C u r r e n t A n t h r o p o l o g y Volume 42, Number 4, August–October 2001
䉷 2001 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved 0011-3204/2001/4204-0001$3.00
Grave Markers
Middle and Early Upper
Paleolithic Burials and the Use
of Chronotypology in
Contemporary Paleolithic
Research1
by Julien Riel-Salvatore and
Geoffrey A. Clark
Comparison of mortuary data from the Middle and Early Upper
Paleolithic archaeological record shows that, contrary to previous
assessments, there is much evidence for continuity between the
two periods. This suggests that if R. H. Gargett’s critique of al-
leged Middle Paleolithic burials is to be given credence, it should
also be applied to the “burials” of the Early Upper Paleolithic.
Evidence for continuity reinforces conclusions derived from
lithic and faunal analyses and site locations that the Upper Pale-
olithic as a reified category masks much variation in the archae-
ological record and is therefore not an appropriate analytical tool.
Dividing the Upper Paleolithic into Early and Late phases might
be helpful for understanding the cultural and biological processes
at work.
j u l i e n r i e l - s a l v a t o r e is currently a graduate research fel-
low at the Archaeological Research Institute, Department of An-
thropology, Arizona State University (Tempe, Ariz. 85287-2402,
U.S.A. [julienrs@asu.edu]). Born in 1977, he was educated at Mc-
Gill University (B.A., Honours, 1999) and at Arizona State Uni-
versity (M.A., 2001). He has conducted fieldwork in Spain and It-
aly, and his research interests include the symbolic capacities of
Eurasian Paleolithic hominids, lithic technology and classifica-
tion, rock art, and research frameworks and traditions.
g e o f f r e y a . c l a r k is Distinguished Research Professor of
Anthropology at Arizona State University. Born in 1944, he was
educated at the University of Arizona (B.A., 1966; M.A., 1967)
and the University of Chicago (Ph.D., 1971). His recent
publications deal with the logic of inference in modern-human-
origins research (e.g., with John Lindly, “Modern Human Origins
in the Levant and Western Asia,” American Anthropologist 91:
962–85, and “Symbolism and Modern Human Origins,” current
anthropology 31:233–61) and applications of neo-Darwinian ev-
olutionary theory in archaeology and human paleontology (e.g.,
with coeditor Mike Barton, Rediscovering Darwin [Washington,
D.C.: American Anthropological Association, 1997]).
The present paper was submitted 20 iii 00 and accepted 2 i 01.
1. We are grateful to many friends and colleagues for helping us
bring this work to fruition. We thank Bill Kimbel (Institute of Hu-
man Origins, Arizona State University) for incisive comments on
an earlier draft; we have tried to incorporate his suggestions when-
ever possible. We also acknowledge the useful remarks of two anon-
Since it was recognized in the early 20th century that
Upper Paleolithic humans buried their dead (Defleur
1993:17–18), debate has raged over whether the practice
also existed in the Middle Paleolithic. Although often
implicit, this controversy is linked to perceptions of the
respective cognitive capacities of Middle and Upper Pa-
leolithic hominids and thus deeply imbedded in the con-
troversy over the origins of modern humans. Although
many archaeologists and physical anthropologists work-
ing with Paleolithic material have come to accept the
existence of Middle Paleolithic burials, their meaning in
behavioral terms is still much discussed (Chase and Dib-
ble 1987, Hayden 1993).
In 1989, Robert Gargett proposed that all of what had
typically been accepted as evidence of Middle Paleolithic
burials could be explained in terms of natural processes.
For him, burials first appeared in the Upper Paleolithic,
presumably as part of a “symbolic explosion” heralding
modern behavior claimed by some archaeologists to have
taken place at the Middle–Upper Paleolithic transition,
roughly 35,000 years b.p. (see, e.g., White 1989a, b). Al-
though his view was met with much skepticism (e.g.,
Belfer-Cohen and Hovers 1992, Hayden 1993, Defleur
1993, Gargett 1989, Louwe Kooijmans et al. 1989), Gar-
gett has recently published another paper on the issue
(1999). In this latest salvo he attributes more cases, in-
cluding some recent ones that were excavated more “sci-
entifically,” to natural depositional and taphonomic
processes.
While his call for a more rigorous examination of al-
ternative explanations for Middle Paleolithic burials is
welcome, we suggest that his view is too extreme. Belfer-
Cohen and Hovers (1992) have convincingly argued that
if Gargett’s criteria for Middle Paleolithic burials were
to be applied to the Natufian burials of the Near East,
we would still fall short of conclusive evidence of pur-
poseful burial in that region. This suggests that Gargett
is selective in the application of his principles—an ap-
proach that he never adequately justifies. We argue here
that the only way in which his approach could be jus-
tified would be to submit the earliest, if not all, Upper
Paleolithic burials to the same critical scrutiny. We pro-
pose to test some of the implications of Gargett’s posi-
tion by comparing the Middle Paleolithic evidence with
that for the Early Upper Paleolithic. If, as Gargett (1999:
30) argues, burial practices developed only in the Upper
Paleolithic, no Upper Paleolithic burials from any period
should share any significant patterns with putative bur-
ials from the Middle Paleolithic.
ymous referees. Filippo Salvatore (Concordia University) and Steve
Schmich (Arizona State University) read earlier versions of the man-
uscript and provided useful comments. We thank Alexandra de
Sousa (George Washington University) for stimulating discussions
on the nature of Paleolithic burial, the subject of her B.A. honors
thesis at Arizona State University. We are, of course, responsible
for all errors of fact or omission.
449
450 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 42, Number 4, August–October 2001
The Question of the Early Upper Paleolithic
Recent work in various areas of the Old World has pro-
vided scholars with “hard” evidence that what is often
interpreted as typically Middle Paleolithic behavior, no-
tably subsistence strategies and tool making, shifted to
typically Upper Paleolithic patterns only after about
20,000 years ago (Lindly and Clark 1990, Duff, Clark,
and Chadderdon 1992, Stiner 1994, Kuhn 1995). In fact,
observable patterns often show a great deal of continuity
across “cultures” and over time (Clark 1992). Recent
claims of a possible Neanderthal/Homo sapiens sapiens
hybrid dating to the latter part of the Early Upper Pa-
leolithic (Duarte et al. 1999, Trinkaus, Zilhão, and
Duarte 1999) also suggest that the simplistic equation
of “cultures” with hominid types, a correlate of tradi-
tional interpretive frameworks of Paleolithic research, is
seriously flawed and probably counterproductive for an
understanding of the transition.
Recognition of distinct Early and Late Upper Paleo-
lithic periods has not been unanimously accepted. Some
scholars have insisted that the Upper Paleolithic is a
coherent temporal and cultural unit (see White 1989b
and various papers in Knecht, Pike-Tay, and White 1993).
This period, they claim, was associated exclusively with
modern humans and a very few acculturated Neander-
thals and was defined by an unmistakable “symbolic ex-
plosion” that included as a single package art, symbolism
(including burials), bone and antler technology, complex
social structures, and perhaps even language (Noble and
Davidson 1991, 1993, 1996). This point of view, which
ignores much of the evidence for Middle Paleolithic sym-
bolism (e.g., Marshack 1989), agrees well with Gargett’s
perception of the differences between the Middle and the
Upper Paleolithic. Indeed, his view effectively “dehu-
manizes” Neanderthals and implies that they were, for
all intents and purposes, evolutionary dead ends.
Both positions, however, appear to accept that cultural
diversity intensified in the course of the Upper Paleo-
lithic. This being the case, we can assume that the ear-
liest phases of that chronotypologically defined period
would be characterized by simpler forms of the same
behavior found in its later phases. Thus, if we are to take
some fraction of the Upper Paleolithic as a basis for po-
tential behavioral comparisons with the Middle Paleo-
lithic, it appears sensible to take the allegedly behavior-
ally “incipient” portion of that period as that baseline.
The first three Upper Paleolithic “technocomplexes”
(Châtelperronian, Aurignacian, and Gravettian) will be
the ones characterized by the earliest and presumably
simplest manifestations of symbolic behavior, including
purposeful burial. If Gargett is right and intentional in-
terment begins only with the earliest Upper Paleolithic,
the patterns derived from this limited sample should
show no qualitative similarities whatsoever to those de-
rived from a sample of alleged graves from the Middle
Paleolithic.
By trying to discern how burial practices in the Early
Upper Paleolithic differed from or resembled those sug-
gested for the Middle Paleolithic, this paper will also test
the validity of the Upper Paleolithic as an analytical unit,
since it will show whether an unambiguous Middle/Up-
per Paleolithic division exists in a body of evidence other
than stone tools. By extension, the validity of typological
and etic approaches to the dynamic cultural and biolog-
ical processes of the Paleolithic will also be assessed.
Burials and Modern Human Origins
Almost everyone involved in modern-human-origins re-
search accepts that humans had started to bury their dead
by the earliest phases of the Upper Paleolithic. The issue
before us, then, is whether purposeful burial also existed
in the Middle Paleolithic.
One group of researchers, spearheaded by Gargett
(1989, 1996, 1999), argues that geological or nonhuman
natural processes alone can account for all apparent Mid-
dle Paleolithic hominid burials recovered so far. This
implies that they view Upper Paleolithic graves in gen-
eral as radically different from all the material claimed
in support of intentional burial in the Middle Paleolithic.
A major difficulty with this point of view is the unlike-
lihood that the geological processes at work in Middle
Paleolithic sites would not also have affected those of
the Upper Paleolithic. The presence of proportionally
greater numbers of Upper Paleolithic graves should be
perfectly explicable by such processes. Indeed, besides
the fact that Early Upper Paleolithic sites were more
numerous and widespread than Middle Paleolithic ones
(White 1985:57), bodies buried 100,000 years ago are
much less likely to have been preserved to the present
than those buried a “mere” 25,000 years ago. This per-
spective suggests that modern humans, who were, after
all, present for most of the Middle Paleolithic, eventually
crossed some kind of cognitive threshold beyond the
reach of the “symbolically challenged” Neanderthals,
who were destined to be replaced. It is not surprising,
therefore, to see proponents of this interpretation invok-
ing the extreme replacement scenario of Stringer
(Stringer, Hublin, and Vandermeersch 1984, Stringer and
Andrews 1988; but cf. Clark and Willermet 1995) and
Mellars (1989, 1996; but cf. Clark and Lindly 1989a,
Clark 1997b).
Another group of researchers accepts the existence of
Middle Paleolithic graves but sees them as different from
those of the Upper Paleolithic. Chase and Dibble (1987;
Chase 1991) argue that Middle Paleolithic burial is ev-
idence of a level of caring and emotional attachment well
above that of any other higher primates but that “there
are no other obvious signs of ritual” (Chase and Dibble
1987:276). In other words, Middle Paleolithic hominids
were gregarious, emotional, socially complex, and adept
at hunting but had no ritual or symbolic behavior to
organize their sociality. (Exactly how emotion is de-
tached from “humanness” is never made clear.) This po-
sition has the notable advantage of being able to account
for the very limited number of apparent graves recovered
from Middle Paleolithic contexts, since it implies that

