Indeterminate Early Upper Palaeolithic Assemblages as Signals of Variability during the Aurignacian in Iberia

Summary

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 these patterns therefore concerns the discordance between this variability and conventional models of its successive (or not) variants. This is particularly relevant in the Iberian Peninsula, where Aurignacian assemblages of variable composition are contemporaneous with assemblages deemed culturally indeterminate. However, the extent to which these indeterminate Early Upper Palaeolithic assemblages reflect an internal variability of the Aurignacian techno-complex is not fully understood. This presentation therefore explores the role of mobility and site occupation in the composition of these assemblages whilst demonstrating how cultural taxonomies serve to conceal underlying variation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53907