The new bataille aurignacienne. A critical analysis of Chatelperronian andAurignacian chronology.

For the last ten years, the debate on modem human origins and Neandertal ex tinction in Europe has been based on the assumption that the earliest Aurig nacian of northern Spain dates to ca. 40 000 years ago. This chronology has been used in support of the view that Neandertals went extinct without des cent as a consequence of the biological and cultural superiority of moderns . The arrival of the latter would have triggered, through imitation or accu lturation, the appearance of a new lithic technology, of ornaments, and of bone tools, among some late Neandertal groups, a phenomenon best exemplifie d by the Chatelperronian. We argue here that such an early dating of the Au rignacian is not supported by the evidence. It is based on samples of dubio us cultural meaning, either because collected in palimpsests containing oth er archaeological components or because the definition of the artefact suit es as Aurignacian is not warranted. Wherever sample context is archaeologic ally secure, the earliest occurrences of the Aurignacian date to no more th an ca. 36 500 B.P. In accordance with the pattern of succession documented in tens of stratigraphic sequences from Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Mora via, Bulgaria and Greece, these occurrences are later than the Chatelperron ian and equivalent technocomplexes of central and eastern Europe. The appea rance of the latter in the archaeological record is consistently dated by d ifferent methods to before ca. 38 000 B.P. Given the anatomical information on their makers provided by the human remains found at Saint-Cesaire and G rotte du Renne, the acculturation model is refuted: Neandertals had already accomplished their own Middle-to-tipper Paleolithic transition when the fi rst Aurignacian modems arrived in Europe. (C) 2000 Editions scientifiques e t medicales Elsevier SAS.