burial was not a regular part of the Neanderthal behav-
ioral repertoire and was, therefore, likely to have been
sporadic. It is handicapped, however, by evidence that
Middle Paleolithic modern humans also sporadically
buried their dead for no symbolic reason. This observa-
tion can be interpreted as suggesting that modern hu-
mans and Neanderthals were the same species and
shared a behavioral repertoire—a view that is supported
by lithic (Boëda 1988) and faunal (Chase 1989) evidence
strongly suggesting that the two hominids had similar
lifeways for an interval of at least 60,000 years (Lindly
and Clark 1990). The alternative interpretation preferred
by Chase and Dibble (1987:285) is that Neanderthals and
modern humans were two distinct species and that only
modern humans would eventually develop the capacity
for symbolic behavior, or “neoculture,” giving them a
competitive advantage over “paleocultural” Neander-
thals, who were driven to extinction. Despite a lack of
concrete evidence, most of the proponents of the non-
symbolic-burial interpretation adhere to this view.
Others in this group see both kinds of Middle Paleo-
lithic hominids as having the capacity for symbolic be-
havior, but what this means is debated. Some researchers
argue that despite their ability to act symbolically, Ne-
anderthals apparently never “refined” this capacity to
the same degree as modern humans and were therefore
condemned to be replaced by them (Defleur 1993; Mel-
lars 1996). A broadly similar expression of this view
based on the analysis of stone and bone tools and per-
sonal ornaments has recently been proposed by some
European workers (d’Errico et al. 1998, Zilhão and
d’Errico 1999a; see Clark 1997a, 1999a). Others argue,
however, that the “embryonic” ritual behavior embodied
in burials postdating 100,000 years b.p. provides support
for the hypothesis that the two hominid groups were
simply regional variants within a single, wide-ranging,
polytypic species (Brose and Wolpoff 1971, Wolpoff, Wu,
and Thorne 1984, Clark and Lindly 1989a, Wolpoff 1989).
In their view, the Middle Paleolithic archaeological rec-
ord provides evidence of a fair degree of social complexity
that increased at a different rate from that of biological
evolution (Marshack 1989, Hayden 1993). May (1986:
157, translation ours)2 sums up this position when she
states that “the Upper Paleolithic is in continuity with
the Middle Paleolithic, developing further what it con-
tained in germinal form. . . . It is the very principle of
evolution.” This position has the advantage of being able
to indicate some of the elements that should or could
be found in Early Upper Paleolithic burials, thereby pro-
viding the test implications for Early Upper Paleolithic
burial that the other approaches have studiously avoided.
In fact, the multiregional hypothesis predicts that ex-
tremely robust modern humans showing some Nean-
derthal features will be the earliest buried hominids of
the Upper Paleolithic. It happens that many of the ear-
liest recovered hominids from the Upper Paleolithic
2. “Le Paléolithique supérieur est en continuité avec le Paléoli-
thique moyen, développe ce qu’il contenait en germe. . . . C’est le
principe même de l’évolution.”
r i e l - s a l v a t o r e a n d c l a r k Grave Markers F 451
have, in fact, been described as very robust and showing
Neanderthal affinities (see Wolfpoff 1997:746–58; 1999:
761–69). The problem is that it is impossible to compare
them with Neanderthals as a whole because, despite
claims to the contrary (see Stringer, Hublin, and Van-
dermeersch 1984), we do not have a list of traits that
unambiguously characterizes Upper Pleistocene homi-
nids as Neanderthal or modern (Willermet 1993, Willer-
met and Clark 1995, Clark 1997a). This renders the clas-
sification of limitrophe specimens difficult if not
impossible, resulting in a conceptual impasse in which
players from multiregional and replacement camps cite
the same evidence but interpret it differently. It is in-
teresting, however, that the robust modern humans pre-
sent in the earliest Upper Paleolithic (see descriptions of
Combe Capelle, Les Cottés, and Předmostı́ in May 1986)
are precisely what is expected by continuity advocates
and can be accommodated only with difficulty by the
replacement model. The recently discovered Lagar Velho
Neanderthal/modern “hybrid” (Duarte et al. 1999, Trin-
kaus, Zilhão, and Duarte 1999) is another “aberration”
that can be explained more adequately from a continuity
than from a replacement perspective (but see Bräuer
1984, 1989).
We take the position that burials are crucial for un-
derstanding both the biological and the cultural transi-
tion and that, like stone tools, they can serve as impor-
tant sources of information about the origins of what is
seen as typically modern behavior. As with stone tools,
however, it is quite unwarranted to link burials with
specific hominid taxa. It is very unlikely that interment
was the only way our Paleolithic forebears had of dis-
posing of the dead (Ucko 1969), and their mortuary prac-
tices may not always have left traces in the archaeolog-
ical record (e.g., Le Mort 1988). Therefore, while burials
can certainly be used as a source of evidence in inferring
past lifeways, if we are ever to resolve the issues sur-
rounding our origins they cannot be studied in isolation
from other lines of evidence (e.g., tool technologies, set-
tlement and subsistence patterns, etc.).
Some Comments on Burial Analysis
In analyzing mortuary data, regularities or patterns must
be identified in grave contexts. Following Binford (1971),
patterns in the mortuary record can be assumed to reflect
some of the various social personae (statuses occupied
or activated in life) of the deceased (see also Clark and
Neeley 1987). This suggests that, if we can control for
taphonomy and diagenesis, at least some of the patterns
in the Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic record could
represent or index the social personae recognized by the
societies in which purposefully interred individuals once
participated. As is pointed out by Harrold (1980:196),
however, this approach is based on cross-cultural obser-
vations derived from fully modern populations that typ-
ically use formal cemeteries to dispose of their dead.
Paleolithic burials are much fewer and much more
