to bring together scholars to discuss how to document, study, and interpret this dynamism as well as to present new deposits likely to inform us about the macro-scale level of variability within the Aurignacian technocomplex. Discussions assessing variability in dimensions other than lithic technology are particularly welcome.

Other Keywords
Lithic Analysis • Mediterranean • Europe • Zooarchaeology • Hunter-Gatherers/Foragers

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-12 of 12)

  • Documents (12)
Documents
  • The Aurignacian sequence of Lapa do Picareiro (Portugal): Abrupt climate shifts and diachronic variability in land-use strategies (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Haws.

    This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Across Eurasia, abrupt climate shifts during the Late Pleistocene impacted human and natural systems. For the Iberian Peninsula, our knowledge of human adaptive responses during the Upper Paleolithic has improved in recent years with the development of new radiocarbon techniques and high-resolution paleoclimatic records....

  • Beyond Caves: Exploring the Diversity and Adaptation of Early Human Settlement Patterns in East-Central Europe (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Wei Chu.

    This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While caves have traditionally been seen as prime habitats for early hominins, the prevalence of open-air Aurignacian sites in East-Central Europe has long invited a broader investigation into the spatial preferences and adaptive strategies of early humans in the region. One such early adaptation that has been suggested are...

  • Coastal Echoes: Marine Mollusk Exploitation and Shell Bead Production at Riparo Bombrini (Ventimiglia, Italy) during the Early Upper Paleolithic (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Silvia Gazzo.

    This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. <html> Marine mollusks were first deliberately collected for food consumption and tool production during the Middle Paleolithic in Europe. However, it was with the emergence of Homo sapiens in the Early Upper Paleolithic that a profound shift occurred, leading to the systematic and extensive gathering of these marine resources....

  • Cross-referencing proxies to refine the Aurignacian socio-cultural geographies (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Luc Doyon.

    This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Aurignacian is a pivotal technocomplex in European prehistory marked by the development of novel socio-economic strategies, and symbolic and cultural systems at a continental scale. In recent decades, efforts were made to outline the contour of the cultural provinces occupied by the human groups comprised within the...

  • Early Upper Palaeolithic Technical Behaviour at Apidima (Peloponnese, Greece): Technological Analysis of the Lithic Assemblage from Cave C (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Serena Lombardo.

    This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Apidima cave complex (Caves A-E, Peloponnese, Greece) is among the most significant Palaeolithic sites in south-eastern Europe. Two fossilized human crania recovered from Cave A in the 1970s-80s, indicate the presence of an early H. sapiens population followed by a Neanderthal one in the Middle Pleistocene. Important...

  • Entrer Trois to Trois-D: Comparing Châtelperronian and Protoaurignacian Blade Technology (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Samantha Porter.

    This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We know that Neanderthals and Anatomically Modern Humans were exchanging DNA, but were they also exchanging ideas? In this paper, we investigate this question by comparing lithic technology across the so-called “Middle to Upper Paleolithic Transition” in western Europe. Assemblages studied include La Rochette couche 7...

  • Exploring cultural transmission dynamics and chrono-cultural variability in the Aurignacian: Insights from the Italian Peninsula (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Armando Falcucci.

    This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Aurignacian marks a critical phase in the expansion of Homo sapiens across Europe, defined by considerable internal variability. In Italy, this variability is evident as the earliest Aurignacian in the north appears contemporaneous with the Uluzzian in the south, highlighting distinct regional trajectories worth in-depth...

  • First Case of Aurignacian in Central Iberia: The Assemblage of La Malia LU-V (Spain) (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Manuel Alcaraz-Castaño.

    This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Aurignacian shows an uneven distribution in the Iberian Peninsula. Protoaurignacian and Early Aurignacian industries are only clearly recorded in the northern regions, while south of the Ebro basin only late Aurignacian sites have been unquestionably documented, besides controversial cases. Yet, all these sites are located...

  • Indeterminate Early Upper Palaeolithic Assemblages as Signals of Variability during the Aurignacian in Iberia (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Canessa.

    This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Aurignacian has long been associated with the emergence and expansion of modern humans across Europe. However, despite or because of its broad distribution, artefact assemblages attributed to the techno-complex show considerable variability at both regional and chronological scales. One current obstacle for understanding...

  • Investigating the Aurignacian as basic science in paleoanthropology (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Julien Riel-Salvatore.

    This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Probably more so than any other technocomplex, research on the Aurignacian sensu lato has been a crucible of basic science in Paleolithic archaeology and paleoanthropology. Over the past century and a half, steady research on this industry has greatly refined our understanding of its defining features and, increasingly, its...

  • On the Western Edge of Italy: the Site of Riparo Bombrini in the Frame of Early Upper Palaeolithic in Italy (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Fabio Negrino.

    This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Riparo Bombrini site is located in the famous Balzi Rossi archaeological area in western Liguria. The site has preserved cultural remains from the Proto-Aurignacian and Classical Aurignacian periods, dating from about 42,000 to 33,000 years ago. The Proto-Aurignacian level testifies to the earliest presence of AMHs in...

  • Tracing Cultural Connections in the Levantine Upper Paleolithic: The Case of the Levantine Aurignacian (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Maayan Shemer.

    This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since its first definition in the early twentieth century, the Levantine Aurignacian has been closely associated with the Aurignacian technocomplex of Western Europe, based on close similarities in the guiding fossils retrieved from both regions. Their distinction compared to the local archaeological record further stressed this...