Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T04:37:18.090Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dealul Guran: evidence for Lower Palaeolithic (MIS 11) occupation of the Lower Danube loess steppe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Radu Iovita ,
Kathryn E. Fitzsimmons ,
Adrian Dobos ,
Ulrich Hambach ,
Alexandra Hilgers  and
Anja Zander
Radu Iovita
Affiliation:
MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution, RGZM, Schloss Monrepos, D-56567, Neuwied, Germany Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, D-04103, Germany
Kathryn E. Fitzsimmons
Affiliation:
Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, D-04103, Germany
Adrian Dobos
Affiliation:
Department of Palaeolithic Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology “Vasile Parvan” of the Romanian Academy of Sciences, 11 Henri Coanda Street, Sector 1, Bucharest 010667, Romania
Ulrich Hambach
Affiliation:
Chair of Geomorphology, University of Bayreuth, Universitätsstraße 30, Bayreuth, D-95440, Germany
Alexandra Hilgers
Affiliation:
Institute for Geography, University of Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, Cologne, D-50923, Germany
Anja Zander
Affiliation:
Institute for Geography, University of Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, Cologne, D-50923, Germany
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Owing to a thick blanket of loess and other later geological disruptions, the earliest hominins to reach Europe are hard to find. To a handful of possible sites, our authors add a new assemblage of lithics with a clear local context and corroborated OSL ages. Ancient humans were present in what is now Romania between 300 000 and 400 000 years ago.

Keywords

EuropeRomaniaLower Palaeolithichomininlithicsmode 1OSL dating
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 86 , Issue 334 , December 2012 , pp. 973 - 989
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adamiec, G. & Aitken, M.. 1998. Dose-rate conversion factors: update. Ancient TL 16: 37–50.Google Scholar
Auclair, M., Lamothe, M. & Huot, S.. 2003. Measurement of anomalous fading for feldspar IRSL using SAR. Radiation Measurements 37: 487-92.Google Scholar
Bailey, G. 1995. Palaeolithic archaeology in Greece and the Balkans. Current Anthropology 36: 518-20.Google Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O. & Belmaker, M.. 2011. Early and Middle Pleistocene faunal and hominins dispersals through southwestern Asia. Quaternary Science Reviews 30: 1318-37.Google Scholar
Barkai, R., Gopher, A. & Porta, P.C. La. 2002. Palaeolithic landscape of extraction: flint surface quarries and workshops at Mt Pua, Israel. Antiquity 76: 672-80.Google Scholar
Blackwell, B.A.B., Liang, S., Golovanova, L.V., Doronichev, V.B., Skinner, A.R. & Blickstein, J.I.B.. 2005. ESR at Treugol'naya cave, Northern Caucasus Mt., Russia: dating Russia's oldest archaeological site and paleoclimatic change in Oxygen Isotope Stage 11. Applied Radiation and Isotopes 62: 237-45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blackwell, B., Schwarcz, H.P., Farrand, W.R., Lundburg, J., Skinner, A.R., Divjak, M.N., & Blickstein, J.I.B.. 2010. Electron spin resonance (ESR) and 230Th/234U dating in the lower chamber at Yarimburgaz, Turkey, in Howell, C.F., Arsebük, G., Kuhn, S.L., Özbasaran, M. & Stiner, M. (ed.) Culture and biology at the crossroads: the Middle Pleistocene record of Yarimburgaz cave (Thrace, Turkey). Istanbul: Zero Books/Ege Yayinlari.Google Scholar
Bosinski, G. 1967. Die mittelpaläolithischen Funde im westlichen Mitteleuropa. Köln & Graz: Böhlau.Google Scholar
Buggle, B., Hambach, U., Glaser, B., Marković, S., Glaser, I. & Zöller, L.. 2008. Long-term paleoclimate records in SE-Europe. The Loess paleosol sequences Batajnica/Stari Slankamen (Serbia) and Mircea Voda (Romania), in Hauptversammlung der Deutschen Quartärvereinigung e.V. (DEUQUA) in Wien: 31. August-6. September 2008 62: 15–19. Wien: Abhandlungen der Geologischen Bundesanstalt.Google Scholar