widely distributed in space and time than those of any
452 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 42, Number 4, August–October 2001
anthropological culture. We may also be dealing with
two different species (or, more likely, populations of the
same species), with the result that anthropologically de-
rived principles are probably not applicable to the period
under scrutiny. Therefore, while patterns may be visible
in the mortuary record of the later phases of the Paleo-
lithic, one must be extremely careful in interpreting
them and wary of generalizing them to archaeologically
defined analytical units, which are by definition fairly
static and of very long duration and therefore quite dif-
ferent from cultures in the purely anthropological sense
of the term (Clark 1997a).
Selection of Data
The geographical area under scrutiny consists of most of
Western Eurasia and Western Russia, that is, the whole
area in which typologically defined Middle and Upper
Paleolithic tool assemblages have been identified. This
is an area of several million square kilometers. Although
many sites there have yielded human remains, only
those considered to have been purposefully buried are
examined here.
One of Gargett’s major criticisms of research on Mid-
dle Paleolithic burials is that the mere presence of an
articulated skeleton in an archaeological context is often
taken as evidence for purposeful burial (1989:160–61;
1999:31–33, 41–42). This criticism is a valid one. Al-
though is it true that skeletons are rarely so preserved
(1989:157–58), nonhuman processes can and sometimes
do result in the preservation of articulated skeletal parts.
Many researchers (May 1986, Smirnov 1989, Defleur
1993) do in fact start their analyses of Middle Paleolithic
burials with the presumption that an articulated skele-
ton represents intentional burial (but see Vandermeersch
1993 for an alternative approach). All agree, however,
that an articulated skeleton by itself is never sufficient
evidence of a burial.
A common solution is to look for other elements that
may indicate purposeful interment. These include a skel-
eton’s position, the presence of a pit or some other type
of burial structure, and the presence of grave
goods—objects unambiguously associated with the re-
mains and therefore assumed to have been intentionally
placed in a grave (Defleur 1993:57–58). As concerns the
identification of burial inclusions as “grave goods” in
Middle Paleolithic contexts, we refer the reader to De-
fleur’s (1993) thorough and competent discussion of the
matter and to the original sources in which they were
reported as such in recently discovered burials (i.e., De-
deriyeh 1 [Akazawa et al. 1995] and Amud 7 [Hovers et
al. 1995, Hovers, Kimbel, and Rak 2000, Rak, Kimbel,
and Hovers 1994]). May (1986:4) also suggests that at-
tention be paid to the total area in which the remains
are found, and Smirnov (1989:216) proposes that the pres-
ence of associated features be taken into account. When
one or more of these elements co-occurs with an artic-
ulated skeleton, it seems likely that we are dealing with
a purposeful inhumation.
Technically, the number of supposed Middle Paleo-
lithic burials included in this study should be of no im-
portance, since, if they do not carry a symbolic loading,
they should not show any patterns similar to those de-
rived from Early Upper Paleolithic burials (Gargett 1999:
30). Nevertheless, we classified the apparent Middle Pa-
leolithic burials as “certain,” “probable,” or “possible”
(Defleur 1993) and omitted the “possible” burials from
our sample. When possible, reference was also made to
the original publications for the older sites reviewed by
Defleur (e.g., Solecki 1971; Heim 1976, 1982) to increase
the accuracy of our interpretations. Additional data from
recently discovered Middle Paleolithic burials were gath-
ered from articles or excavation reports and included in
the sample (Bar-Yosef et al. 1992, Rak, Kimbel, and Hov-
ers 1994, Akazawa et al. 1995, Hovers et al. 1995, Tillier
1995, Vermeersch et al. 1998).
A number of criteria were used to determine if a burial
belonged to the Middle Paleolithic. First and foremost,
given that typological approaches have repeatedly been
shown to be seriously flawed (Dibble 1984, 1987; Dibble
and Rolland 1992; Bisson 2000), we looked instead for a
Middle Paleolithic or Mousterian technological “signa-
ture”—the dominance of flake-based retouched tools in
lithic assemblages (except in the Levant, where blade-
based tools appear to be the norm for that period [see
e.g., Bar-Yosef and Kuhn 1999]). This definition roughly
parallels the traditional typology-based one and makes
identification of Middle Paleolithic archaeological strata
possible even in a survey that must depend on second-
hand sources. If a proposed burial associated with an
assemblage of Middle Paleolithic signature was recorded,
it was assumed to date to the Middle Paleolithic. (The
use of this concept of signature is proposed simply as a
tool for classifying burials for the purposes of this study.)
In the rare instances when dates were available, if the
burial was dated to over 40,000 b.p.3 it was also included
in the Middle Paleolithic sample. A big problem here is
that the various dates available were obtained by differ-
ent methods applied to different materials across the
sites (for a very detailed discussion of dating methods
applied to the Paleolithic period, see Zilhão and d’Errico
1999a). Effectively, this means that the dates cannot be
directly compared with each other. Since there are no
temporally distinct Middle Paleolithic tool traditions
(but see Mellars 1996), dates never contradicted the at-
tribution of a grave to the Middle Paleolithic based on
assemblage signature.
The Early Upper Paleolithic burials considered here
were compiled from a variety of sources, including syn-
theses (Oakley, Campbell, and Molleson 1971, May 1986,
Palma di Cesnola 1993) and detailed journal articles
(Klima 1987a, b; Svoboda 1989; Svoboda and Vlček 1991).
There were, however, significant problems in identifying
3. The date of 40,000 b.p. is not typically associated with the end
of the Middle Paleolithic but is used here because it excludes even
the earliest recorded manifestation of the so-called Middle–Upper
Paleolithic transition, characterized by the development of Upper
Paleolithic tool types.

