Getting species diagnoses non-destructively from collagen
A neat paper by Naomi Martisius and coworkers in Scientific Reports: “Non-destructive ZooMS identification reveals strategic bone tool raw material selection...
All posts tagged with France
Châtelperronian bone fragments identified as Neandertal based on protein residues
Frido Welker and colleagues have applied a new method to identify tiny bone fragments as Neandertal remains, based on the protein residues that they contain.
Link: Photographing Chauvet
In Proof, the National Geographic photography blog, Stephen Alvarez describes his experience photographing the famous cave art of Chauvet Cave for the Januar...
Chauvet Cave: Maybe less than 25,000 years old
Jean Combier and Guy Jouve report in L’Anthropologie that the art of Chauvet Cave has been misdated: “New investigations into the cultural and stylistic iden...
Meg Conkey: “People created memories and, in doing so, created a home”
Nautilus interviewed archaeologist Meg Conkey about her work, including the “Between the Caves” survey project in France, to establish the pattern of open-ai...
Cro-Magnon 1, dating and mtDNA
I’m running through the new paper from Qiaomei Fu and colleagues Fu:revised:2013 about Upper Paleolithic mtDNA genomes. Probably several readers were wonderi...
Paleoclimate and shifting Neandertal strategies
A new paper by Guillaume Guérin and colleagues in the Journal of Archaeological Science Guerin:2012 provides a detailed chronology for the Neandertal site of...
Neandertals and eagle talons
Eugène Morin and Vronique Laroulandie have published a new paper in PLoS ONE demonstrating evidence that some Neandertals had a fetish for eagle talons Morin...
Bordeaux
I’m in Bordeaux for the rest of this week, taking part in the meetings of the Société d’Anthropologie de Paris. The city is just as beautiful as I remember!
Kids leave their traces in caves with art
Several stories last week related the story (from a conference talk by Jessica Cooney) about evidence that very young children had left finger grooves in the...
Lazaret frontal
Julien Riel-Salvatore points to news from Lazaret Cave, France: “170,000 year-old human skull fragment found at Lazaret”. There’s a new 170,000-year-old fron...
Combe Capelle redated
I missed this earlier this month, but Julien Riel-Salvatore did not: “Burial Site at Combe Capelle in France is Not as Old as Previously Assumed, by Several ...
LIFE photo-essay at Lascaux, 1947
A LIFE magazine photo-essay brings 15 previously unpublished pictures of Lascaux by Ralph Morse, who was the first professional photographer to enter the sit...
Arthouse cave art
A new film to debut at the Toronto Film Festival is a 90-minute 3-D exploration of Chauvet Cave, directed by Werner Herzog. The LA Times reports on the film:...
French Neolithic discontinuities
Marie-France Deguilloux and colleagues Deguilloux:2010 present a short analysis of ancient mtDNA recovered from a Neolithic burial at Prissé-la-Charrière, be...
Sketchbook
Today’s sketchbook:
Mailbag: First Europeans
Regarding Lzignan-le-Cbe:
Another Aurignacian Neandertal, or just dinner?
I said I was going to do my best to scoop the press this week. How about this piece of undernews: at one of the few early Aurignacian sites to preserve skele...
Grotte des Fées de Châtelperron
Gravina et al. (2005) report on the radiocarbon stratigraphy of Grotte des Fées de Châtelperron, which is the original type site of the Châtelperronia...