Burdukiewicz, J.M. & Ronen, A. (ed.). 2003. Lower Palaeolithic small tools in Europe and the Levant (British Archaeological Reports International Series 1115). Oxford: Archaeopress.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buylaert, J.P., Murray, A.S., Thomsen, K.J. & Jain, M.. 2009. Testing the potential of an elevated temperature IRSL signal from K-feldspar. Radiation Measurements 44: 560-65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carbonell, E., Mosquera, M., Rodríguez, X., Sala, R. & Made, J. Van Der. 1999. Out of Africa: the dispersal of the earliest technical systems reconsidered. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 18: 119-36.Google Scholar
Clark, J.G.D. 1969. World prehistory: a new outline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dennell, R. 2003. Dispersal and colonisation, long and short chronologies: how continuous is the Early Pleistocene record for hominids outside East Africa? Journal of Human Evolution 45: 421-40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dennell, R. & Roebroeks, W.. 2005. An Asian perspective on early human dispersal from Africa. Nature 438: 1099–1104.Google Scholar
Derevianko, A.P. 2006. The Lower Paleolithic small tool industry in Eurasia: migration or convergent evolution? Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia 25: 2–32.Google Scholar
Derevianko, A.P. & Zenin, V.N.. 2007. Preliminary results of archaeological studies at the Lower Paleolithic site of Darvagchai-1 in Dagestan. Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia 32: 29–51.Google Scholar
Dibble, H.L., Schurmans, U., Iovita, R. & McLaughlin, M.. 2005. The measurement and interpretation of cortex in lithic assemblages. American Antiquity 70: 545-60.Google Scholar
Dinu, C., Wong, H.K., Tambrea, D. & Matenco, L.. 2005. Stratigraphic and structural characteristics of the Romanian Black Sea shelf. Tectonophysics 410: 417-35.Google Scholar
Dobos, A. 2008. The Lower Paleolithic of Romania: a critical review. PaleoAnthropology 2008: 218-33. Available at: http://www.paleoanthro.org/journal/content/PA20080218.pdf (accessed 11 July 2012).Google Scholar
Dolukhanov, P., Chepalyga, A., Shkatova, V. & Lavrentiev, N.. 2009. Late quaternary Caspian: sea-levels, environments and human settlement. The Open Geography Journal 2: 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doronichev, V.B. 2008. The Lower Paleolithic in eastern Europe and the Caucasus: a reappraisal of the data and new approaches. PaleoAnthropology 2008: 107-57.Google Scholar
Doronichev, V.B., Blackwell, B., Golovanova, L., Levkovskaya, G. & Pospelova, G.. 2004. Treugol'naya cave in the northern Caucasus, Russia: chronology, paleoenvironments, industries and relationship to the Lower Paleolithic in eastern Europe. Eurasian Prehistory 2: 77.Google Scholar
Fitzsimmons, K.E., Markovic, S. & Hambach, U.. 2012. Pleistocene environmental dynamics recorded in the loess of the middle and lower Danube basin. Quaternary Science Reviews 41: 104-18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galbraith, R.F., Roberts, R.G., Laslett, G.M., Yoshida, H. & Olley, J.M.. 1999. Optical dating of single and multiple grains of quartz from Jinmium rock shelter, northern Australia. Part 1, experimental design and statistical models. Archaeometry 41: 339-64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guadelli, J., Sirakov, N., Ivanova, S., Sirakova, S., Anastassova, E., Courtaud, P., Dimitrova, I., Djabarska, N., Fernandez, P., Ferrier, C., Fontugne, M., Gambier, D., Guadelli, A., Iordanova, D., Iordanova, N., Kovatcheva, M., Krumov, I., Leblanc, J.C., Mallye, J.-B., Marinska, M., Miteva, V., Popov, V., Spassov, R., Taneva, S., Tisterat-Laborde, N. & Tsanova, T.. 2005. Une séquence du Paléolithique inférieur au Paléolithique récent dans les Balkans: la grotte Kozarnika à Orechets (nord-ouest de la Bulgarie), in Molines, N., Moncel, M-H. & Monnier, J.