Anthropos
102.2007: 347-370
The Late Pleistocene Cultural Shift in Europe
Robert G. Bednarik
% • " This article examines the transition in Europe from
%e r p tfaditions of the Middle Palaeolithic to those regarded as
^ r ev - eolithi c- Synchronous changes in human morphology
in the light of recent palaeoanthropological finds
'*1 te c ^' n ^ s - They are found to mirror the parallel gradual change
' n th e e °. §y. as does the available record of palaeoart. Nothing
f°Pni at - Vldence as it stands supports the notion of an intrusive
Sr s e° n 0r culture, even the very tenuous evidence of genetics
%a cia ° iltinuit y rather than replacement. In particular, the Au-
" < Seems t0 be § m as an industry of “Neanderthals,” yet
the beis? 8 for the most sophisticated artistic productions of
hlci ?oaT n& era - [ Tnt " Pleistocene, replacement hypothesis,
r °pology, Aurignacian, human evolution]
tK^ratio** Bednar ik, convener and editor of the International
A 0ri gi n °f Rock Art Organizations (IFRAO), specializes in
e arly human constructs of reality and human cognition.
%i in Re b alf of his approximately 1000 publications ap-
re fereed scientific journals; see References Cited.
V o, ?* an a decade ago I considered the ej'dence
C" tUral continuity across the perceived divide
Middle and Upper Palaeolithic periods
is c , ar| k 1995d) The concept of such continu y
% AWete anathema to the “replacement hypothe-
lc ^ at that time reigned supreme y in el
^tec!, archae ology - and to some extent still dorm
's JJ* discipline today. However, this hypothesis
Uc kling under the accumulating weig
hsef.,1 ^ ev idence and recent developments ren er i
s '>iew the issue. In 1995 I also observed
V Eari have no skeletal evidence of the people o
Ke L Auri gnacian (Bednarik 1995a), to which
(1995. a ’
) - 625) responded:
Aur^ at tBere i s no skeletal evidence to suggest
’§nacian was the work of anatomically mod-
ern humans is overdrawn ... Bednarik seems to have for
gotten the modem human crania from Aurignacian sites
like Vogelherd, Cro-Magnon, and Mladec.
I very much doubt that White would use this same
argument today, and it is most instructive to recon
sider this matter in the light of recent developments.
Not only would it serve to clear up previous misun
derstandings, it will raise the question how the re
placement or African Eve model ever came to such
prominence. Such an examination would also serve
as a heuristic device to determine why such fads
generally gain currency in Pleistocene archaeology
so easily. I will attempt such an analysis here.
In this article I use archaeological jargon only to
comply with established terminology and to con
vey generalized concepts, without endorsing any
of these terms. All of them can be and should
be challenged. To illustrate, it would be absurd to
expect that there was a distinctive ethnic or cul
tural group, or tribe, or society of “Aurignacians”
across Europe, coinciding spatially and temporally
with those remnant artifact assemblages we collec
tively tend to define as Aurignacian (even though
we are notoriously unable to quite agree among
ourselves what they include). Terms such as “Mid
dle” or “Upper Palaeolithic” are merely concep
tual crutches of a discipline steeped on creating
etic taxonomies. They and all others like them are
not historical facts or definable eras, such as those
of history are more likely to be. They, like the
definitions of tools, rock art motifs, or anything
else archaeologists tend to taxonomize, are contin
gent constructs of archaeologists supposedly aid
ing communication. While they all may have some