Francesco d’Errico

• French National Centre for Scientific Research

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We challenge the view that our species, Homo sapiens, evolved within a single population and/or region of Africa. Genetic data are consistent with a diverse and subdivided African ancestry, potentially including gene flow with currently unidentified African archaic populations. The chronology and physical diversity of Pleistocene human fossils also...

We challenge the view that our species, Homo sapiens, evolved within a single population and/or region of Africa. The chronology and physical diversity of Pleistocene human fossils suggest that morphologically varied populations pertaining to the H. sapiens clade lived throughout Africa. Similarly, the African archaeological record demonstrates the...

The originally published version of this Article contained an error in Fig. 3, whereby an additional unrelated graph was overlaid on top of the magnetic susceptibility plot. Furthermore, the Article title contained an error in the capitalisation of 'Stone Age'. Both of these errors have now been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Ar...

The Middle to Later Stone Age transition in Africa has been debated as a significant shift in human technological, cultural, and cognitive evolution. However, the majority of research on this transition is currently focused on southern Africa due to a lack of long-term, stratified sites across much of the African continent. Here, we report a 78,000...

Twenty-Seven Lower and Middle Paleolithic sites from Europe and the Middle East are reported in the literature to have yielded incised stones. At eleven of these sites incisions are present on flint cortexes. Even when it is possible to demonstrate that the engravings are ancient and human made, it is often difficult to distinguish incisions result...

The Middle Stone Age in Africa The Olorgesailie basin in the southern Kenya rift valley contains sediments dating back to 1.2 million years ago, preserving a long archaeological record of human activity and environmental conditions. Three papers present the oldest East African evidence of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) and elucidate the system of techn...

We report the results of a detailed analysis of ostrich eggshell (OES) beads derived mainly from Cultural Layer 2 (CL2) of Locality 2 at the Shuidonggou site (SDG2) in North China, which is dated to ca. 31 ka cal BP. The eggshells belong to the extinct ostrich Struthio anderssoni. Based on microscopic examination, morphometric analysis, and experim...

Ochre pieces from Porc-Epic Cave. Photos of the pieces and modifications. (PDF)

Detailed results of the technological analysis of ochre pieces. Colour, raw material and modifications of ochre pieces. (PDF)

You can find the full text of this paper on a public not-for-profit archive : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01838850v1

Discussion about early projectile technology typically includes criteria used to distinguish artefacts used as hafted points from those employed for other purposes, associated faunal and lithic assemblages, palaeoenvironment, age of the material, associated hominins and their cognitive capacities, criteria used to identify complex technology and co...

Based on the morphology of two deciduous molars and radiocarbon ages from layers D and E of the Grotta del Cavallo (Lecce, Italy), assigned to the Uluzzian, it has been proposed that modern humans were the makers of this Early Upper Paleolithic culture and that this finding considerably weakens the case for an independent emergence of symbolism amo...

Reassessment of the archaeological assemblages recovered by Kenneth D. Williamson in 1975 and 1976 at Porc-Epic Cave, Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, demonstrates that the Middle Stone Age (MSA) levels of this site yielded one of the richest known collections of ochre and ochre processing tools from this period in terms of quantity. We analyze the vertical an...

Personal ornaments are a notable feature of the Early Upper Palaeolithic in Europe and an important expression of modern human identity. The tubular bone rod from Pod Hradem Cave in the Czech Republic is the first example of its kind from Central Europe. Laboratory examination reveals the techniques used in its manufacture and underlines the skill...

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Sketch section with evidence of the late Mousterian (A11-A5), Uluzzian (A4-A3) and the earliest Aurignacian layers (A2), with variable content in archaeological remains (increasing from light gray to dark gray and black). Center below, a section drawn 0,6m east of the main one (by M. Cremaschi & M. Peresani, redrawn by S. Muratori). (TIF)

Map of Fumane Cave with the excavated area of A9 unit indicated in gray. (JPG)

Three views of the context where the shell was found in unit A9 in the rear of the cave. Above, the entrance of cave during the fieldwork. Below, unit A9 in square 147 with flakes and bones embedded in dark sediment. (PDF)

Available radiometric dates for the Mousterian units of Fumane Cave (data from [40,41]). (XLS)

The last decade has witnessed remarkable discoveries and advances in our understanding of the tool using behaviour of animals. Wild populations of capuchin monkeys have been observed to crack open nuts with stone tools, similar to the skills of chimpanzees and humans. Corvids have been observed to use and make tools that rival in complexity the beh...

The transition from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) to the Later Stone Age (LSA) in South Africa was not associated with the appearance of anatomically modern humans and the extinction of Neandertals, as in the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition in Western Europe. It has therefore attracted less attention, yet it provides insights into patterns of t...

References (Text)

Personal ornaments have come to play an important role in the debate on the emergence of symbolic thought and the evolution of our ancestors’ cognitive capacities. They could equally yield key information on social organisation and individual status within Upper Palaeolithic societies. In traditional societies, personal ornaments play at least four...