the sites to be included in the sample. Very few sites are
securely dated, and, although the “cultures” included in
the time interval chosen, 40,000–20,000 years b.p., are
only the Châtelperronian, the Aurignacian, and the
Gravettian, these denominations are not valid over the
whole geographical area under investigation. For exam-
ple, the Gravettian in Moravia is called the Pavlovian,
defined as a unique and distinctive Moravian variation
on the Gravettian theme (Svoboda 1994). This lack of a
unified terminology points to the need for revision of the
conceptual frameworks used for dealing with Upper Pa-
leolithic “industries” (see Barton, Olszewski, and Coin-
man 1996 for a lithic-based example). Furthermore, the
“cultural sequence” is not necessarily the same in the
various parts of the area under scrutiny. This often makes
it difficult to understand precisely what researchers
mean in temporal terms when they use similar
chronotypological designations in different areas. If noth-
ing else, this fundamental problem should cast serious
doubt on the unilineal cultural evolution implied in the
Upper Paleolithic typology devised by de Sonneville-Bor-
des and Perrot (1953, 1954, 1955, 1956).
Another problem was the significant discrepancies be-
tween typological designations and absolute dates. For
example, while Palma di Cesnola (1993:406–10) assigns
all the Barma Grande graves to the earliest part of the
Upper Paleolithic, recent 14C dates (Bisson, Tisnerat, and
White 1996) show that they really postdate 20,000 years
b.p. and therefore fall outside of our time range. This is
a major problem, since most Early Upper Paleolithic sites
have been classified chronotypologically but never dated.
It can be hoped, however, that renewed interest in this
material, most of it excavated in the late 19th or early
20th century, will eventually result in a more adequate
radiometric chronology. In sum, most of the material in
the Early Upper Paleolithic sample was either supported
by absolute dates or assigned to the Châtelperronian, the
Aurignacian, or (more rarely) the Gravettian.
The compilation of the data resulted in a sample of 45
alleged Middle Paleolithic and 32 alleged Early Upper
Paleolithic burials (excluding the 18 individuals from the
Předmostı́ mass grave, for which secure information is
lacking). The variables selected for study include sex,
age, body position, grave orientation, grave features, and
grave goods, all of which are fairly standard in the study
of Paleolithic burials4 (Binford 1968, Harrold 1980, Smir-
nov 1989, Defleur 1993). In addition, the hominid “type”
of recovered skeletons was also recorded on the chance
that species- or population-specific mortuary practices
might be identified. Finally, evidence of pathology on the
recovered skeletons was also noted, following Defleur’s
(1993:225) suggestion that it may have been a significant
4. Most of these criteria are far from unambiguously identified.
Besides those characteristics of skeletons which can often be mis-
interpreted in incomplete individuals (age and sex), the question of
burial orientation is also difficult, since burials may have been
oriented according to nearby features of the landscape that have
long since disappeared (rivers, trees, etc.) rather than according to
the eight cardinal directions of Western geography. Beyond that,
orientation relative to a specific spatial referent is rarely evident.
r i e l - s a l v a t o r e a n d c l a r k Grave Markers F 453
determinant of who was buried in the Middle Paleolithic.
The relevant information is tabulated in tables 1 and 2.
It might have been interesting here to generate and use
a “diversity index” like that employed by Harrold (1980:
200) in his comparative study of Paleolithic burials.
However, since we do not know the relative cultural
value of various types of grave goods or whether the ab-
sence of grave goods could be mitigated by more elabo-
rate ritual ceremonies that left no archaeological traces,
we considered it risky to do so.
Data Analysis
middle paleolithic burials
Analysis of the Middle Paleolithic sample (table 3) allows
the following general observations. First, juveniles com-
prise the largest part of the sample. Most recovered ju-
veniles appear to be under 10 years of age, while most
males belong to the 16–30 and 41–50 age brackets.5 Fe-
males are underrepresented.
Roughly one in five Middle Paleolithic burials con-
tained an individual who showed signs of pathology. Two
out of seven identified females (disproportionately high
for this period) exhibited pathology.
The vast majority of inhumed individuals were Ne-
anderthals. That the three sites that yielded modern hu-
man burials produced roughly 30% of the burials might
be interpreted as evidence that modern humans showed
a higher propensity to bury their dead, but this would
be a risky assertion. Two of these sites (Qafzeh and
Skhūl) are among the oldest in our sample, while the
third, Taramsa, yielded a single rather plain grave and
dates to between roughly 80,000 and 50,000 years b.p.
(Vermeersch et al. 1998). Following the same dubious
line of reasoning, one could conclude that modern hu-
man behavior actually became simpler rather than more
complex over time.
In most cases, the placement and resting plane of the
recovered individuals were not reported by the excava-
tors. This is unfortunate, since in many ethnographic
cultures body position is a significant part of the mor-
tuary program (Carr 1995). Those bodies for which in-
formation was available show that roughly equal num-
bers rested on their backs or right sides and
proportionally fewer of them on their left. This period
has the only evidence for “kneeling” and “seated” po-
sitions. Most of the skeletons were found in a contracted
or tightly flexed position.
Data on grave orientation are also scarce, but most
burials for which information is available were oriented
one way or another along an east-west axis. The only
sites where bodies were consistently oriented along a
particular axis are La Ferrassie and Qafzeh, and the sites
5. Most paleodemographic studies rely on five-year age-brackets,
but we are using the brackets proposed by Defleur not to reconstruct
a life table but to compare patterns between Middle and Early Upper
Paleolithic groups. This use should not mask much of the varia-
bility in the mortuary record.
454 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 42, Number 4, August–October 2001

