This book provides a summary of the discoveries made during the course of excavations at the Paleolithic cave site of Fontechevade, France, between 1994 and 1998. The excavation team used modern field and analytic methods to address major problems raised by earlier excavations at the site from 1937 to 1954. These earlier excavations produced two sets of data that have been problematic in light of data from other European Paleolithic sites: first, the Lower Paleolithic stone tool industry, the Tayacian, that differs in fundamental ways from other contemporary industries and, second, the human skull fragment that has been interpreted as modern in nature but that apparently dates from the last interglacial, long before there is any evidence for humans from any other site in Europe. By applying modern stratigraphic, lithic, faunal, geological, geophysical, and radiometric analyses, the interdisciplinary team demonstrates that the Tayacian industry is a product of site formation processes and that the actual age of the Fontechevade I fossil is compatible with other evidence for the arrival of modern humans in Europe."

Summary of the discoveries made during the course of excavations at the Paleolithic cave site of Fontechevade, France, between 1994 and 1998. The excavation team address major problems raised by earlier excavations at the site from 1937 to 1954. These earlier excavations produced two sets of problematic data : first, the Lower Paleolithic stone tool industry, the Tayacian, that differs in fundamental ways from other contemporary industries, second, the human skull fragment that has been interpreted as modern in nature but that apparently dates from the last interglacial, long before there is any evidence for humans from any other site in Europe. By applying modern stratigraphic, lithic, faunal, geological, geophysical, and radiometric analyses, the interdisciplinary team demonstrates that the Tayacian 'industry' is a product of site formation processes and that the actual age of the Fontechevade I fossil is compatible with other evidence for the arrival of modern humans in Europe.

This book presents the major tool types of European Lower and Middle Paleolithic. Building on the typelist of the late Francois Bordes, with many forms that have been recognized since, it presents working definitions of the types with illustrations and discussions of the variability inherent to lithic typologies. The authors combine classic typological views with current notions of lithic typological variation.This handbook represents not only an important reference source for gaining a practical understanding of how Lower and Middle Paleolithic typology is applied but of the nature of lithic variability in other kinds of assemblages as well.