Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents Summary for Volumes 1, 2 and 3
- Contents
- Volume 1 Maps
- Volume 2 Maps
- Volume 3 Maps
- About the Contributors
- Volume 1
- Volume 2
- Volume 3
- VII. Western and Central Asia
- VIII. Europe and the Mediterranean
- 3.17 Early Palaeolithic Europe
- 3.18 Europe and the Mediterranean: DNA
- 3.19 The Upper Palaeolithic of Europe
- 3.20 Upper Palaeolithic Imagery
- 3.21 Early Food Production in Southeastern Europe
- 3.22 Early Food Production in Southwestern Europe
- 3.23 Hunters, Fishers and Farmers of Northern Europe, 9000–3000 bce
- 3.24 The Aegean
- 3.25 Post-Neolithic Western Europe
- 3.26 The Later Prehistory of Central and Northern Europe
- 3.27 The Post-Neolithic of Eastern Europe
- 3.28 The Classical World
- 3.29 Europe and the Mediterranean: Languages
- Index
- References
3.19 - The Upper Palaeolithic of Europe
from VIII. - Europe and the Mediterranean
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents Summary for Volumes 1, 2 and 3
- Contents
- Volume 1 Maps
- Volume 2 Maps
- Volume 3 Maps
- About the Contributors
- Volume 1
- Volume 2
- Volume 3
- VII. Western and Central Asia
- VIII. Europe and the Mediterranean
- 3.17 Early Palaeolithic Europe
- 3.18 Europe and the Mediterranean: DNA
- 3.19 The Upper Palaeolithic of Europe
- 3.20 Upper Palaeolithic Imagery
- 3.21 Early Food Production in Southeastern Europe
- 3.22 Early Food Production in Southwestern Europe
- 3.23 Hunters, Fishers and Farmers of Northern Europe, 9000–3000 bce
- 3.24 The Aegean
- 3.25 Post-Neolithic Western Europe
- 3.26 The Later Prehistory of Central and Northern Europe
- 3.27 The Post-Neolithic of Eastern Europe
- 3.28 The Classical World
- 3.29 Europe and the Mediterranean: Languages
- Index
- References
Summary
Concept and Definition
Over the last quarter century, discussions of the emergence of the Upper Palaeolithic (UP) have become intimately associated with disappearance of “archaic” humans and rise of “modernity” issues. As a consequence of the gradual blurring of previously perceived contrasts with the Middle Palaeolithic (MP) in technology, subsistence and site structure (Bar-Yosef & Kuhn 1999; Speth 2004), the definitional significance of ornaments and art was emphasised, with one strand of scientific opinion arguing that their sudden emergence in the European record in tandem with the replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans, about 40,000 years ago, could not be a coincidence (e.g., Klein 2003; Mellars 2004a, 2005). In this view, both processes ought to be explained by (a) the emergence of modern humans in Africa being a speciation event, (b) Neanderthals being a different species with less evolved capabilities, (c) art and personal ornamentation being material proxies for symbolic thinking and language and (d) the lack of such proxies in the MP proving that its makers were fundamentally different from present-day humans in biology, cognition and culture.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge World Prehistory , pp. 1753 - 1785Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
References
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