table 1
Middle Paleolithic Mortuary Data

Age– Physical Body Orien-

Burial Status Sexa Age Class Pathologyb Typec Positiond tatione Featuresf Grave Goods

La Chapelle-aux- Certain M Ⳳ50 41–50 N Ne D/C W–E P Bones, lithics?, nearby

Saints pits (lithics, bone
shards)
Le Moustier 1 Probable M Young 16–30? N Ne R/F? ? – Bone shard ⫹ lithic
adult “pillow”
Le Moustier 2 Probable J Child 2–10 N Ne ? ? P Lithics?, nearby pits
(lithics, bone
shards)
La Ferrassie 1 Certain M 40–45 41–50 N Ne D/F W–E P Bone shards, rocks
La Ferrassie 2 Certain F 25–30 16–30 N Ne R/C E–W P –
La Ferrassie 3 Certain J Ⳳ10 2–10 N Ne ? ? P Lithics, nearby pits
(lithics, bone
shards)
La Ferrassie 4a∗ Certain J Foetus Foetus N Ne ? ? P Lithics, rock over
grave
La Ferrassie 4b∗ Certain J 1 mo. 0–1 N Ne ? ? P Lithics, rock over
grave, three nearby
pits
La Ferrassie 5 Certain J Foetus Foetus N Ne ? ? P/M Lithics
La Ferrassie 6 Certain J Ⳳ3 2–10 N Ne ? E–W P Lithics, rock over
grave
La Ferrassie 8 Probable J Ⳳ2 2–10 N Ne ? ? – –
La Quina Certain F ? 16–30 Y Ne R/? ? – Spheroid, bone shards,
sediment covering?
Le Régourdou Certain ? ? 31–40 N Ne L/C W–E P/M/H Lithics, bear bones,
rock over skeleton
Le Roc-de-Marsal Certain J Ⳳ3 2–10 N Ne L/F? N–S P Sandstones, bone
shard “pillow,” ant-
lers, sediment
covering?
Spy 1 Certain M ? 31–40 N Ne ? E–W – –
Spy 2 Probable F ? 16–30 N Ne ? ? – –
Tabūn Certain F Ⳳ30 16–30 N Ne D/F W–E P –
Skhūl 1 Certain J Child 2–10 Y AMH K ? P –
Skhūl 4 Certain M 40–50 41–50 N AMH R/C SE–NW P Lithics?
Skhūl 5 Certain M 30–40 31–40 N AMH D/C W–E P Boar mandible
Skhūl 6 Probable M ? 31–40 N AMH ? ? – –
Skhūl 7 Certain F Ⳳ35 31–40 N AMH R/C ? – –
Skhūl 9 Probable M ? 41–50 Y AMH ? ? – –
Qafzeh 3 Certain F ? 41–50 N AMH L/E? ? – –
Qafzeh 8 Certain M Adult 31–40 N AMH R/F E–W P Lithics?, ochre, stones
over skeleton, dou-
ble grave
Qafzeh 9∗ Certain F Young 16–30 Y AMH L/F N–S P –
adult
∗
Qafzeh 10 Certain J Ⳳ6 2–10 N AMH L/C E–W P –
Qafzeh 11 Certain J 13–14 11–15 N AMH D/C N–S P Ochre?, bone shards,
trophies, rocks over
skeleton
Qafzeh 15 Probable J 8–10 2–10 N AMH ? ? P –
Shanidar 1 Certain M 30–40 31–40 Y Ne D/? W–E P/M Sediment covering?
Shanidar 2 Probable M 20–30 16–30 N Ne ? ? M/H Lithics?
Shanidar 3 Certain M 40⫹ 41–50 Y Ne R/? E–W P/M –
Shanidar 4 Certain M 30–40 31–40 N Ne L/C SE–NW P/M Flowers, sediment
covering?
Shanidar 5 Certain M 40⫹ 41–50 Y Ne ?/C ? M/H Large mammal bones?
Shanidar 7 Certain J 9 mos. 0–1 N Ne R/C N–S H –
Amud 1 Certain M Adult 16–30 N Ne R/C N–S – –
Amud 7 Certain J 10 mos. 0–1 N Ne R/E NW–SE P Red deer maxilla on
pelvis
Kebara 1 Probable J 7 mos. 0–1 N Ne ? ? – –
Kebara 2 Certain M Adult 16–30 N Ne D/? E–W P/H –
Dederiyeh 1 Certain J 1–3 2–10 N Ne D/E S–N P Limestone slab over
head, triangular
flint flake over
heart
Taramsa 1 Certain J 8–10 2–10 N AMH S/C E–W P/M –

