Marie-Hélène Moncel

Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle · Department of Prehistory

Here we revise all the paleontological sample of Notarchirico, including historical collections and new findings collected during 2016–2023 excavations. Notarchirico is one of the most significant sites for the study of human evolution and terrestrial ecosystem dynamics during the Early-Middle Pleistocene Transition, preserving nearly 100.000 years...

Polyhedrons, spheroids and bolas (PSBs) are exceptionally perennial and ubiquitous objects found in Palaeolithic sites throughout the Old World over two million years. This study proposes an integrative and comparative analysis of PSBs from nine assemblages from France and North Africa, dated between 1.77 and 0.169 Ma. A technological analysis, com...

The Middle Pleistocene site of Notarchirico plays a crucial role to study the arrival and evolution of the Acheulean technology in Western Europe and its relationship with human behavior. First excavations (1979 to 1995), coordinated by Marcello Piperno, led to the discovery of 11 archaeological levels (from alpha (α), to G) in a seven-meter-deep s...

The emergence of the Middle Palaeolithic, and its variability over time and space are key questions in the field of prehistoric archaeology. Many sites have been documented in the south-eastern margins of the Massif central and the middle Rhône valley, a migration path that connects Northern Europe with the Mediterranean. Well-dated, long stratigra...

Notarchirico is one of the most important sites for the human evolution in the Mediterranean Europe during the Middle Pleistocene and for paleoenvironmental reconstruction during the Early-Middle Pleistocene Transition. The first findings date back to 1950s, when Virginia Ginetta Chiappella opened the first trench along the hill of Notarchirico. Ab...

The site of LuneryRosieres la-Terre-des-Sablons (Lunery, Cher, France) comprises early evidence of human occupation in mid-latitudes in Western Europe. It demonstrates hominin presence in the Loire River Basin during the Early Pleistocene at the transition between an interglacial stage and the beginning of the following glacial stage. Three archaeo...

The handaxe is an iconic stone tool form used to define and symbolise both the Acheulean and the wider Palaeolithic. There has long been debate around the extent of its morphological variability between sites, and the role that extrinsic factors (especially raw material, blank type, and the extent of resharpening) have played in driving this variab...

Pleistocene interglacials, specifically MIS 19, 11 and 5, have been suggested as analogues of MIS 1 due to similar solar forcing patterns, greenhouse gas concentrations and sea levels. There has been substantial debate regarding which of these is the most suitable analogue and so far there has been no consensus, although what really emerges from re...

Between 1.4 and 0.4 million years ago (Ma), a shift in climate cycles occurs with the transition from obliquity-driven 41 ka cycles to eccentricity-driven 100 ka cycles. This period is known as the Early-Middle Pleistocene Transition (EMPT), and coincided with the appearance of Early Hominins in Western Europe. Prehistoric sites such as Sima del El...

The long sedimentary sequence of Notarchirico has yielded evidence of one of the earliest Acheulean manifestations in Europe and of recurrent hominin occupation, spanning from the end of the interglacial MIS 17 to the glacial MIS 16 (~695-610 ka). Here, we report the new discovery of a lion, Panthera spelaea, from the site, based on a metatarsal fr...

The Latium area in Italy has yielded rich evidence of Lower Paleolithic sites with both faunal remains, artefacts, and human fossil remains, such as the Ceprano human skull. Many are the sites where lithic industry has been found in association with bone industry. Medium and large animals were a key resource because they provided an enormous amount...

Polyhedrons, spheroids and bolas (PSBs) have been found in lithic series spanning two million years, but their purpose remains largely unknown. In this study, we propose a functional analysis of PSBs from nine assemblages from France and North Africa, ranging from 1.78 to 0.169 Ma. By combining use-wear, ergonomic and metric analyses with sequentia...

Our work presents an updated overview of the Italian Middle Pleistocene records of hippopotamuses, including the two species Hippopotamus antiquus and Hippopotamus amphibius. In addition to reviewing several well-known fossils in the literature, a large number of samples are described herein for the first time. Following the recent results publishe...

In the Basilicata region, located in southern Italy and known for hosting among the first occurrences of the Acheulean culture in southwestern Europe, the Lower Paleolithic site of Loreto at Venosa is located less than a kilometer from the emblematic site of Notarchirico and less than 25 km from Cimitero di Atella. The Loreto site has not been stud...

