Background:

Neandertals and their Mousterian culture are usually considered as having been highly adapted to their difficult and often cold Eurasian Plesitocene environments, and concomitantly unable to adapt to new regions or climates or to compete with expanding modern human populations. Understanding the history of population size and structure among Neandertals may provide insights into how well they adapted to new regions or climates and possibly as to why their morphology and culture disappeared around 30,000 years ago.  Recent analyses of Neandertal mitochondrial genetic diversity suggest that Neandertal effective population sizes throughout Eurasia were low not only for later Neandertals, but over a longer period of their existence as well.  Genetic, zooarchaeological, and cultural evidence from older periods are therefore neceassy to determine if Neandertal effective population sizes were higher in earlier periods, such as the last interglacial, or OIS 5 (127 - 71 kya), when Neandertal populations in Eurasia might be expected to have been larger than during later glacial periods. The OIS 5 period, and especially OIS 5e (127 ~ 117 kya, the warmest substage, known as the Eemian period), is however less well known than more recent times in Europe. In southern France, for example, out of over 50 Middle Paleolithic sites, several date to OIS 5, but only a few to 5e.  Here we present initial results from two seasons of excavation of Le Grand Abri aux Puces, a site which has been known for over a century, can be attributed to this period, and which holds great potential for our understanding of Neandertal behavior and adaptation during the last interglacial.

The Site:

Le Grand Abri aux Puces (GAP; French for ‘big rock-shelter of the fleas’), located on the right bank of the Ouvèze River in the north of the Vaucluse department of Provence in southern France, was discovered in the late 1870’s by Hector Nicolas, a road and bridge engineer from Avignon. GAP was known to contain a Mousterian industry associated with a Pleistocene fauna comprised of around 30 elements from nine large mammal species and one species of turtle (the fauna, collected from the surface in the 1950’s by Sylvain Gagnière, then Director of Prehistoric Antiquities of Provence-Côte-d’Azur-Corsica, is conserved in the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle Esprit Requien in Avignon). The only cultural information available for GAP was a drawing of a lithic from Henry de Lumley’s doctoral thesis. Other than these few surface collections, nothing was known of the exact stratigraphy of the site nor if its real archaeological potential.

GAP, also called ‘Grotte Basse’ (low cave) by Sylvain Gagnière, is not really a rock-shelter, but rather a vast cavity whose vault currently covers a surface of ~110 m2 and is filled by a large, exclusively Pleistocene sedimentary sequence and an accumulation of stone blocks. The ceiling’s height is rarely more than 1 meter, and moving about in the cave was initially only possible by crawling. The name ‘Grotte Basse’ is therefore more appropriate. 

The Team:

Results:

The data from the charcoals, the malacofauna, microfauna, macrofauna suggest the site dates to a warm phase of OIS 5. The presence of the Greek/Hermann's tortoise suggests very strong warming. Meanwhile, the absence of fallow deer, frequently present in interglacial contexts, is surprising. Also, wild boar and roe deer, forest animals, are not very representative of a Mediterranean environment. The presence of more northern species would imply mean annual temperatures notably lower than today, but these northern/forest aspects of the site could reasonably be due to its elevation and proximity to the foothills of the Alps. Other aspects of the fauna, such as the archaicness of the wolf and ibex, align the deposit with others from the Eemian. Together, the data suggest the site is most likely attributable to the debut of the OIS 5e, but possibly to 5c or 5a. Palynological sampling from hyena coprolites, and geological sampling for U-series and micro-tephra analyses have not yet been performed, but the quality of preservation suggests that such sampling will be fruitful.

Zooarchaeologically, it is interesting to note that a large proportion of carnivore modifications are observed on carnivore bones themselves. Furthermore, almost one-third of the cutmarks are observed on beaver and lynx. The cutmarks on these two species are present on whole elements such as mandibles, cranial elements, pelves and metapodials, which are not very fleshy areas. The cutmarks on red deer and roe deer are on meatier limb shaft fragments. These initial observations suggest that human modifications of beaver and lynx might have been aimed at procuring their pelts. This preliminary hypothesis will be further tested as work continues. The presence of burnt bones and cutmarks are important indicators of human interaction with the faunal remains at the site. However, our data also suggests that the majority of faunal remains may have been brought into the site by carnivores, or at least very quickly scavenged after humans left the site, and especially by wolves, as they are the most abundant species by NISP and the tooth marks studied are more compatible with wolf than hyena. The high degree of bone surface preservation at the site provides the opportunity to analyze, in detail, the role of humans versus carnivores in the accumulation of the faunal remains.

As for the lithics, as of December 2009, 483 pieces have been found and studied by project leader Ludovic Slimak.  Astonishingly, almost every piece found is a beautiful, finished tool.  There is almost no evidence of flaking activities having taken place inside the cave, and what little there is, the flaking is on local pebbles from the Ouvèze riverbed. To the extent that it has been determined thus far, the rest of the tools are made on a wide and geographically distributed variety of raw materials. A majority of the stone tools retain their original freshness and preserve microscopic use wear, some still with red ochre.  Team member Laure Metz is analyzing the polishes from these tools to discern if it is possible to precisely define how and against what types of materials they were used. Initial results suggest the polish on several pieces to be the result of carcass disarticulation or defleshing, as well as working and making punctures in hides.

The lithic elements, mainly composed of finished tools, and made from widely distributed raw material sources, lead us to hypothesize brief passages of hunting groups in the cave focused around an anticipated activity, possibly not only hunting but also procuring pelts, while the rest of the time the site was mainly occupied by carnivores. This hypothesis will be refined and tested during further excavations…

GAP is a rare site in that, not only it is attributable to the OIS 5, and most likely to 5e, but it has immaculate preservation of charcoals, land snails, microfauna, macrofauna, and stone tool usewear.  The fauna is one of the most diverse yet discovered in Provence and is very rich in carnivore remains.  The GAP sequence is valuable because, as opposed to many other Middle Paleolithic sites which sample multiple time-periods and myriad types of behaviors superimposed on top of one another, here we seem to have evidence of brief, punctuated, and anticipated activities, probably hunting stops and pelt collecting.  This will allow us to reconstruct specific ranging, subsistence, and technological behaviors at precise points in time in the sequence.

The Article:

our full report based on the first year of work was published a few months ago in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Slimak, L., Lewis, J.E., Crégut-Bonnoure, É., Metz, L., Ollivier, V., André, P., Chzrazvez, J., Giraud, Y., Jeannet, M., Magnin, F. (2010). Le Grand Abri aux Puces (Vaucluse, France), a Middle Paleolithic Site from the Last Interglacial: Paleogeography, Paleoenvironment, and New Excavation Results. Journal of Archaeological Science, 37: 2747-2761. 

[Slimak 2010.pdf] [GAP Supplement.doc]

Neandertal Behavior During the Last Interglacial