Testing the synchrony between cultural and paleoenvironmental changes in southern France during the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition

• Main Authors: Fourcade, Tiffanie, Sánchez Goñi, María, F, Lahaye, Christelle, Lesven, Jonathan, Philippe, Anne
• Other Authors: Archéosciences Bordeaux, Université de Bordeaux (UB)-Université Bordeaux Montaigne (UBM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Environnements et Paléoenvironnements OCéaniques (EPOC), Observatoire aquitain des sciences de l'univers (OASU), Université Sciences et Technologies - Bordeaux 1 (UB)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Sciences et Technologies - Bordeaux 1 (UB)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL), IRAMAT-Centre de recherche en physique appliquée à l’archéologie (IRAMAT-CRP2A), Institut de Recherches sur les Archéomatériaux (IRAMAT), Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbeliard (UTBM)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Université Bordeaux Montaigne (UBM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbeliard (UTBM)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Université Bordeaux Montaigne (UBM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Laboratoire Chrono-environnement (UMR 6249) (LCE), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Franche-Comté (UFC), Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté COMUE (UBFC)-Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté COMUE (UBFC), Institut de recherche sur les forêts, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT), Laboratoire de Mathématiques Jean Leray (LMJL), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Nantes université - UFR des Sciences et des Techniques (Nantes univ - UFR ST), Nantes Université - pôle Sciences et technologie, Nantes Université (Nantes Univ)-Nantes Université (Nantes Univ)-Nantes Université - pôle Sciences et technologie, Nantes Université (Nantes Univ)-Nantes Université (Nantes Univ), GPR Human Past, Université de Bordeaux
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: Deep-sea cores; Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition; Synchronism; Palynology; Western Europe; Bayesian modelling; Chronology; [SHS.ARCHEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory; [SDU.STU.CL]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Climatology; [SDV.EE]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology; environment; Greenland; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04234928

Determining the impact of climatic variations on past human cultural changes is a difficult task due to the chronological uncertainties inherent to the dating methods applied to archaeological and paleoclimatic archives, and by the different temporal resolution of both archives. Here, we present two high-resolution pollen-based palaeoenvironmental sequences from the Bay of Biscay (45°21'N, 5°13'W) and the Gulf of Lion (40°29'N, 4°01'E) plotted against up-to-date chronologies. These sequences unambiguously identify millennial-scale vegetation and climatic changes in southern France in response to Greenland warming and cooling events, i.e. Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) cycles, and to the North Atlantic major iceberg discharges called Heinrich events (HEs). The chronologies are well constrained by numerical dating (new IRSL ages for the Bay of Biscay deep-sea core) and new age-depth models, based on Bayesian statistics and stratigraphic constrains using ChronoModel software and R-package ArchaeoPhases. The construction and updating of archaeological databases for the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition in southwestern and southeastern France has allowed the development of age models based on ChronoModel. These age models provide more reliable chronological windows for the observed cultural changes in Neanderthals and Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) in Western Europe. Despite the improved paleoclimatic and archeological chronologies, the identification of a potential synchrony between climate and cultural changes still remains difficult due to new uncertainties. Nevertheless, this study suggests that the progressive opening of landscape since the D-O 12 (~47 ka) favoured the arrival of AMH in Western Europe, leading to competition with Neanderthals for the same ecological niches, and thus to the disappearance of the latter at ~40 ka.