Professor Mark White mark.white@durham.ac.uk
Professor
The British Late Middle Palaeolithic: An Interpretative Synthesis of Neanderthal Occupation at the Northwestern Edge of the Pleistocene World
White, M.J.; Pettitt, P.B
Authors
P.B Pettitt
Abstract
The British Middle Palaeolithic is divided into two discrete periods of occupation: the Early Middle Palaeolithic (MIS 9–7, ~330–180 ka BP) and the Late Middle Palaeolithic (MIS 3, ~59–36 ka BP), separated by a long hiatus. Owing to the relative poverty of the record and historical difficulties in dating and correlating archaeological sites, the British Late Middle Palaeolithic has, until recently, received scant attention, and has largely been regarded as the poor man of Europe, especially by British archaeologists. Indeed, there has been more discussion of the absence of humans from Britain than of what they did when they were present. We aim here to redress that situation. Following from recent considerations of the Early Middle Palaeolithic (White et al. in J. Quat. Sci. 21:525–542, 2006; Scott, Becoming Neanderthal, Oxbow, Oxford, 2010), we offer an interpretative synthesis of the British Late Middle Palaeolithic, situating ‘British’ Neanderthals in their chronological, environmental and landscape contexts. We discuss the character of the British record, and offer an account of Neanderthal behaviour, settlement systems and technological practices at the northwestern edge of their known Upper Pleistocene range. We also examine the relationship of the enigmatic Early Upper Palaeolithic leafpoint assemblages to Neanderthals.
Citation
White, M., & Pettitt, P. (2011). The British Late Middle Palaeolithic: An Interpretative Synthesis of Neanderthal Occupation at the Northwestern Edge of the Pleistocene World. Journal of World Prehistory, 24(1), 25-97. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-011-9043-9
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Publication Date | Apr 1, 2011 |
Deposit Date | Oct 17, 2011 |
Publicly Available Date | Sep 25, 2012 |
Journal | Journal of World Prehistory |
Print ISSN | 0892-7537 |
Electronic ISSN | 1573-7802 |
Publisher | Springer |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 24 |
Issue | 1 |
Pages | 25-97 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-011-9043-9 |
Keywords | Britain, Neanderthals, Late Middle Palaeolithic, Doggerland. |
Files
Accepted Journal Article
(809 Kb)
PDF
Copyright Statement
The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com
You might also like
The Clacton-on-Sea (Essex, UK) GCR site and SSSI: New data and continuing importance
(2023)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search