No abstract

Neanderthal material culture patterning in Western Europe has been primarily approached from retouched stone tools and associated flake production methods. While considerable effort has been devoted over the past decade to better characterize Middle Palaeolithic lithic techno-complexes (LTCs) in this region, the extent to which they reflect cultural groups still remains unclear. In this respect, integrating other forms of archaeological evidence could provide valuable insights on the cultural significance of late Middle Palaeolithic industrial variability. The site of Combe-Grenal (Dordogne, France) has yielded consistent evidence of mineral pigment use throughout the upper part of the sequence. Here we explore whether mineral pigments might be embedded with an indexical meaning and if changes in pigment exploitation potentially reflect cultural changes. We combined a microscopic use-wear approach with SEM-EDS, pXRF, and XRD analyses of 73 pigment fragments from layers 26 to 11 in order to reconstruct the different stages of their acquisition and use (provenance, selection, processing, function). Our results show manganese oxides to have been used in the lower layers of the Quina LTC, while red and/or yellow iron oxide pieces were employed during the Discoid and Discoid/ Levallois LTCs. This decrease in manganese oxide use correlates with a change in lithic technology and may represent some form of cultural change.

Identifying the origin of marble used in antiquity brings back to light details of the economic, social and political organization of classical societies, and characterizing in depth the chemistry of marble is key to discovering its provenance. Beyond X-ray diffraction, which could reveal the presence of discriminant secondary crystalline phases and the quantification of accessory minerals combined with a multivariate analysis approach, solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) enables one to recognize the local structure arrangement of both crystalline and amorphous materials by looking at one or more selected atoms. In present paper targets the 13 C nuclide, and thus the major component of marble, calcium carbonate. Whatever their geological origin, marbles 13 C-NMR spectra present only one resonance corresponding to the carboxyl function whose intensity and line width vary from one marble to another. If the variation of the NMR signal intensity observed is the result of great T1 variations (from 220 to 5300 s) and is linked to iron content, the line width reflects defects in the calcite crystal in which calcium has been replaced by another element such as magnesium, aluminium or strontium. The specific profile of the NMR signal has been used successfully to help determine the origin of some archaeological items.