A bifacial tool workshop at the end of the Middle Palaeolithic at Saint-Brice-sous-Rânes (Orne, France) in its environmental context

Radiocarbon dates for the late Middle Palaeolithic at Pech de l'Azé IV, France

“…La Ferrassie, Peyrony, 1934) or northern France (cf. Cliquet et al, 2009). The Grotte XVI MTA dates as well as those from the more problematic industry of La Folie contradict an exclusively the late attribution of the MTA, but they have stood in isolation from the remaining dated MTA occurrences, most of which are based on radiocarbon.…”

Spatio-temporal variation in late Middle Palaeolithic Neanderthal behaviour: British bout coupé handaxes as a case study

“…at Hyaena Den (Fig. 5D) and Saint-Brice sous Rânes (Cliquet et al, 2009), whilst others had different forms of retouch applied to their edges, including scraperlike retouch or struck and retouched notches ( Fig. 5C; the notch spalls themselves may also have been useable products; Soressi, 2002;Park, 2007;Wragg Sykes, 2010).…”

“…115 ka) onwards assemblages with larger quantities of bifacial tools, now including various handaxe types, leaf points, bifacial scrapers and/or Keilmesser, occur regularly across Western, Central and Eastern Europe. In Western Europe late Middle Palaeolithic assemblages can contain a range of bifacial tools, although handaxes are most common and have been found in a variety of contexts (Cliquet, 2001;Soressi, 2002;Jaubert et al, 2008;Cliquet et al, 2009;Deschodt et al, 2009;Niekus et al, 2011;Ruebens, 2013Ruebens, , 2014. These handaxe-rich assemblages also occur alongside assemblages with few or no traces of bifacial technologies (Bordes, 1961;Bosinski, 1967;Conard and Fischer, 2000;Richter, 2000Richter, , 2014Monnier and Missal, 2014).…”

On the local Mousterian origin of the Châtelperronian: Integrating typo-technological, chronostratigraphic and contextual data

“…For example, in western France the assemblage of Saint-Brice-sousRânes, characterized by large quantities of small handaxes, has been TL dated to around 40.6 ± 2.2 ka (Cliquet et al, 2009). In northern France, the recently excavated Mousterian assemblage of Les Bossats, TL dated to 44.8 ± 3.4 and 49.9 ± 3.1 ka, is characterized by discoidal flaking and backed knives with discrete abrupt retouch (Bodu et al, 2014).…”