New excavations at the Abri du Maras have revealed a thick sequence over 250 ka old with evidence of recurrent human occupations, first in a vast cavity, then in a collapsed shelter. The upper part, with a high density of material, is dated to MIS 3 with two distinct phases of occupation under a shelter. The lithic component is composed mainly of f...

The earliest evidence of bifaces in western Europe is dated to the initial phase of the Middle Pleistocene (la Noira, Notarchirico, Moulin Quignon, 700–670 ka), with the findings of Barranc de la Boella (1.0–0.9 Ma) considered to be an earlier local evolution. No transition assemblages are recorded during this time frame, and the “abrupt” appearanc...

New excavations in the lower part of the sequence dated between 670 and 695 ka by ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar and ESR-U-Th at Notarchirico revealed layers with lithic and bone remains attesting several phases of human occupations. Some of these occupations are located at the top of residual pebble/cobble lags along former water channels, while others are more distur...

Dans la partie terminale des gorges de l’Ardèche, la grotte de Saint-Marcel constitue un très grand réseau karstique, mais aussi un site moustérien de première importance à proximité de la vallée du Rhône. De nombreuses occupations datées entre le dernier interglaciaire (MIS 5e) et la fin du MIS 3/début MIS 2 sont bien documentées sous le porche de...

In the context of the Western European Acheulean Project, this study aims to characterize Acheulean technology in Western Europe through the analysis of handaxes and cleavers from 10 key sites (Britain 4, France 4, and Spain 2) to acquire a regional view of the occupation. The historically different systems used to categorize and analyze the data h...

The intra-site spatial analysis of prehistoric assemblages is a topical way of assessing the use of space by ancient hominins. Such approaches can bring to light how prehistoric groups occupied their living space and organised activity areas, and thus describe their cultural and social behaviours. The Abri du Maras in Southeast France is a major Mi...

The transition from the Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 12 glacial (ca. 478–424 ka BP) to the MIS 11 interglacial (ca. 424–365 ka BP) is one of the most remarkable climatic shifts of the Middle Pleistocene and is regarded as a phase of major behavioural innovation for hominins. However, many of the available pollen records for this period are of low res...

There are many opinions and arguments about the types of weapons that Neanderthals may have used. We list five assumptions about Neanderthal weapon-assisted hunting and suggest that the tip cross-sectional area (TCSA) approach may be used to assess these, and to provide a hypothetical overview of stone-tipped weaponry used in south eastern France b...

Most archaeological and palaeo-environmental archives are preserved in specific environments (buried sediments, rock shelters, cave environments). Hence, the information we can obtain is usually incomplete, and lacking spatial and morphological significance. Studying landscape evolution can help us to understand the location and distribution of pas...

Long bone breakage for bone marrow recovery is a commonly observed practice in Middle Palaeolithic contexts, regardless of the climatic conditions. While lithic technology is largely used to define cultural patterns in human groups, despite dedicating research by zooarchaeologists, for now butchering techniques rarely allowed the identification of...

Polyhedrons, spheroids and bolas (PSBs) are present in lithic series from the Lower Palaeolithic onwards and are found in several regions of the world. Nevertheless, very little is known about them. We propose here to summarise, illustrate and discuss the current state of our knowledge about these artefacts. Based on the available data in the liter...

Current data seem to suggest that the earliest hominins only occupied the Northwest of Europe during favourable climatic periods, and left the area when the climate was too cold and dry, in the same way as Neandertal and even Homo sapiens. However, several sites in England and the North of France indicate that the earliest hominins, possibly Homo a...

This chapter presents the first collective synthesis of Late Middle Palaeolithic lithic technology (MIS 4–3, ≈ 70-40 ka) from the Altai mountains to the Atlantic coast of Western Europe and the Mediterranean regions of Europe and the Levant. As early as the first half of the twentieth century, archaeological debates focused on characterising and in...

The archaeological sequence of la Noira (Centre region, France) yielded two phases of occupation: ca 700 ka (stratum a) and ca 450 ka (stratum c). No site between these two dates has yet been discovered in the area, and this chronological period has thus been interpreted as a gap in settlement from MIS 16 to MIS 12, two crucial phases of occupation...

