MTA-B or not to be? Recycled bifaces and shifting hunting strategies at Le Moustier and their implication for the late Middle Palaeolithic in southwestern France.

摘要: Abstract Explaining late Middle Palaeolithic industrial variability remains a topic of great interest for researchers focusing on aspects Neanderthal behavioural complexity and the so-called Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic ‘transition.’ Several sites in southwestern France figure prominently these discussions, including eponymous site Le Moustier (Dordogne, France), one ‘key’ sequences used larger anthropological models. Here we present re-assessment this important based technological taphonomic re-evaluation previously studied collections combined with an analysis unpublished archaeological material, which includes both lithic faunal components. Our study produces very different interpretation 'classic' sequence, challenging previous cultural attributions way that significantly impacts current debates surrounding proposed Mousterian Acheulean Tradition (MTA) – Châtelperronian affiliation. This new highlights independent changes technology subsistence strategies were undetected as well novel aspect raw material use. Finally, discuss how vision has ramifications broader issues connected to definition techno-complexes, such MTA, identification relationships between technology, subsistence, mobility strategies.