• A 115,000-year-old expedient bone technology at Lingjing, Henan, China 

      Doyon, Luc; Li, Z; Wang, H; Geis, L; d'Errico, Francesco (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2021)
      Activities attested since at least 2.6 Myr, such as stone knapping, marrow extraction, and woodworking may have allowed early hominins to recognize the technological potential of discarded skeletal remains and equipped ...
    • A 38,000-year-old carving from Grotte des Gorges, Amange, Jura, France 

      d'Errico, Francesco; David, Serge; Coqueugniot, Hélène; Meister, Christian; Dutkiewicz, Ewa; Pigeaud, Romain; Sitzia, Luca; Cailhol, Didier; Bosq, Mathieu; Griggo, Christophe; Affolter, Jehanne; Queffelec, Alain; Doyon, Luc (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2023)
      The earliest European carvings, made of mammoth ivory, depict animals, humans, and anthropomorphs. They are found at Early Aurignacian sites of the Swabian Jura in Germany. Despite the wide geographical spread of the ...
    • Critical evaluation of in situ analyses for the characterisation of red pigments in rock paintings: A case study from El Castillo, Spain 

      Dayet, Laure; d'Errico, Francesco; Garcia Diez, Marcos; Zilhão, João (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2022)
      Paint technology, namely paint preparation and application procedures, is an important aspect of painting traditions. With the expansion of archaeometric studies and in situ non-destructive analytical methods, a renewal ...
    • Cro-Magnon personal ornaments revisited 

      Baker, Jack; Rigaud, Solange; Vanhaeren, Marian; d'Errico, Francesco (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2023)
      The Cro-Magnon rock-shelter hosted the first discovered and certainly one of the most important Gravettian burial sites in Europe. However, the copious ornament collection found among the human skeletons was not analysed ...
    • Earliest human burial in Africa 

      Martinon-Torres, Maria; d'Errico, Francesco; Santos, Elena; Alvaro Gallo, Ana; Amano, Noel; Archer, William; Armitage, Simon James; Arsuaga, Juan luis; Bermudez de Castro, Jose María; Blinkhorn, James; Crowther, Alison; Douka, Katerina; Dubernet, Stéphan; Faulkner, Patrick; Fernández-Colón, Pilar; Kourampas, Nikos; González García, Jorge; Larreina, David; Le Bourdonnec, François-Xavier; MacLeod, George; Martín-Francés, Laura; Massilani, Diyendo; Mercader, Julio; Miller, Jennifer M.; Ndiema, Emmanuel; Notario, Belén; Marti, Africa Pitarch; Prendergast, Mary E.; Queffelec, Alain; Rigaud, Solange; Roberts, Patrick; Shoaee, Mohammad Javad; Shipton, Ceri; Simpson, Ian; Boivin, Nicole; Petraglia, Michael D. (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2021)
      The origin and evolution of hominin mortuary practices are topics of intense interest and debate1,2,3. Human burials dated to the Middle Stone Age (MSA) are exceedingly rare in Africa and unknown in East Africa1,2,3,4,5,6. ...
    • An ecological niche shift for Neanderthal populations in Western Europe 70,000 years ago 

      Banks, William E.; Moncel, Marie-Helene; Raynal, J.P.; Cobos, MC; Romero-Alvarez, D; woillez, M-N; Faivre, Jean-Philippe; Gravina, Brad; d'Errico, Francesco; Locht, Jean-Luc; Santos, Frédéric (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2021)
      Middle Paleolithic Neanderthal populations occupied Eurasia for at least 250,000 years prior to the arrival of anatomically modern humans. While a considerable body of archaeological research has focused on Neanderthal ...
    • First identification of an evolving Middle Stone Age ochre culture at Porc-Epic Cave, Ethiopia 

      Rosso, Daniela Eugenia; Regert, Martine; d'Errico, Francesco (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2023)
      The use of mineral pigments, in particular iron-rich rocks, holds significant importance in understanding the emergence and evolution of human cultures. However, sites that have yielded a number of pieces large enough to ...
    • Last Interglacial Iberian Neandertals as Fisher-Hunter-Gatherers 

      Zilhao, J; Angelucci, Diego; Araujo Igregia, M; Arnold, LJ; Badal, E; Callapez, P; Cardoso, JL; d'Errico, Francesco; Daura, J; Demuro, Martina; Deschamps, M; Dupont, Catherine; Gabriel, S; Hoffmann, Dirk L.; Legoinha, Paulo; Matias, Henrique; Monge Soares, A. M.; Nabais, Mariana; Portela, Paulo J. C.; Queffelec, Alain; Rodrigues, Filipe; Souto, Pedro (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2020)
      Marine food–reliant subsistence systems such as those in the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) were not thought to exist in Europe until the much later Mesolithic. Whether this apparent lag reflects taphonomic biases or ...
    • Multiproxy analysis of Upper Palaeolithic lustrous gravels supports their anthropogenic use 