Discovery of pigments at Middle Palaeolithic sites is of interest in the context of the ongoing debate about the tempo and mode of the emergence of modern human behaviour. Here we analyse four previously undescribed fragments of pigmental material from Es-Skhul shelter, layer B, Israel, McCown excavations, identified at the Department of Palaeontol...

Two sites of the Neandertal-associated Middle Paleolithic of Iberia, dated to as early as approximately 50,000 years ago, yielded perforated and pigment-stained marine shells. At Cueva de los Aviones, three umbo-perforated valves of Acanthocardia and Glycymeris were found alongside lumps of yellow and red colorants, and residues preserved inside a...

Interventional radiology procedures can be very complex and they can lead to relatively high doses to personnel who stand close to the primary radiation field and are mostly exposed to radiation scattered by the patient. For the adequate dosimetry of the scattered photons, APDs must be able to respond to low-energy [10–100 keV] and pulsed radiation...

Dans une publication récente, Gravina et collaborateurs (2005) admettent qu'une interstratification entre industries châtelperroniennes et aurignaciennes est avérée dans la grotte des Fées, phénomène qui implique une longue contemporanéité entre les populations porteuses de ces deux technocomplexes. Cette interprétation, qui s'appuie essentiellemen...

Level IV of Molodova I, an open-air Middle Paleolithic site in the Ukraine has been described by some researchers as a possible source of evidence for early symbolic behavior. We examined bone objects from this layer that were identified by Ukrainian researchers as exhibiting possible Neandertal produced engravings including two anthropomorphic fig...

Until half a century ago, hunter-gatherer cultures – whether modern, pre-modern, or prehistoric – were generally considered egalitarian. Although recent anthropological research has shown that social non-biological group distinctions, based, depending on the circumstances, on specialisation, wealth, or religious or even political power, was not exc...

The Châtelperronian is a Neandertal-associated archeological culture featuring ornaments and decorated bone tools. It is often suggested that such symbolic items do not imply that Neandertals had modern cognition and stand instead for influences received from coeval, nearby early modern humans represented by the Aurignacian culture, whose precocity...

Archaeozoological and technological analyses of the grave goods associated with the Saint-Germain-la-Rivière burial (15,570 ± 200 B.P.) and their comparison with ornaments and faunal assemblages from contemporary Magdalenian sites and burials reveal the exceptional character of this inhumation. The great number of perforated red deer canines and th...

Purported early hominid bone tools from Olduvai Gorge are studied for microscopic traces of use-wear, and evidence of intentional flaking by knapping. Comparative microscopic analyses of the edges of the purported tools, and areas far from the potential functional zone, as well as edges of bone pieces from the remainder of the assemblage, show that...

Reflections on the possible role of climate in cultural change and human population replacement are still rare. In this respect, the comments provided by Finlayson and collaborators to our paper must be welcomed and considered as a valuable opportunity to go deeper into the mechanisms of such interactions. However, we find a number of contradiction...

New radiocarbon dates and results of new analyses from Geissenklösterle (Conard and Bolus JHE, 40: 331-71) were recently used to suggest that the Aurignacian of the Swabian Jura dates back to 40 ka BP and that this evidence supports the Kulturpumpe model according to which cultural innovations of the Aurignacian and Gravettian in Swabia predate sim...

Archaeozoological and technological analysis of the grave goods associated to the Saint-Germain-la-Rivière burial (15 570 ± 200 BP) and their comparison with ornaments and faunal assemblages from contemporary Magdalenian sites and burials reveal the exceptional character of this inhumation. The great number of perforated red deer canines and the pr...

We present an assessment of the criticisms that have been raised against our argument that the emergence of the Aurignacian dated to no earlier than ca.36.5 kyr BP and post-dated the emergence of the so-called “Transitional” technocomplexes of Europe. In particular, evidence from the sites of El Castillo, Geissenklösterle and Grotte du Renne is dis...

Population models seeking climate as a triggering factor for the extinction of Neandertals and the colonisation of Europe by Anatomically Modern Humans are contradictory due to uncertainties in the dating methods, in the cultural attribution of archaeological layers and to the lack of terrestrial continuous and well-dated palaeoclimatic sequences....

Taphonomic, technological and morphometric analysis of the ornaments associated to the La Madeleine child burial, Dordogne region, is used to reconstruct bead manufacturing techniques, arrangements and use wear. Dentalium shells were snapped or sawed to produce similar tubular beads which are 6-7 mm long by 1.8 mm wide. Dentalium breakage patterns...

The Piedra Museo site (Santa Cruz, Argentina), excavated over the past nine years has yielded a rich archaeological record, which contributes to the discussion on the first peopling of the Americas. We present here a new study of the site, based on an analysis of the stratigraphy, spatial distribution of archaeological remains, bone taphonomy, and...