Investigating the Aurignacian/Gravettian Transition in the Bistriţa Valley (NE-Romania)

Abstract

Our understanding of the Aurignacian/Gravettian transition has changed focus during the last decade: while former investigations mainly tried to define technotypological units of artefact types and their evolutionary macrotrends, the evaluation of geoscien- tific data in improved chronological frameworks now provide surprising potential. Specifying the data record can at the very least contribute to the question of a possible ‘‘lateAurignacian’’ or ‘‘Epi-Aurignacian’’ (Kozlowski 1996, 1999) in Eastern Europe, and may even offer some new scenarios of that cultural change. The introduction of Gravettian inventories in Central Europe occurs at about 30–28 kyr uncal. BP over a wide region ranging from Western France to the Upper/Middle Danube region, Southern Poland, and the Ukraine in the East (Conard and Bolus 2003; Haesaerts et al. 1996, 2004; Otte and Noiret 2004). In general there is no continuity of Aurignacian inventories after 27 kyr uncal. BP, not even in sites with long stratigraphical sequences. The isolated ‘‘Epi-Aurignacian’’ set of three radiocarbon dates from Langmannersdorf (Lower Austria) is poor evidence (Angeli 1953; Mayer 2001), as are the four heterogeneous dates from Bockstein-T ¨orle IV–VI in Southern Germany (Conard and Bolus 2003, 336). As the ‘‘updating’’ of Alberndorf (Lower Austria) shows, the ‘‘Epi-Aurignacian’’ character assumed in these three cases was based on an impre- cise 14Crecord (Trnka 2005 vs. Bachner et al. 1996). In contrast, several sites in Moravia have been classified as unquestionable ‘‘Epi-Aurignacian’’ by Oliva (1996)—although he argues that there was a contemporaneity with the Gravettian. A chronolo- gically isolated revival of theAurignacianwas recently rejected by Terberger (2003), in his discussion of the 14C dated sites of the LGM in Central Europe. Recapitulating the scientific consensus, the intro- duction of the Gravettian can be seen as a relatively coherent stage, while the continuity, the ‘‘fade out,’’ or recurrence of the Aurignacian is controversial (Palma di Cesnola et al. 1996).