The Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition (ca 45-35 000 years ago) is a crucial period in human evolution, marked by significant biological and cultural changes among Neanderthals and Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) in Western Europe. The hypothesis that environmental and climate changes influenced the cultural adaptations of these hunter-gatherer groups is widely debated (e.g., Richerson et al., 2005; Pétillon et al., 2016) and therefore requires testing the synchrony between climate and cultural changes. However, previous studies addressing this question highlight several limitations including chronological uncertainties, evolving cultural classifications and the variable nature (archaeological, lacustrine and marine), spatial (local/regional), and temporal resolution of the paleoenvironmental records. While eco-cultural niche models have been developed in recent years to explore human-environment interactions, most scholars still rely primarily on comparative data analysis. 

This study aims to present a new comparison using palaeoenvironmental and cultural data from the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition in France, offering reflections on what the data can reveal prior to eco-cultural niche modelling, as well as the limitations of such data comparisons. This approach includes marine pollen-based regional environmental reconstructions from southwestern and southeastern France (Fourcade et al., 2024). We will also use updated archaeological databases and Bayesian chronological modelling (Lanos and Philippe, 2018) to refine the timing of cultural changes among Neanderthals and AMH in France (Fourcade, 2022; Fourcade et al., 2022).

The results of this work suggest that identifying potential synchronicities remains challenging due to the chronological uncertainties inherent in both records. Nevertheless, this study indicates that the progressive aridification of the landscape during the Last Glacial period may have facilitated the arrival of AMH in Western Europe, leading to competition with Neanderthals for the same ecological niches and ultimately contributing to the latter's disappearance.

References

Fourcade, T., 2022. Changements culturels et adaptations aux changements climatiques et environnementaux des derniers Néandertaliens dans le sud de la France. Thèse de doctorat, Université Bordeaux 3, Pessac, 430 p.

Fourcade, T., Sánchez Goñi, M.F., Lahaye, C., Rossignol, L., Philippe, A., 2022. Environmental changes in SW France during the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition from the pollen analysis of an eastern North Atlantic deep-sea core. Quaternary Research. 110, 147–164. https://doi.org/10.1017/qua.2022.21.

Fourcade, T., Sánchez Goñi, M.F., Lesven, J., Lahaye, C., Philippe, A., 2024. Vegetation response in NW Mediterranean borderlands to the millennial-scale climate variability of the last glacial period. Quaternary Science Reviews. 334, 108722. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108722.

Lanos, P., Philippe, A., 2018. Event date model: a robust Bayesian tool for chronology building. Commun. Stat. Appl. Methods 25, 131–157. https://doi.org/10.29220/CSAM.2018.25.2.131.

Pétillon, J.-M., Laroulandie, V., Costamagno, S., Langlais, M., 2016. Testing environmental determinants in the cultural evolution of hunter-gatherers: a three-year multidisciplinary project on the occupation of the western Aquitaine basin during the Middle and Upper Magdalenian (19–14 kyr cal BP). Quaternary International. 414, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.04.035.

Richerson, P.J., Bettinger, R.L., Boyd, R., 2005. Evolution on a restless planet: Were environmental variability and environmental change major drivers of human evolution, in: Wuketits, F.M., Ayala, F.J. (Eds.), Handbook of Evolution: The Evolution of Living Systems (Including Hominids). Weinheim, 223–242.