Christelle Lahaye

Université Bordeaux Montaigne | UB3 · Institute of Archaeomaterials Research (IRAMAT)

Deep-sea pollen records from the Western European margin show that during the Last Glacial period (115-27 ka), regional vegetation oscillated between steppe and open forest in response to the millennial scale climate variability, Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) cycles and Heinrich events (HE), and that the magnitude of the forest expansions during D-O war...

A new ‘‘pyrénéo-garonnais’’ Acheulean occurrence and the question of the regionalization of lithic production at the end of the Middle Pleistocene: The Cassé site at Cornebarrieu (Haute-Garonne). An excavation at Le Cassé (Cornebarrieu, Haute-Garonne) has provided new data on Late Middle Pleistocene technical production on the northern slopes of th...

Des occupations de la première partie du Pléistocène supérieur ont été identifiées sur le site archéologique de Brive-Laroche-Aérodrome (Corrèze, France) dans le cadre d'une fouille préventive. Les données livrées par cette opération permettent de s'interroger sur les comportements techno-économiques des groupes néandertaliens entre le Périgord et...

Determining the impact of climatic variations on past human cultural changes is a difficult task due to the chronological uncertainties inherent to the dating methods applied to archaeological and paleoclimatic archives, and by the different temporal resolution of both archives. Here, we present two high-resolution pollen-based palaeoenvironmental...

Deep-sea and terrestrial records allow to document the amplitude, timing and duration of the oceanic and vegetation responses to orbital and millennial-scale changes, in particular during North Atlantic cooling events (Heinrich events, HEs) in Western Europe during the Last Glacial Period (~115- 27 ka). We propose a multiproxy study based on two de...

The 12 m thick sequence of calcareous slope deposits and palaeosols exposed in a quarry at Verteuil (southwest France) has been studied and dated by optically stimulated luminescence. Emphasis was given to the identification and characterisation of palaeosols through geochemistry and micromorphology. The main clastic units, separated by major uncon...

A Third Neanderthal Individual from La Ferrassie • 99 ABSTRACT The Paleolithic site of La Ferrassie (SW France) has been extensively studied since its discovery during the 19th century. In addition to a large sequence including Middle and Upper Paleolithic layers, the site has yielded two very complete adult Neanderthal skeletons, five partial imma...

In French : Cette contribution a pour objet de retranscrire l’histoire du site paléolithique de La Balutie (Montignac-Lascaux, Dordogne, France). L’histoire de ce site très tôt oublié, n’est ni sensationnelle, ni exceptionnelle, mais s’avère retranscrire l’atmosphère caractérisant les débuts des explorations des gisements préhistoriques de Dordogn...

Evaluating synchronies between climate and cultural changes is a prerequisite for addressing the possible effect of environmental changes on human populations. Searching for synchronies during the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition (ca. 48–36 ka) is hampered by the limits of radiocarbon dating techniques and the large chronological uncertainties a...

Multiple factors have been proposed to explain the disappearance of Neandertals between ca. 50 and 40 kyr BP. Central to these discussions has been the identification of new techno-cultural complexes that overlap with the period of Neandertal demise in Europe. One such complex is the Châtelperronian, which extends from the Paris Basin to the Northe...

Abstract. In this work, we propose to examine human activities from 72 occupations within a well-defined territory, the Bergeracois, during the Pleistocene between 250 kyr and 35 kyr. The study is based on bibliographical data stemming from programmed excavations and from rescue archaeology operations undertaken in this area (installation of rings...

In order to successfully understand the complex evolution of prehistoric societies, archaeologists require absolute dating tools, which are not only accurate but also widely applicable. Thermoluminescence (TL) dating is one such approach that has been successfully used to establish a general chronological framework for prehistoric sites and is part...

Archaeological research of late Pleistocene sites in northeastern Brazil has rarely analyzed site formation processes from a geoarchaeological perspective. This has contributed to the long-held debate over the reliability of Pleistocene ages and the anthropic origin of stone tools and combustion features. In this work, we combine high-resolution ge...

Statistical analysis has become increasingly important in optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating since it has become possible to measure signals at the single-grain scale. The accuracy of large chronological datasets can benefit from the inclusion, in chronological modelling, of stratigraphic constraints and shared systematic errors. Recent...

Current archaeological paradigm proposes that the first peopling of the Americas does not exceed the Last Glacial Maximum period. In this context, the acceptance of the anthropogenic character of the earliest stone artefacts generally rests on the presence of projectile points considered no more as typocentric but as typognomonic, since it allows,...