Previous studies have suggested that the Lower-to-Middle Paleolithic transition was associated with the earliest Neanderthals, but recent research has established that the oldest Neanderthal fossils and the first signs of their technologies and behavior appear from MIS 11 or possibly earlier. To understand these changes, re-evaluation of the eviden...

The establishment of the Acheulean in Europe occurred after MIS 17, but it was after the harsh glaciation of MIS 12 and during the long interglacial of MIS 11 that human occupation of Western Europe became more sustained, with an increased number of sites. Menez-Dregan I (Brittany, France) is one of the key sites in Western Europe that dates from t...

A Sensitive High Resolution Ion MicroProbe (SHRIMP II) has been used to make high spatial resolution in situ micro-analyses of oxygen isotopes in fish otoliths, and teeth from fossil herbivores and a Neanderthal. Large intra-tooth variations in the oxygen isotopic composition (up to 9&) were observed in the enamel of herbivores from the Neanderthal...

The middle Rhône valley, located at the southeastern margins of the Massif Central in France, produced a large number of Middle Palaeolithic sites, most of which dated to the Middle and Late Pleistocene. Due to its position, connecting northern Europe and the Mediterranean basin, this corridor and the surrounding plateaus are of particular interest...

During the Paleolithic period, bone marrow extraction was an essential source of fat nutrients for hunter-gatherers especially throughout cold and dry seasons. This is attested by the recurrent findings of percussion marks in osteological material from anthropized archaeological levels. Among them some showed indicators that the marrow extraction p...

Some areas in Western Europe indicate hiatuses in human occupations, which cannot be systematically attributed to taphonomic factors and poor site preservation. The site of la Noira in the center of France records two occupation phases with a significant time gap. The older one is dated to around 700 ka (stratum a) with an Acheulean assemblage, amo...

North‐West Europe yields few traces of early human occupation, in particular for the Acheulean. In this context, the Somme Valley in northern France offers a route to Britain during various Pleistocene low sea levels, and has provided numerous evidence of Lower Palaeolithic human occupation through fieldwork initiated during the 19th century. These...

Résumé De nouvelles prospections ont été entreprises à Abbeville en 2016 et 2017 à l’emplacement de l’ancien site du Moulin Quignon exploité de 1837 à 1868 par Boucher de Perthes, relocalisé grâce aux travaux archivistiques menés par des chercheurs du MNHN. Ces recherches ont conduit 150 ans plus tard à la redécouverte de ce site paléolithique embl...

Depuis 2016, le PCR « Réseau de lithothèques en région Centre - Val de Loire » (PCR CVDL) s’inscrit dans une perspective de recherche sur les modes d’exploitation des ressources lithiques et sur la territorialité des groupes humains préhistoriques. Outre l’étude ou la révision de séries archéologiques de l’espace régional, la caractérisation précis...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84805-6 Neanderthals have often been seen as populations that sought refuge in southern regions of Europe during ice ages and whose ultimate disappearance could be attributed to their inability to adapt to climate change. An international team of archaeologists, ecologists, and climate modelers refute thi...

The recently discovered Nalai site is one of the Bose Basin localities, which is key to studying the earliest bifaces in China. The Nalai site has yielded an abundance of lithic artifacts, including bifaces and tektites in close association. The total fusion 40Ar/39Ar method was applied to four tektites discovered beside and contemporaneous with bi...

Level 4.1 from the Abri du Maras (Ardèche, France) is chronologically attributed to the beginning of MIS 3 and is one example of late Neanderthal occupations in the southeast of France. Previous work on the faunal and lithic remains suggests that this level records short-term hunting episodes of reindeer associated with fragmented lithic reduction...

During the XVIII UISPP congress at Paris in 2018, we organized sessions devoted to the first peopling of Europe (chronology, behaviour and environment) and the question of bifacial shaping over time and space. We aimed to discuss recent data regarding the earliest occupations in Europe and to investigate the onset of the bifacial phenomenon, not on...

The archaeological sequence of la Noira, in the Middle Loire Basin (Centre region, France) yielded two phases of occupation: ca 700 ka (stratum a) and ca 450 ka (stratum c). No site between these two dates has yet been discovered in the area, and this chronological period has thus been interpreted as a gap in settlement from MIS 16 to MIS 12. Here,...