table 1
(Continued)
Age–
Burial Status Sexa Age Class
Kiik-Koba 12 Probable M Adult 31–40
Kiik-Koba 2 Probable J Ⳳ1 0–1
Teshik-Tash Certain J 8–10 2–10
Staroselje Probable J Ⳳ2 2–10
∗Multiple burial.
a
M, male; F, female; J, juvenile (impossible to determine sex).
b
Y, present (injury, disease, malformation); N, absent.
c
Ne, Neanderthal; AMH, anatomically modern human.
d
D, dorsal; L, lying on left side; R, lying on right side; V, ventral; F, flexed; C, contracted; K, “kneeling”; E, extended (based on head-
feet axis); S, “seated.”
e
W, west; E, east; N, north; S, south; SE, southeast; NW, northwest.
f
P, pit (visible or deduced); M, mound; H, hearth.
which contained the most burials, Skhūl and Shanidar,
show a lack of standardization in grave orientation. This
may be significant, since one would assume that a co-
herent mortuary program represented by multiple suc-
cessive inhumations would consistently orient bodies in
the same or similar directions.
Slightly more than three-quarters of the burials had
associated features (pits, hearths, mounds, stone casings).
Most were associated with pits. Mounds and hearths
were also reported with some burials but were rare. Most
graves had a single associated feature. This implies that
at least some effort and energy was expended in disposing
of most Middle Paleolithic bodies in graves.
A little more than half the burials contained grave
goods. Most of these appear to have been stone tools
(although no use-wear studies appear to have been con-
ducted to see whether they were used prior to being bur-
ied), but animal bones, oddly shaped rocks, and sedi-
ments of distinctive color or texture were all also found
in graves (Defleur 1993:257). Only two graves contained
ochre, and when present this material was found only
in pebble form. Striae show that these pebbles had been
rubbed repeatedly across relatively hard surfaces prior to
their inclusion in the graves.
If one thing characterizes putative Middle Paleolithic
grave goods, it is that they are not extremely variable in
nature and that, except perhaps for the associated animal
bones, most do not appear to have been “exceptional”
items. The problem, of course, is that we have no way
of knowing what, if anything, was symbolized by the
inclusion of these items. Vandermeersch (1976) is of the
opinion that many of the so-called grave goods could
have become associated with the skeletons as a result of
the filling of the pits. This may be true, but the fact that
some bodies were found with unambiguous grave
goods—despite Gargett’s claims to the contrary—
suggests that the practice was present (see Hovers et al.
1995, Hovers, Kimbel, and Rak 2000). Subtlety is de-
manded in assessing whether items recovered with
graves represent intentional inclusions, as it has been
shown that the criteria used by researchers may often be
r i e l - s a l v a t o r e a n d c l a r k Grave Markers F 455
Physical Body Orien-
Pathologyb Typec Positiond tatione Featuresf Grave Goods
N Ne ? ? P –
N Ne ? ? P –
N Ne ? ? P Circle of goat horns
Y Ne D/E W–E P –
too strict when it comes to Middle Paleolithic burials
(Belfer-Cohen and Hovers 1992).
early upper paleolithic burials
For the Early Upper Paleolithic, it appears that males
were buried more often than both females and juveniles.
Adults appear to have accounted for at least three-quar-
ters of the burials, but females were half as numerous
as males. Burial seems to have been reserved mostly for
individuals in age-brackets 16–30 and 31–40.
Pathology is rare and distributed evenly between adult
males and females. This suggests that pathology may not
have been a significant consideration in the selection of
individuals for burial, although Dolnı́ Věstonice XV (the
“female” of the triple burial) exhibits pathology (Klima
1987a, b).
The overwhelming majority of burials were modern
humans; only one Neanderthal (Saint-Césaire 1) and a
supposed Neanderthal/modern hybrid (Lagar Velho 1)
were recovered. In the absence of clear criteria for dis-
tinguishing Neanderthals from modern humans, it was
impossible to determine whether “extremely robust” in-
dividuals represented a significant part of the sample.
Interesting insights regarding the biological processes at
work during the Early Upper Paleolithic might well be
derived from isolating such a group and analyzing it
along with Lagar Velho 1.
The preferred body position appears to have been a
dorsal and fully extended one, although some tightly
flexed (contracted) and semiflexed burials account for a
fair share of the reported graves. Interestingly, this period
is the only one to show evidence of skeletons buried face
down (two cases). These observations would tend to sup-
port the notion of a widespread mortuary program, al-
though the high frequency of burials with unknown body
positions precludes any statistical assessment.
Grave orientation does not appear to be patterned in
any remarkable way. Only bodies found in multiple bur-
ials were found oriented either in the same way or, as is
the case for Sungir 3 and 4, in complementary ways.
456 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 42, Number 4, August–October 2001

table 2
Early Upper Paleolithic Mortuary Data

Age– Physical Body Orien-

Burial Status Sexa Age Class Pathologyb Typec Positiond tatione Featuresf Grave Goods