En este trabajo se hace una presentación de las investigaciones arqueológicas desarrolladas en el yacimiento de Aranbaltza (Barrika, Bizkaia), uno de los escasos yacimientos paleolíticos al aire libre conservados en la región cantábrica. Su registro es especialmente rico en ocupaciones realizadas por grupos de neandertales, desde finales del Pleist...

The origin of funerary practices has important implications for the emergence of so-called modern cognitive capacities and behaviour. We provide new multidisciplinary information on the archaeological context of the La Ferrassie 8 Neandertal skeleton (grand abri of La Ferrassie, Dordogne, France), including geochronological data -¹⁴C and OSL-, ZooM...

Statistical analysis has become increasingly important in the field of OSL dating since it has become possible to measure signals at the single grain scale. The accuracy of large chronological datasets can benefit from the inclusion, in chronological modelling, of stratigraphic constraints and shared systematic errors. Recently, a number of Bayesia...

Southwestern France is an area well known for its numerous Middle Paleolithic occupations, as evidenced by the eponymous site of Le Moustier or other major sites such as Combe-Grenal or La Ferrassie among others. However, these sites are almost all located in a small area between the Vézère and the Dordogne valleys. Although a few sites have been e...

In situ gamma spectrometry is a useful technique used by the Luminescence and ESR dating community to improve the representativity of dose rate measurements in the context of gamma dose rate heterogeneities around dated material. This paper presents `gamma', a new R package and its graphical user interface `gammaShiny', allowing a reliable and repr...

We present evidence of Middle Pleistocene activity in the central Aegean Basin at the chert extraction and reduction complex of Stelida (Naxos, Greece). Luminescence dating places ~9000 artifacts in a stratigraphic sequence from ~13 to 200 thousand years ago (ka ago). These artifacts include Mousterian products, which arguably provide first evidenc...

Neanderthal material culture patterning in Western Europe has been primarily approached from retouched stone tools and associated flake production methods. While considerable effort has been devoted over the past decade to better characterize Middle Palaeolithic lithic techno-complexes (LTCs) in this region, the extent to which they reflect cultura...

Since 2013, new excavations have focused on the northern part of the Toca da Janela da Barra do Antonião (TJBA-N) rockshelter, which is located on the edge of the Serra da Capivara National Park in Brazil. Ten sediment samples were dated by multigrain quartz OSL and three samples by feldspar IRSL. Multigrain OSL ages on quartz were assessed using t...

Este libro constituye una primera recopilación de técnicas arqueométricas elementales, moleculares, de datación y de prospección, además de casos de estudio originales en los cuales la utilización de estos análisis contribuyó con resultados enriquecedores y significativos a la interpretación arqueológica de variadas dimensiones materiales y cultura...

This paper presents a chronological framework for the site of Les Pradelles (Marillac-le-Franc, Charente, France). In the East locus of the site, four meters of sediments preserve late Middle Paleolithic archaeological materials with Quina Mousterian lithics associated with abundant reindeer-dominated faunal remains. During the most recent excavati...

The newly reported California discovery of mastodon remains possibly altered by humans more than 130 ka is unprecedented and potentially transformational. It calls for a concerted effort in North and South America to investigate other such ancient contexts that substantially predate the commonly accepted late-glacial timing of the first peopling of...

The site of La Quina Amont, located in the Charente region, is one of the most important sites in southwestern France for studying major changes in human behaviors from the Middle Paleolithic (MP) to the Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP). Extensively excavated over the past 50 years, numerous dating studies have been focused on the Upper Paleolithic de...

The site of Regourdou is situated in the community of Montignac-sur-Vézère (Dordogne, SW France), on the left bank of the Vézère Valley, at the top of the hill upon which the Paleolithic sites of Lascaux Cave and La Balutie are located. A partial Neandertal skeleton (Regourdou 1) was first discovered there in September 1957 under destructive and un...

Luminescence ages are calculated by dividing an absorbed dose by the dose rate to which the natural dosimeter has been exposed. In practice, one measures an equivalent dose, De; in the absence of an alpha dose contribution, this should be indistinguishable from the dose absorbed in nature. Here we first review the relationship between absorbed dose...

Pleistocene archaeological sites in serra da capivara munufacture and use of lithic implements at Vale da Pedra Furada (Piaui, Brazil)

The position of the corpse of Regourdou 1 has never been discussed on the basis of available documents related to its 1957 discovery and the subsequent 1961-64 excavations. Considering new data (Bordes’ field notes, 2 unpublished drawings, 1957 and 1961 photographs, new human remains, labels or texts written on the bones, distribution of the1961 sp...