-L (ed.) Les premiers peuplements en Europe (British Archaeological Reports International Series 1364): 87–107. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Haase, D., Fink, J., Haase, G., Ruske, R., Pécsi, M., Richter, H., Altermann, M. & Jäger, K.-D.. 2007. Loess in Europe-its spatial distribution based on a European LoessMap, scale 1: 2,500,000. Quaternary Science Reviews 26: 1301-12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haidle, M.N. & Pawlik, A.F.. 2010. The earliest settlement of Germany: is there anything out there? Quaternary International 223-24: 143-53.Google Scholar
Harrold, F.B., Korkuti, M.M., Ellwood, B.B., Petruso, K.M. & Schuldenrein, J.. 1999. The Palaeolithic of southernmost Albania. British School at Athens Studies 3: 361-72.Google Scholar
Harvati, K., Panagopoulou, E., Karkanas, P., Athanassiou, A. & Frost, S.R.. 2008. Preliminary results of the Aliakmon Paleolithic/Paleoanthropological Survey, Greece, 2004-2005, in Darlas, A. & Mihailovic, D. (ed.) The Palaeolithic of the Balkans: 15–20 (British Archaeological Reports International Series 1819). Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Harzhauser, M. & Piller, W.E.. 2007. Benchmark data of a changing sea-palaeogeography, palaeobiogeography and events in the Central Paratethys during the Miocene. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 253: 8–31.Google Scholar
Hopkinson, T. 2007. The transition from the Lower to the Middle Palaeolithic in Europe and the incorporation of difference. Antiquity 81: 294–307.Google Scholar
Jöris, O. 2006. Bifacially backed knives (Keilmesser) in the central European Middle Palaeolithic, in Goren-Inbar, N. & Sharon, G. (ed.) Axe age: Acheulian tool-making from quarry to discard: 287–310. London & Oakville (CT): Equinox.Google Scholar
Koulakovska, L., Usik, V. & Haesaerts, P.. 2010. Early Paleolithic of Korolevo site (Transcarpathia, Ukraine). Quaternary International 223-24: 116-30.Google Scholar
Kretzoi, M. & Dobosi, V.T.. 1990. Vértesszőlős. Site, man and culture. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.Google Scholar
Kuhn, S.L. 2010. Was Anatolia a bridge or a barrier to early hominin dispersals? Quaternary International 223-24: 434-35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, S.L., Howell, F.C. & Arsebük, G.. 1996. The Middle Pleistocene lithic assemblage from Yarimburgaz cave, Turkey. Paléorient 22: 31–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marković, S.B., Bokhorst, M.P., Vandenberghe, J., McCoy, W.D., Oches, E.A., Hambach, U., Gaudenyi, T., Jovanovic, M., Zöller, L., Stevens, T. & Machalett, B.. 2008. Late Pleistocene loess-palaeosol sequences in the Vojvodina region, north Serbia. Journal of Quaternary Science 23: 73–84.Google Scholar
Murray, A.S. & Wintle, A.G.. 2000. Luminescence dating of quartz using an improved single-aliquot regenerative-dose protocol. Radiation Measurements 32: 57–73.Google Scholar
Muttoni, G., Scardia, G. & Kent, D.V.. 2010. Human migration into Europe during the late Early Pleistocene climate transition. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 296: 79–93.Google Scholar
Olteanu, R. & Jipa, D.. 2006. Dacian Basin environmental evolution during upper neogene within the Paratethys domain. Geo-Eco-Marina, Coastal Zones and Deltas 12: 91–105.Google Scholar
Prescott, J.R. & Hutton, J.T.. 1994. Cosmic ray contributions to dose rates for luminescence and ESR dating: large depths and long term variations. Radiation Measurements 23: 497–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ranov, V. 1995. The ‘loessic Palaeolithic’ in south Tadjikistan, central Asia: its industries, chronology and correlation. Quaternary Science Reviews 14: 731-45.Google Scholar
Richter, D. 2008. Altersbestimmung der Fundschichten von Schöningen mit dosimetrischen Datierungsmethoden, in Thieme, H. & Maier, R. (ed.) Die Schöninger Speere-Mensch und Jagd vor 400,000 Jahren: 62–66. Stuttgart: Konrad Theiss.Google Scholar
