The Upper Palaeolithic Beads of Aquitaine

 
The Upper Palaeolithic is best understood period of the Old Stone Age, beginning shortly after the extinction of Homo neanderthalensis and the encroachment of the new hominin Homo sapiens from Africa into Europe.

The Upper Palaeolithic is marked by the dominance of artefacts, left behind by our ancestors. When compared to more recent times particularly to the advent of farming 10,000 years ago, evidence for how our Upper Palaeolithic ancestors lived and ordered their societies is very much lacking. Recently, questions are beginning to be raised about how we prejudge Upper Palaeolithic hominins.

Claire Heckel of the American Museum of Natural History, in association with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) wants to harness the power of statistics and the archaeological record to understand the level societal complexity. Many decades ago, archaeologists assumed that early hunter-gatherers were simple people with simple societal structure. The rise of farming in the fertile crescent was argued to be a sharp contrast to what came before, with the sudden need to settle, develop states and thereafter kingdoms. Archaeologist today can’t entirely shed their idea of the contrast between the two moments in time. The question here is: Have we exaggerated the simplicity of Upper Palaeolithic hominins? In order to begin to answer this question, we first need to find evidence of how Upper Palaeolithic society was structured. Heckel was very interested in what a tiny insignificant object like a bead could tell us about Upper Palaeolithic society. These Basket-shaped beads were found at four archaeological caves and rock shelters in Aquitaine, southern France...(Video) HeritageDaily / Link 2


* Vídeo añadido a PaleoVídeos > L.R.2.12 nº 19.


Actualización:Fabricando cuentas de collar, la complejidad social en el Paleolítico superior
La aplicación de análisis estadísticos revela niveles de estandarización que hasta ahora sólo relacionábamos con sociedades complejas postpaleolíticas 

Las pequeñas cuentas de collar con "forma de cesta" localizadas en varios yacimientos auriñacienses de la Aquitania francesa nos hablan de las habilidades de los individuos del Paleolítico superior para crear bellos objetos de adorno a partir de esteatita y de marfil de mamut, pero la investigadora Claire Heckel ha querido ir más allá, y aplicar análisis estadísticos a una muestra de más de 400 cuentas para poder extraer información sobre su producción y el nivel de estandarización del proceso. Sorprendentemente, las cuentas revelan una muy elevada estandarización para referirnos al Paleolítico superior, lo que nos lleva a pensar que estas sociedades de cazadores-recolectores podrían ser bastante más complejas de lo que se ha considerado durante décadas de investigación...