Balzo della Torre I Certain M 25–30 16–30 N AMH D/E NW–SE – Headdress, necklace,
bracelet, armband,
ochre cover, bone
point, ochred split
bear canine, animal
hide?
Balzo della Torre II Certain M Adult 16–30 N AMH D/E NW–SE H Necklace, armband,
“kneecap,” flat uni-
facial blade, ochred
flint pebble
Balzo della Torre III Certain J 15 11–15 N AMH V/E NW–SE – –
Grotta del Caviglione Certain M Adult 16–30 N AMH L/F N–S S, H Headdress, “kneecap,”
I ochre cover, 2
blades, ochre-filled
“canal,” animal
hide?
Grotta dei Fanciulli I∗ Certain M Young 16–30 N AMH R/C ? P, S Ochre cover (thick on
adult/17 skull), blade,
“headdress”
Grotta dei Fanciulli Certain F Older 31–40 N AMH R/C ? P Ochred bracelets, 2
II∗ adult/40 scrapers, 2 serpen-
tine pebbles on
forehead
Paglicci II Certain M Teen/13 11–15 N AMH D/E SW–NE S Headdress, necklace,
bracelet, “anklet”,
ochre cover (thick
on head), many
“good” lithics
Paglicci III Certain F 18–20 16–30 N AMH D/E S–N P Two diverse fill types,
ochre cover (thick
on head) and bed,
chunks of ochred
stone over grave,
lithics, “diadem”
Veneri Parabitta I∗ Certain M 125 16–30? N AMH F/L ? P –
Veneri Parabitta II∗ Certain F 125 16–30? N AMH D/E ? P Ochred pebble, head-
dress, ochre over
head
Agnano Certain F Ⳳ20 16–30 N AMH ?/C ? – Ochre, headdress,
bracelet
Dolnı́ Věstonice III Certain F 38–42 30–40 N AMH R/F ? P Ochre, 2 incised
mammoth shoulder
blades as cover, 10
fox canines
Dolnı́ Věstonice XIII∗ Certain M 17–23 16–30 N AMH D/E S–N P Ochre on head, mam-
moth ivory stake
through pelvis, “di-
adem,” mammoth
ivory pendant
Dolnı́ Věstonice XIV∗ Certain M 17–23 16–30 N AMH V/E S–N P Ochre on head,
“diadem”
Dolnı́ Věstonice XV∗ Certain F? 17–23 16–30 Y AMH D/E S–N P Ochre on head and
between thighs, “di-
adem,” piece of
deer or horse rib in
mouth
Dolnı́ Věstonice XVI Certain M 40–50 41–50 Y AMH R/F E–W P, H Ochre on head, chest
and pelvis, 4
pierced canines,
belt?
Pavlov I Certain M 40–50 41–50 N AMH ?/C ? P Incised mammoth
shoulder blade as
cover
 r i e l - s a l v a t o r e a n d c l a r k Grave Markers F 457

table 2
(Continued)

Age– Physical Body Orien-

Burial Status Sexa Age Class Pathologyb Typec Positiond tatione Featuresf Grave Goods
Brno II Probable M Middle- 31–40 N AMH ? ? P Ochre, necklace,
aged bone/ivory discs
and rings, various
bone/stone tools
Brno III Probable F Middle- 31–40 N AMH R/C ? – Ochre
aged
Předmostı́ 22 Probable J 9–10 2–10 N AMH ? ? – Hare teeth on
forehead
Předmostı́ 27 Probable ? Adult ? N AMH D/E ? – Traces of defleshing
Předmostı́ 1–18 Certain n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. P Multiple grave (differ-
ent times)
Sungir 2 Certain M 55–65 50⫹ N AMH D/E NE–SW P Headdress, lithics,
necklace, bracelets,
armbands, “suit”
Sungir 3∗ Certain J 7–9 2–10 N AMH D/E SW–NE P Ochre bed, medium
mammoth tusk
spear, 8 javelins, 2
knives, disc near
right temple,
beaded clothes,
headdress, bracelets,
pins, rings, 2 bone
ornaments on
chest, 2 “bâtons de
commandement”
Sungir 4∗ Certain J 12–13 11–15 N AMH D/E NE–SW P Ochre bed, long mam-
moth task spear, 3
javelins, 1 knife,
disc near right tem-
ple, beaded clothes,
headdress, bracelets,
pins, rings
Combe Capelle Certain ? Adult ? N AMH D/E N–S P Pierced shells, tooth
on right wrist
Les Cottés Probable M? 50–60 50⫹ Y AMH ? ? – –
Saint-Césaire Probable M Adult – N Ne SB? ? – –
Cro-Magnon 1∗ Probable M 50⫹ 50⫹ N AMH ? ? – Shells? Pendant?
Cro-Magnon 2∗ Probable F 20–30 16–30 Y AMH ? ? – Shells?
Cro-Magnon 3∗ Probable M 30–40 31–40 N AMH ? ? – Shells?
Cro-Magnon 5∗ Probable I 1 mo. 0–1 N AMH ? ? – Shells?
Lagar Velho 1 Certain J Ⳳ3 2–10 N Hybrid D/E E–W P, H Ochre, wrap, stones
and red deer bones
lining, single
pierced shell

∗Multiple burial.
a
M, male; F, female; J, juvenile (impossible to determine sex).
b
Y, present (injury, disease, malformation); N, absent.
c
Ne, Neanderthal; AMH, anatomically modern human.
d
D, dorsal; L, lying on left side; R, lying on right side; V, ventral; F, flexed; C, contracted; K, “kneeling”; E, extended (based on head-
feet axis); S, “seated.”
e
W, west; E, east; N, north; S, south; SE, southeast; NW, northwest.
f
P, pit (visible or deduced); M, mound; H, hearth.

A significant number of graves were found with no
associated features, although most showed traces of a
pit. A few exhibited hearths or stone casings over their
heads and/or feet. No mounds were reported for any bur-
ial of this period. Only a handful of burials had as many
as two associated features.
Finally, the vast majority of Early Upper Paleolithic
burials appear to have contained grave goods of some
kind. This pattern may be more apparent than real. It is
based on figures that include the four Cro-Magnon bur-
ials claimed by May (1986:37–38) to be associated with
over 300 shells and a single pendant. The association of
this material with any of the Cro-Magnon skeletons is
far from unambiguous, and some writers discount it al-
together (Oakley, Campbell, and Molleson 1971:104–5;
Harrold 1980:205). If this were done here, the proportion
of Early Upper Paleolithic graves unambiguously asso-
ciated with grave goods would fall to three-quarters.
458 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 42, Number 4, August–October 2001