A function named textitanalyse_baSAR() was written using the statistical programming language textbfR and its code is now available within thetextbfR package 'Luminescence'. The function allows the application of the Bayesian hierarchical model 'baSAR' proposed by Combés et al. (2015) and comes with additional features to analyse luminescence data...

Measuring the infrared radiofluorescence (IR-RF) signal of K-feldspars, which is thought to be not affected by any anomalous fading potentially provides a promising alternative dating approach to the more studied IR and pIRIR signals. Here we report a series of experiments aimed at characterising the IR-RF signal, which led us to propose an improve...

Sítio do Meio, discovered in the 1990s, showed a sedimentary sequence clearly composed of two sets of deposits separated by a zone of large rockfall from the massive collapse of the shelter’s overhang. The bottom set, slightly more than 60 cm thick, was trapped between the bedrock (upon which it rested) and the lower part of the roof fall (reaching...

Valle Giumentina is a Pleistocene open-air site in Central Italy (Abruzzo). Nine archaeological layers occur in the last 25 m of a 70 m thick sedimentary sequence. In the 1950s, the various archaeological layers were attributed to the Clactonian, Acheulian and Levalloisian traditions. Recent multidisciplinary fieldwork and studies (2012e2016) acqui...

Located in southwest France, Roc de Marsal is a cave with a rich Mousterian stratigraphic sequence. The lower part of the sequence (Layers 9–5) are characterized by assemblages dominated by Levallois lithic technology associated with composite faunal spectra (including red deer, roe deer and reindeer) that shows a gradual increase in the frequency...

n this study, we propose and implement a Bayesian model to estimate a central equivalent dose from a set of luminescence measurements. This model is based on assumptions similar to the ones used in the standard statistical pipeline (typically implemented in the Analyst software followed by a subsequent central equivalent dose analysis) but tackles...

Importance of field data and understanding of a potential Mousterian funerary deposit: the Regourdou 1 skeleton (Montignac-sur-Vézère, Dordogne, France). Aside from the work of Bonifay (see Bonifay et al. 2007 for one of the more recent papers) and various articles following these earlier works (e.g., Binant 1991, Defleur 1993, Maureille et Vanderm...

Aside from the work of Bonifay (see Bonifay et al. 2007 for one of the more recent papers) and various articles following these earlier works (e.g., Binant 1991, Defleur 1993, Maureille et Vandermeersch 2007, Pettitt 2011, see also May 1986 for a more critical analysis), the in situ position of the remains of Regourdou 1 from layer 4 has never actu...

The Bergerac region of south-western France is well known for its wealth of Middle Palaeolithic open-air sites. However, their chronology remains poorly understood due to the complexity of the deposits and difficulties applying radiometric dating techniques. Combe Brune 2, excavated in 2006 and 2007 by the INRAP (Institut National de Recherches Arc...

A new interdisciplinary project was initiated to excavate a portion of the Palaeolithic site of La Ferrassie left intact by earlier excavations. One of the aims of this project was to provide chronological information on the succession of Middle and Upper Palaeolithic layers, as well as on the skeletons unearthed by Capitan and Peyrony in the early...

Measuring the infrared radiofluorescence (IR-RF) signal is methodologically simpler than measuring the IRSL or TL signals. However, unlike classical luminescence measurements, the IR-RF signal is totally resetting when its highest value is reached. Previous studies (Buylaert et al., 2012; Trautmann et al., 2000) reported that the proper bleaching l...

The date of the first settlement of the Americas remains a contentious subject. Previous claims for very early occupation at Pedra Furada in Brazil were not universally accepted (see Meltzer et al. 1994). New work at the rockshelter of Boqueirão da Pedra Furada and at the nearby open-air site of Vale da Pedra Furada have however produced new eviden...

The objective of the Franco-Brazilian mission, established in 2008 at the request of and in collaboration with Brazilian researchers, was to address the issue of the earliest peopling of South America as evidenced in northeastern Brazil. Such early settlement had been suggested, and in our view demonstrated, by the previous research undertaken at t...

Les nouvelles fouilles menées depuis 2008 dans le parc de la Serra da Capivara – Piaui, Brésil - et sa périphérie ont apporté de nouveaux éléments à la compréhension des peuplements pléistocènes du sud du Piaui. La multiplicité des sites localisés dans des environnements géomorphologiques différents, les datations croisées ainsi que les nombreux ar...