An application of hierarchical Bayesian modeling to better constrain the chronologies of Upper Paleolithic archaeological cultures in France between ca. 32,000–21,000 calibrated years before present

• Published in: Quaternary Science Reviews
• Main Authors: Banks, William E., Bertran, Pascal, DUCASSE, Sylvain, Klaric, Laurent, Lanos, Philippe, Renard, Caroline, Mesa, Miriam
• Other Authors: De la Préhistoire à l'Actuel : Culture, Environnement et Anthropologie (PACEA), Université de Bordeaux (UB)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives (Inrap), Université de Bordeaux (UB), Préhistoire et Technologie (PréTech), Université Paris Nanterre (UPN)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), IRAMAT-Centre de recherche en physique appliquée à l’archéologie (IRAMAT-CRP2A), Institut de Recherches sur les Archéomatériaux (IRAMAT), Université d'Orléans (UO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Bordeaux Montaigne-Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbeliard (UTBM)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Bordeaux Montaigne-Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbeliard (UTBM), Géosciences Rennes (GR), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Rennes (OSUR)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Rennes 1 (UR1), Université de Rennes (UNIV-RENNES)-Université de Rennes (UNIV-RENNES), Travaux et recherches archéologiques sur les cultures, les espaces et les sociétés (TRACES), Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication (MCC)-École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)-Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès (UT2J)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université de Bordeaux, ANR-10-LABX-52, LabEx Cluster of Excellence “LaScArBx”
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2019
• Subjects: Chronology; Hierarchical Bayesian Age- Modeling; Upper Paleolithic; Hierarchical Bayesian Age-modeling; Data analysis; Europe; Paleoclimatology; Pleistocene; [SHS.ARCHEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory; Greenland; Greenland ice core; ice core
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02262162; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02262162/document; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02262162/file/Banks_etal_2019_Rev_HAL.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.07.025

International audience Investigations of chronology play a key role in the majority of archaeological research endeavors and are particularly pertinent to examinations of culture-environment relationships, especially during periods characterized by rapid and marked climatic variability and environmental reorganization. Rigorous evaluations of available data and robust methods are required if one wishes to reconstruct reliable chronologies, and this is especially the case when examining periods that are associated with a relatively few radiometric measurements. Such is the case for the Upper Paleolithic archaeological record documented in present-day France from 32,000 to 21,000 calibrated years BP. We take into account critically examined radiocarbon measurements from contextually secure archaeological contexts and employ a recently-developed method of Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling to reconstruct the chronology of archaeological cultures from the Middle Gravettian to the Badegoulian. The calculated chronological intervals for each typo-technologically defined culture phase are compared to the Greenland ice core climatic record and a terrestrial paleoenvironmental record from Bergsee Lake (Southern Germany)—itself expressed in calendar years calculated with the same calibration curve employed in our age model—thereby permitting each archaeological culture to be correlated accurately with documented paleoclimatic variability.