The archaeological sequence of la Noira (Centre region, France) yielded two phases of occupation: ca 700 ka (stratum a) and ca 450 ka (stratum c). No site between these two dates has yet been discovered in the area, and this chronological period has thus been interpreted as a gap in settlement from MIS 16 to MIS 12, two crucial phases of occupation...

The stressful situation caused by the pandemic has become a powerful factor for the introduction of new methods and forms of education. The field of archaeological education was no exception. In this educational year, teachers and students fully experienced both the advantages and disadvantages of distance learning in the field of archaeology and m...

This paper presents a unified methodology to describe critical features in lithic assemblages, in order to better interpret the Middle Pleistocene hominin occupation of western Europe, in the context of the Western European Acheulean Project (WEAP). This project aims to characterise the Acheulean technology of the western side of Europe by the anal...

Much research has debated the technological abilities of Neanderthals relative to those of early modern humans, with a particular focus on subtle differences in thumb morphology and how this may reflect differences in manipulative behaviors in these two species. Here, we provide a novel perspective on this debate through a 3D geometric morphometric...

Notarchirico is the earliest Acheulean Italian site. On account of the wide variety of artefacts (cores, flakes, pebble tools and bifaces for some levels) and raw materials, it is also a key site for analysing behavioural variability in the Acheulean record before 600 ka, and for investigating the significance of occupation levels with and without...

This pioneering research performed at the Abri du Maras (Ardèche, South-East France) explores the potential of non-pollen palynomorphs (NPP) to provide new insights into the relationships between Neanderthals and plant resources. Remains of endophytic fungi found during the analysis are key indicators of the local presence of plants, which could ha...

During the Middle Paleolithic period, bone marrow extraction was an essential source of fat nutrients for hunter-gatherers especially throughout cold and dry seasons. This is attested by the recurrent findings of percussion marks in osteological material from anthropized archaeological levels. Among them some showed indicators that the marrow extra...

New fieldwork and the revision of lithic collections during the past decade have renewed our interpretation of the timing and characteristics of the earliest Acheulean techno-complexes in western Europe. The lower level of the la Noira site is a crucial snapshot for evaluating the technological abilities and strategies of Middle Pleistocene hominin...

Over the past two decades, taphonomic and zooarchaeological studies have focused on Neanderthal settlement patterns and subsistence strategies. The south-eastern margins of the Massif Central constitute one of the regions with the most abundant archaeological evidence of Neanderthal occupations in France. The faunal record of level 5 of Abri du Mar...

La transition du Paléolithique inférieur au Paléolithique moyen constitue une période charnière de la préhistoire, caractérisée par de nombreux changements dans les modes de subsistance et de production des groupes humains. Elle peut être perçue comme une période de rupture ou une phase de transformation progressive selon le cadre et l’échelle pris...

Notarchirico (Southern Italy) has yielded the earliest evidence of Acheulean settlement in Italy and four older occupation levels have recently been unearthed, including one with bifaces, extending the roots of the Acheulean in Italy even further back in time. New 40Ar/39Ar on tephras and ESR dates on bleached quartz securely and accurately place t...

Decades of fieldwork in the Frosinone-Ceprano basin (Latin Valley, Latium, central Italy) have shed light on numerous open-air Lower Palaeolithic localities, delivering a human fossil calvarium, thousands of scattered faunal remains and a large collection of lithic industries, including core-and-flake type lithic series (mode 1) and Acheulean assem...

Although Neandertals are the best-known fossil hominins, the tempo and evolutionary processes in their lineage are strongly debated. This is in part due to the scarcity of the fossil record, in particular before the marine isotopic stage (MIS) 5. In 2010, a partial hominin mandible was discovered at the Middle Paleolithic site of Payre (France) in...

The beginning of the Middle Palaeolithic in Western Europe is traditionally associated with the emergence of new, more complex and standardised debitage technologies, such as Levallois technology. These changes occurred in the archaeological record between MIS 9 and MIS 6. This paper aims to evaluate the processes of technical change at work in Sou...

Currently, approximately 90% of the human population is right-handed. This handedness is due to the later-alization of the cerebral hemispheres and is controlled by brain areas involved in complex motor tasks such as making stone tools or in language. In addition to describing the evolution of laterality in humans, identifying hand preference in fo...