      Geis, Lila; d'Errico, Francesco; Jordan, Fiona; Brenet, Michel; Queffelec, Alain (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2023)
      Upper Palaeolithic sites in southwestern France attributed to the Upper Gravettian and the Solutrean yielded sub spherical gravels with a highly shiny appearance that have intrigued researchers since the 1930s. In this ...
    • Neural correlates of perceiving and interpreting engraved prehistoric patterns as human production: Effect of archaeological expertise 

      Salagnon, Mathilde; Cremona, Sandrine; Joliot, Marc; d'Errico, Francesco; Mellet, Emmanuel (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2022-08-03)
      It has been suggested that engraved abstract patterns dating from the Middle and Lower Palaeolithic served as means of representation and communication. Identifying the brain regions involved in visual processing of these ...
    • New evidence of bone tool use by Early Pleistocene hominins from Cooper’s D, Bloubank Valley, South Africa 

      Hanon, Raphael; d'Errico, Francesco; Backwell, Lucinda R.; Prat, Sandrine; Pean, S; Pathou-Mathis, M (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2021)
      Bone tool-use by Early Pleistocene hominins is at the centre of debates in human evolution. It is especially the case in South Africa, where 102 bone tools have been described from four Early Stone Age archaeological sites, ...
    • A Palaeolithic bird figurine from the Lingjing site, Henan, China 

      Li, Z; Doyon, Luc; Fang, Hui; Ledevin, Ronan; Queffelec, Alain; Raguin, Emilie; d'Errico, Francesco (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2020-06-10)
      The recent identification of cave paintings dated to 42–40 ka BP in Borneo and Sulawesi highlights the antiquity of painted representations in this region. However, no instances of three-dimensional portable art, well ...
    • The perception of quantity ain’t number: Missing the primacy of symbolic reference 

      Núñez, Rafael; d'Errico, Francesco; Gray, Russell D.; Bender, Andrea (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2021)
      Clarke and Beck's defense of the theoretical construct “approximate number system” (ANS) is flawed in serious ways – from biological misconceptions to mathematical naïveté. The authors misunderstand behavioral/psychological ...
    • Plants, people and fire: Phytolith and FTIR analyses of the post-Howiesons Poort occupations at Border Cave (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) 

      Esteban, Irene; Stratford, Dominic; Sievers, Christine; Peña, Paloma de la; Mauran, Guilhem; Backwell, Lucinda; d'Errico, Francesco; Wadley, Lyn (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2023)
      Border Cave is a well-known South African Middle and Early Later Stone Age site located in KwaZulu-Natal. The site has exceptional plant preservation, unparalleled in the African Middle Stone Age archaeological record. ...
    • Quantitative methods demonstrate that environment alone is an insufficient predictor of present-day language distributions in New Guinea 

      Antunes, Nicolas; Schiefenhövel, W; d'Errico, Francesco; Banks, William E.; Vanhaeren, Marian (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2020)
      Environmental parameters constrain the distributions of plant and animal species. A key question is to what extent does environment influence human behavior. Decreasing linguistic diversity from the equator towards the ...
    • Technological and functional analysis of 80–60 ka bone wedges from Sibudu (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) 

      d'Errico, Francesco; Backwell, Lucinda R.; Wadley, Lyn; Geis, Lila; Queffelec, Alain; Banks, William E.; Doyon, Luc (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2022)
      Fully shaped, morphologically standardized bone tools are generally considered reliable indicators of the emergence of modern behavior. We report the discovery of 23 double-beveled bone tools from ~ 80,000–60,000-year-old ...
    • Technological and geometric morphometric analysis of ‘post-Howiesons Poort points’ from Border Cave, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa 

      Timbrell, Lucy; Peña, Paloma de la; Way, Amy; Hoggard, Christian; Backwell, Lucinda; d'Errico, Francesco; Wadley, Lyn; Grove, Matt (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2022)
      Lithic assemblages immediately following the Howiesons Poort, often loosely referred to as the ‘post-Howiesons Poort’ or MSA III, have attracted relatively little attention when compared to other well-known phases of the ...
    • Trajectories of cultural innovation from the Middle to Later Stone Age in Eastern Africa: Personal ornaments, bone artifacts, and ocher from Panga ya Saidi, Kenya 

      d'Errico, Francesco; Pitarch Marti, Africa; Shipton, Ceri; Le Vraux, Emma; Ndiema, Emmanuel; Goldstein, Steven; Petraglia, Michael D.; Boivin, Nicole (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2020-03-09)
      African Middle Stone Age (MSA) populations used pigments, manufactured and wore personal ornaments, made abstract engravings, and produced fully shaped bone tools. However, ongoing research across Africa reveals variability ...
    • Zhoukoudian Upper Cave personal ornaments and ochre: Rediscovery and reevaluation 

      d'Errico, Francesco; Pitarch Martí, Africa; Wei, Yi; Gao, Xing; Vanhaeren, Marian; Doyon, Luc (Journal article; Peer reviewed, 2021)
      Personal ornaments have become a key cultural proxy to investigate cognitive evolution, modern human dispersal, and population dynamics. Here, we reassess personal ornaments found at Zhoukoudian Upper Cave and compare them ...