Romanowska, I. 2012. Lower Palaeolithic of central and eastern Europe: critical evaluation of the current state of knowledge, in Ruebens, K., Romanowska, I. & Bynoe, R.B. (ed.) Unravelling the Palaeolithic. Ten years of research at the Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins (British Archaeological Reports International Series 2400): 1–12. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Runnels, C. & Andel, T.H. Van. 1993. A handaxe from Kokkinopilos, Epirus, and its implications for the Palaeolithic of Greece. Journal of Field Archaeology 20: 191–203.Google Scholar
Schwarcz, H., Grün, R., Latham, A., Mania, D. & Brunnacker, K.. 1988. The Bilzingsleben archaeological site: new dating evidence. Archaeometry 30: 5–17.Google Scholar
Sirakov, N., Guadelli, J.L., Ivanova, S., Sirakova, S., Boudadi-Maligne, M., Dimitrova, I., Fernandez, Ph., Ferrier, C., Guadelli, A., Iordanova, D., Iordanova, N., Kovatcheva, M., Krumov, I., Leblanc, J.-Cl., Miteva, V., Popov, V., Spassov, R., Taneva, S. & Tsanova, T.. 2010. An ancient continuous human presence in the Balkans and the beginnings of human settlement in western Eurasia: a Lower Pleistocene example of the Lower Palaeolithic levels in Kozarnika cave (north-western Bulgaria). Quaternary International 223-24: 94–106.Google Scholar
Slimak, L., Kuhn, S.L., Roche, H., Mouralis, D., Buitenhuis, H., Balkan-Atli, N., Binder, D., Kuzucuoğlu, C. & Guillou, H.. 2008. Kaletepe Deresi 3 (Turkey): archaeological evidence for early human settlement in central Anatolia. Journal of Human Evolution 54: 99–111.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stepanchuk, V., Ryzhov, S., Rekovets, L. & Matviishina, Z.. 2010. The Lower Palaeolithic of Ukraine: current evidence. Quaternary International 223-24: 131-42.Google Scholar
Stiles, D., Hay, R. & O'Neil, J.. 1974. The MNK chert factory site, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. World Archaeology 5: 285–308.Google Scholar
Strasser, T.F., Runnels, C., Wegmann, K., Panagopoulou, E., McCoy, F., Digregorio, C., Karkanas, P. & Thompson, N.. 2011. Dating Palaeolithic sites in southwestern Crete, Greece. Journal of Quaternary Science 26: 553-60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stringer, C. 1998. Chronological and biogeographic perspectives on later human evolution, in Akazawa, T., Aoki, K. & Bar-Yosef, O. (ed.) Neandertals and modern humans in western Asia: 29–37. New York: Plenum.Google Scholar
Tabaczynski, S. 2007. Polish archaeology in my lifetime. Antiquity 81: 1074-82.Google Scholar
Thomsen, K.J., Murray, A.S., Jain, M. & Bøtter-Jensen, L.. 2008. Laboratory fading rates of various luminescence signals from feldspar-rich sediment extracts. Radiation Measurements 43: 1474-86.Google Scholar
Tourloukis, V. 2010. The Early and Middle Pleistocene archaeological record of Greece: current status and future prospects (Archaeological Studies Leiden University 23). Leiden: Leiden University Press.Google Scholar
Turner, A. 1992. Large carnivores and earliest European hominids: changing determinants of resource availability during the Lower and Middle Pleistocene. Journal of Human Evolution 22: 109-26.Google Scholar
Velichko, A.A., Morozova, T.D., Nechaev, V.P., Rutter, N.W., Dlusskii, K.G., Little, E.C., Catto, N.R., Semenov, V.V. & Evans, M.E.. 2006. Loess/paleosol/cryogenic formation and structure near the northern limit of loess deposition, East European Plain, Russia. Quaternary International 152-53: 14–30.Google Scholar
Wagner, G.A., Krbetschek, M., Degering, D., Bahain, J-J., Hao, Q. S., Falguéres, C., Voinchet, P., Dolo, J-M., Garcia, T. & Rightmire, G.P.. 2010. Radiometric dating of the type-site for Homo heidelbergensis at Mauer, Germany. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107: 19726-30.Google Scholar
White, M. & Ashton, N.. 2003. Lower Palaeolithic core technology and the origins of the Levallois method in north-western Europe. Current Anthropology 44: 598–609.Google Scholar