Precision dating of the Palaeolithic: A new radiocarbon chronology for the Abri Pataud (France), a key Aurignacian sequence

This paper presents a new series of AMS dates on ultrafiltered bone gelatin extracted from identified cutmarked or humanly-modified bones and teeth from the site of Abri Pataud, in the French Dordogne. The sequence of 32 new determinations provides a coherent and reliable chronology from the site's early Upper Palaeolithic levels 5-14, excavated by Hallam Movius. The results show that there were some problems with the previous series of dates, with many underestimating the real age. The new results, when calibrated and modelled using a Bayesian statistical method, allow detailed understanding of the pace of cultural changes within the Aurignacian I and II levels of the site, something not achievable before. In the future, the sequence of dates will allow wider comparison to similarly dated contexts elsewhere in Europe. High precision dating is only possible by using large suites of AMS dates from humanly-modified material within well understood archaeological sequences modelled using a Bayesian statistical method. © 2011.

Radiocarbon chronology for the Early Gravettian of northern Europe : new AMS determinations for Maisieres-Canal, Belgium

The authors explore the arrival of the earliest Gravettian in north-west Europe, using new high precision radiocarbon dates for bone excavated at Maisieres-Canal in Belgium to define a short-lit^ed occupation around 33 000 years ago. The tanged points in that assemblage have parallels in British sites, including Goat's Hole (Paviland). This is the site of the famous ochred burial of a young adult male, confiisingly known as the 'Red Lady', notv dated to around 34 000 BP. The new results demonstrate that this British 'rich burial' and the Gravettian with tanged points may bebng to two different occupation horizons separated by a cold spell.

Chronology of the site of Grotte du Renne, Arcy-sur-Cure, France: implications for Neanderthal symbolic behaviour

Higham et al (2010) published a large series of new dates from the key French Palaeolithic site of the Grotte du Renne at Arcy-sur-Cure. The site is important because it is one of only two sites in Europe in which Châtelperronian lithic remains co-occur with Neanderthal human remains. A large series of dates from the Mousterian, Châtelperronian, Aurignacian and Gravettian levels of the site was obtained. The 14C results showed great variability, which Higham et al (2010) interpreted as most likely to be due to mixing of archaeological material in the site. In contrast, Caron et al (2011) suggested that the site stratigraphy is well preserved and that the problem with the variability in the radiocarbon ages was due to unremoved contamination in the dated bone. In this paper we address their critique of the original Higham et al (2010) paper