Palaeolithic stone plaquettes are a type of mobiliary art featuring engravings and recovered primarily from Magdalenian sites, where they can number from single finds to several thousand examples. Where context is available, they demonstrate complex traces of use, including surface refreshing, heating, and fragmentation. However, for plaquettes with limited or no archaeological context, research tends to gravitate toward their engraved surfaces. This paper focuses on 50 limestone plaquettes excavated by Peccadeau de l’Isle from Montastruc, a Magdalenian rockshelter site in southern France with limited archaeological context; a feature common to many art bearing sites excavated across the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Plaquette use at Montastruc was explored via a programme of microscopy, 3D modelling, colour enhancement using DStretch©, virtual reality (VR) modelling, and experimental archaeology, the latter focusing on limestone heating related to different functional and non-functional uses. While the limited archaeological context available ensures the results remain only indicative, the data generated suggests plaquettes from Montastruc were likely positioned in proximity to hearths during low ambient light conditions. The interaction of engraved stone and roving fire light made engraved forms appear dynamic and alive, suggesting this may have been important in their use. Human neurology is particularly attuned to interpreting shifting light and shadow as movement and identifying visually familiar forms in such varying light conditions through mechanisms such as pareidolic experience. This interpretation encourages a consideration of the possible conceptual connections between art made and experienced in similar circumstances, such as parietal art in dark cave environments. The toolset used to investigate the Montastruc assemblage may have application to other collections of plaquettes, particularly those with limited associated context.

/pdf/art-by-firelight-using-experimental-and-digital-techniques-2ysiy8fo.pdf

Art by firelight? Using experimental and digital techniques to explore Magdalenian engraved plaquette use at Montastruc (France)

Simple Summary Studies of human fossils, and the DNA extracted from them, reveal a complex history of interbreeding between various human lineages over the last one hundred thousand years. Of particular interest is the nature of the population interactions between the Neandertals of Ice Age Europe and western Asia and the modern humans that eventually replaced them. Here, we used six measurements of the facial skeleton, in samples of Neandertal and early modern human fossils, in an exploratory study aimed at trying to identify geographic regions (from the Near East to western Europe) where interbreeding may have been prevalent enough to have left a signal in the facial morphology of the early modern humans of those regions. Although fossil sample sizes were in some cases very small, the results are consistent with the Near East having played an important role in the introduction of Neandertal genes into the genomes of living humans. Abstract Ancient DNA from, Neandertal and modern human fossils, and comparative morphological analyses of them, reveal a complex history of interbreeding between these lineages and the introgression of Neandertal genes into modern human genomes. Despite substantial increases in our knowledge of these events, the timing and geographic location of hybridization events remain unclear. Six measures of facial size and shape, from regional samples of Neandertals and early modern humans, were used in a multivariate exploratory analysis to try to identify regions in which early modern human facial morphology was more similar to that of Neandertals, which might thus represent regions of greater introgression of Neandertal genes. The results of canonical variates analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis suggest important affinities in facial morphology between both Middle and Upper Paleolithic early modern humans of the Near East with Neandertals, highlighting the importance of this region for interbreeding between the two lineages.

/pdf/midfacial-morphology-and-neandertal-modern-human-2ltwm92b.pdf

Midfacial Morphology and Neandertal–Modern Human Interbreeding

In this article, I first provide an overview of the Neandertals by recounting their initial discovery and subsequent interpretation by scientists and by discussing our current understanding of the temporal and geographic span of these hominins and their taxonomic affiliation. I then explore what progress we have made in our understanding of Neandertal lifeways and capabilities over the past decade in light of new technologies and changing perspectives. In the process, I consider whether these advances in knowledge qualify as so-called Black Swans, a term used in economics to describe events that are rare and unpredictable and have wide-ranging consequences, in this case for the field of paleoanthropology. Building on this discussion, I look at ongoing debates and focus on Neandertal extinction as a case study. By way of discussion and conclusion, I take a detailed look at why Neandertals continue to engender great interest, and indeed emotion, among scientists and the general public alike. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Anthropology, Volume 52 is October 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Rethinking Neandertals

Illuminating palaeolithic art using virtual reality: A new method for integrating dynamic firelight into interpretations of art production and use

