Table of Contents

Main

Articles
Pan the Tool-Maker
Latest Homo erectus of Java
Neandertal mtDNA
Middle Stone Age Bone Industry from Katanda
Pedra Furanda
Venus Figures

Web Sites
The Ancient Indus Valley
Stolen Stones: The Modern Sack of Nineveh
Clovis and Beyond
Chimpanzee Cultures
Oldstoneage.com

ROM Visits
Egypt Exhibit
Evolution of Man Exhibit

Bibliography 		Oldstoneage.com

This site documents four Paleolithic archaeological sites in Europe and Africa.

Fontechevade
The website says this site may have produced the Tayacian stone tool industry in Frace. There were also two hominid fragments found here. The hominid fragments have helped support the "presapiens" model of Pleistocene evolution. However, there were new excavations of this site in the 1990s. For the hominids, this meant that the bones are now thought to be twoo fragmentary and too problematic to classify as either Neandertals or early modern humans. For the tool types, this has meant that there might not be an industry here at all. There are also possible taphonomic effects to take into consideration.


This is a picture of one of the hominid bone fragments found at this site.

Combe-Capelle Bas
From it's old excavation, there are various industries that were associated with the site. The new excavation "revealed an industrial sequence that differed radically from that which was previously reported." There were "two major sources of error in terms of the collection of the objects at the time of the [original] excavation."

This site really shows the importance of re-evaluating and re-excavating old archaeological sites. It is apparent that there might have been flaws in the original research, or there might have been limitations due to available technology. You cannot think this is not still a problem. For example, in 100 years, technology might become available that would revolutionise archaeology.

Overall this site was very well done, except that two of the site link were not working when I visited (thus I only reviewed two out of the four sites mentioned above). I thought it perhaps could have had more indepth information, however. The information presented really just skimmed the surface.

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