The preventive archaeological excavation of the Bois de l’Hôpital site (Saint-Sulpice-la-Pointe, Tarn, France), between November 2015 and April 2016 (Bernard-Guelle et al. 2016), uncovered several layers dating back to Upper Pleistocene set in an unprecedented/original context for Tarn’s lower valley’s Middle Paleolithic. main level (archeological unit UA3) displays a lithic industry mainly man...

Raw material characterization in Paleolithic archaeology has widened our knowledge of Middle societies. Procurement raw material, specifically flint, allowed the tracing mobility both stones and people, as well selective processes to obtain specific types or even extraction activities. The analysis quartzite also developed recent years, providing an opportunity better understand prehistoric Thi...

The cave of Isturitz is one of the most important archaeological sites of the prehistory of Western Europe. Human occupations followed each other in the cavity from at least the Middle Paleolithic to the Roman age. In 1913, Passermard started archaeological excavations there, and a calcite pillar was discovered next to the original entrance that was sculpted with a dozen of animal representatio...

Measurement of morphological variation is essential to our understanding of human evolution. At least two classes of statistics can be used to describe variation: (1) statistics such as the variance that measure average dissimilarity (distance), and (2) statistics such as the range of variation that measure maximal dissimilarity. Either kind of measure may be meaningfully employed depending on ...

In the second half of the 19th century Pleistocene faunas were discovered in two sites, Sedia del Diavolo and Monte delle Gioie, contained in deposits of the Aniene River in the area of Rome (Latium, Italy). Fieldwork by A.C. Blanc in the late 1930's proved the association of fauna and lithic industry within fluvial deposits interbedded with volcanoclastic layers. A human femoral diaphysis and ...