The term Reflection Transformation Imaging has been originally used by Tom Malzbender of the HP Laboratories to describe an image-based method to acquire the reflectance properties of objects’ surface. This technique, as other image-based relighting techniques, creates a “special” image of the object which encodes a reflectance function per-pixel. These images are called Polynomial Texture Maps (PTMs) (Malzbender et al. 2001). PTMs are generated starting from a set of photos of the object of interest taken under controlled illumination. Thanks to the reflectance functions encoded in the PTMs it is possible to generate new images of the object under different lighting conditions. Due to the easiness and effectiveness of this method PTMs have been used in several applications in the field of Cultural Heritage in recent years. One of the main motivation to use PTMs to represent artifacts is that this kind of visualization allows the user to change interactively the effects of the illumination on the object’s surface, and hence the exploration of the object is performed in a new interesting way. In particular, the use of contrast enhancement mechanisms related to the PTM viewing technology (specular enhancement, diffuse gain) have proven to be very useful not only in term of documentation, but also in terms of analysis of the surface details hard to reveal under classical viewing systems. Another reason is that PTMs may be an interesting alternative to the other well-known 3D acquisition techniques, like 3D scanning, which are “expensive” in terms of equipment, acquisition time and post-processing. Moreover, visualization of detailed 3D models is problematic in online environment while PTMs can be a good representation to make data more accessible to the public. Finally, PTMs seem to be a better solution for the visualization of certain objects, like bas-relieves, where the information provided by re-illumination is more important than the one provided by geometry. Most of the existing work about PTMs acquisition regard small size objects. In this paper we present a new low-cost system for producing high quality PTMs of medium-large objects, from 60-70 cm of width by 50-60 cm of height up to 2m of width by 1m of height. During the description of our system we also underline some differences with respect to the classic 3D scanning pipeline. We also present an analysis of quality of the PTMs acquired by our system and a novel software to browse huge resolution PTMs. After an overview of the application of PTMs in Cultural Heritage in Section 2, we analyze our method for PTMs acquisition in all its aspects in Section 3. In Section 4 we propose an analysis of quality of the PTMs obtained in comparison with 3D scanning, and a study on quality degradation relative to the number of shots used to calculate the reflectance function. This analysis is not limited to our system and it is a good starting point to optimize PTMs acquisition techniques. Some examples of Cultural Heritage objects acquired with our system are presented in Section 5. Conclusions and future work are outlined in Section 6.

Reflection transformation imaging on larger objects: an alternative method for virtual representation

The morphology of the Late Pleistocene hominin remains from the site of La Cotte de St Brelade, Jersey (Channel Islands).

The Upper Palaeolithic is characterised by the appearance of iconographic expressions most often depicting animals, including anthropomorphic forms, and geometric signs. The Late Upper Palaeolithic Magdalenian saw a flourishing of such depictions, encompassing cave art, engraving of stone, bone and antler blanks and decoration of tools and weapons. Though Magdalenian settlement exists as far northwest as Britain, there is a limited range of art known from this region, possibly associated with only fleeting occupation of Britain during this period. Stone plaquettes, flat fragments of stone engraved on at least one surface, have been found in large quantities at numerous sites spanning the temporal and geographical spread of the Magdalenian, but they have been absent so far from the archaeological record of the British Isles. Between 2015 and 2018, ten fragments of stone plaquettes extensively engraved with abstract designs were uncovered at the Magdalenian site of Les Varines, Jersey, Channel Islands. In this paper, we report detailed analyses of these finds, which provide new evidence for technologies of abstract mark-making, and their significance within the lives of people on the edge of the Magdalenian world. These engraved stone fragments represent important, rare evidence of artistic expression in what is the far northern and western range of the Magdalenian and add new insight to the wider significance of dynamic practices of artistic expression during the Upper Palaeolithic.

/pdf/artists-on-the-edge-of-the-world-an-integrated-approach-to-2cg2loq5mg.pdf

Artists on the edge of the world: An integrated approach to the study of Magdalenian engraved stone plaquettes from Jersey (Channel Islands).

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The morphology of the Late Pleistocene hominin remains from the site of La Cotte de St Brelade, Jersey (Channel Islands).

Artists on the edge of the world: An integrated approach to the study of Magdalenian engraved stone plaquettes from Jersey (Channel Islands).