The Middle/Upper Paleolithic Transition in Europe at Kostenki

Although the various assemblages recovered from the layers underlying the tephra at Kostenki cannot be readily fit into Upper Paleolithic cultural classifications devised for western and central Europe, they do fall broadly into the categories of "non-transitional" and "transitional," which parallels a pattern seen throughout the continent. In his comments, Hawks states that our discussion of the two assemblage types is contradictory, but I think this is due largely to an unfortunate choice of verb ("represent" rather than "contain") in the opening sentence of the discussion. What is significant about the assemblages in the lowest levels at Kostenki is the presence of an industry that exhibits a sharp break with the Middle Paleolithic. The contents of the assemblage in Layer IVb at Kostenki 14--worked bone and antler tools, perforated shells imported from distances of at least 500 km, a carved piece of mammoth ivory (whether it represents a piece of art or technology)--these are items that are completely lacking in the Middle Paleolithic of eastern Europe. The stone artifacts, which include small prismatic blade cores, bladelets, and burins, also are not typical of Middle Paleolithic or transitional assemblages.

Although associated human skeletal remains are limited to a couple of isolated teeth, we assume that modern humans made these artifacts, and this leads to the key conclusion of the paper--that modern humans appeared on the central East European Plain at least as early as they appeared in places like Bulgaria and Italy.

The presence of transitional assemblages in the form of those assigned to Strelets does not contradict or negate this conclusion. The Strelets assemblages represent a classic transitional industry that is dominated by Middle Paleolithic technology and tool types and devoid of elements exclusively associated with industries produced by modern humans (e.g., figurative art). But the makers of these assemblages, which are found both below and above the tephra at Kostenki, is not clear. As noted in the Science paper, they may represent an activity variant (e.g., kill-butchery tool kit and associated debris) and a prime example is found in Layer III of Kostenki 12, where the Strelets tools and few waste flakes are found with a mass of horse and reindeer bones. Recently, a similar assemblage was recovered in an early Upper Paleolithic context at Mamontovaya Kurya on the Arctic Circle in northern Russia. I doubt that Neandertals made the tools at Mamontovaya Kurya. Nevertheless, the problem of the Strelets assemblages remains unresolved; they may or may not represent a true analog of the Chatelperronian or Uluzzian in eastern Europe.

Chronological Frameworks

In his final comment, Hawks notes that the limitations of radiocarbon dating the Middle/Upper Paleolithic transition revealed at Kostenki have implications for other sites and regions. On this point, I fully concur. Sites and assemblages dating to the period of the transition cannot be dated by radiocarbon alone, because both transitional and non-transitional industries are present in Europe prior to 40,000 calendar years ago. The chronological framework must be based primarily on other methods, such as tephrochronology, paleomagnetic stratigraphy, and OSL-preferably as many as possible at any one location.

John F. Hoffecker
Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research
University of Colorado at Boulder
16 January 2007

Previous

• 1
• 2

Next