table 3 ized sets of mortuary practices. In fact, except for the

Characteristics of Middle (N p 45) and Early Upper probably insignificant recurrence of grave orientation,
(N p 32) Paleolithic Burials Compared these clusters do not appear to be internally consistent
in the distribution of the variables analyzed in this study.
Characteristic Middle Upper This suggests that they represent random accumulations
of burials over long periods of time and that they were
Sex not used as formal cemeteries by specific hominid groups
Male 17 16
Female 7 8
with different customs in the Middle Paleolithic. Simi-
Juvenile 20 6 larly, for the Early Upper Paleolithic, although most
Unknown 1 2 graves were found clustered in the Grimaldi Caves in
Age
0–1 7 1 Italy (Balzo della Torre, Grotta del Caviglione, Grotta dei
2–10 12 3 Fanciulli) or near Pavlov Hill in Moravia (Dolnı́ Věsto-
11–15 1 3 nice, Brno, Pavlov, Předmostı́), the burial practices re-
16–30 9 12
31–40 9 5 flected in individual graves in these “clusters” are quite
41–50 7 2 variable. In fact, most of the observable “within-cluster”
50⫹ 0 3
Unknown 0 3
similarities are derived from multiple burials. Multiple
Pathology burials do appear, however, to be much more frequent
Present 8 4 in the Early Upper Paleolithic than in the Middle Pale-
Absent 37 28
Physical type olithic, perhaps because increased population density
Neanderthal 32 1 made multiple simultaneous deaths a more frequent
Modern 13 30 occurrence.
“Hybrid” 0 1
Placement Both samples have many more males than females,
Extended 4 13 but the proportion of juveniles is much higher in the
Flexed 6 4
Contracted 14 6
Middle Paleolithic than in the Early Upper Paleolithic.
Unknown 21 9 Purposefully buried individuals do not constitute an ad-
Resting plane equate basis for reconstructing the population of which
Dorsal 9 12
Ventral 0 2 they were part, since it is likely that certain individuals
Left 6 2 were accorded preferential treatment as a result of status
Right 10 5 and prestige derived from other aspects of their social
Seated 1 0
Kneeling 1 0 personae (Ubelaker 1978). Therefore it is hazardous to
Unknown 18 11 try to interpret this patterning, especially across time.
Grave orientation
N 4 3
The large number of buried juveniles in the Middle Pa-
NE 0 2 leolithic may reflect an emphasis on the value of young
E 6 2 individuals or a higher juvenile death rate, but it would
SE 2 0
S 1 4 be dangerous to accept either of these interpretations
SW 0 2 given the extremely small and almost certainly non-
W 7 0 representative sample available. Doing so would also im-
NW 1 3
Unknown 21 16 ply acceptance of the reified interpretation of the Middle
Grave features and Upper Paleolithic derived from typological syste-
Pit 31 17
Hearth 5 4
matics that portray them as distinct by definition (Bordes
Mound 8 0 1961; Sonneville-Bordes and Perrot 1954, 1955, 1956).
Stone casing 0 3 Nothing reliable can be said of the position of the bod-
Number of features
0 11 12 ies or of grave orientation because for many graves from
1 26 16 both periods these data are unrecorded. We can, however,
2 8 4 say something about the prevalence of particular hom-
3 1 0
Grave goods inid taxa in the two periods; it is interesting that a Ne-
Present 23 28 anderthal and a “hybrid” are present in contexts that,
Absent 22 4
defined typologically and chronometrically, are unques-
tionable Early Upper Paleolithic.
Lagar Velho 1 is especially interesting in this regard.
The Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic Indeed, the presence of this “hybrid” in a Gravettian or
Compared proto-Solutrean context dated to roughly 24,500 b.p.
(Duarte et al. 1999, Trinkaus, Zilhão, and Duarte 1999)
Despite claims that both periods display definite regional underscores the realization that first emerged with the
burial groups with fundamental similarities (Binford discovery of the Saint-Césaire Neanderthal in a Châtel-
1968, Defleur 1993), the case for such clustering is shaky. perronian context (Lévêque and Vandermeersch 1980,
While concentrations of Middle Paleolithic graves have 1981)—that “cultures” as defined by typological syste-
been found in the French Périgord as well as in northern matics cannot be equated with specific hominid “types”
Israel, these graves are not contemporaneous within the (Clark, cited in Norris 1999:46). Typological interpreta-
limits of dating techniques and do not exhibit standard- tions are based on retouched stone tools, but the habit

of linking modern humans with symbolic behavior or
burials inferred from the Upper Paleolithic archaeolog-
ical record is simply an extension of that traditional ty-
pological framework.
Comparing the number and kinds of features associ-
ated with burials also results in interesting patterns. Pro-
portionally more Middle Paleolithic than Early Upper
Paleolithic burials have associated features, and Middle
Paleolithic burials have more of them. Except for Tar-
amsa 1, which was covered by a mound, none of the
Middle Paleolithic modern human burials was associ-
ated with more than a pit. The presence of pits is note-
worthy here, since it is one of Gargett’s criteria for pur-
poseful burial and he sees pits as absent in the Middle
Paleolithic. Roughly 70% of Middle Paleolithic graves
were reported as associated with a pit that either was
visible to the excavators or could be inferred from the
skeleton’s position. This is substantially more than the
roughly 50% of Early Upper Paleolithic burials claimed
to have included pits—pits that in all probability were
detected in much the same ways as in Middle Paleolithic
contexts. Mounds were reported only from Middle Pa-
leolithic contexts, while stone casings were found as-
sociated exclusively with the Early Upper Paleolithic.
Mounds were, however, somewhat more frequent. A
number of possible interpretations of this clear-cut pat-
tern could be offered, but they would be of little utility
because the meaning attached to each is likely to be
culture-specific.
The one variable that has repeatedly been argued to
show a strong dichotomy between Middle and Early Up-
per Paleolithic burials is grave goods (Binford 1968, Har-
rold 1980), although some believe they provide convinc-
ing evidence of continuity (e.g., May 1986). The only
supposedly empirical treatment to which grave goods
have been subjected is Harrold’s “diversity index.” What
should in fact be measured, however, is not so much the
difference between the two periods as variation within
them. If grave goods are consistently the same within
each period, then we cannot use them to monitor change
in mortuary behavior. The differences in the nature of
the grave goods characteristic of each period could be
explained in a number of ways. For example, recent work
by Stiner in Italy and Israel has shown that small game
and shellfish were increasingly incorporated into Upper
Paleolithic diets but were virtually absent in some areas
during the Middle Paleolithic (Stiner 1994, Stiner,
Munro, and Surovell 2000). If this was indeed the case,
the presence of discarded shells and the bones of small
animals in Early Upper Paleolithic burials would surely
constitute little evidence for a significant “cognitive
leap” over the Middle Paleolithic pattern of including
the discarded bones of large mammals in graves. A sim-
ilar argument could be made about the “incised” mam-
moth scapulae reported from a number of Eastern Eu-
ropean Early Upper Paleolithic burials.
Similarly, ochre, which becomes relatively common
in Early Upper Paleolithic graves, can be explained in
functional rather than symbolic terms. It could have pro-
vided better insulation against cold and humidity, pro-
r i e l - s a l v a t o r e a n d c l a r k Grave Markers F 459
duced smoother surfaces on ground and polished bone
beads, served as an astringent or antiseptic, or even
slowed down putrefaction (Wreschner 1980; May 1986:
203–4). Therefore its presence in graves may simply in-
dicate knowledge of a useful substance that was gradu-
ally invested with aesthetic and/or ritual properties over
the course of the Upper Paleolithic. Its occurrence in
some of the Qafzeh burials shows that it was known
(and probably used) in the Middle Paleolithic. This sug-
gests that it may have come into widespread use only
later, perhaps after 20,000 years b.p.
In any case, even if the Cro-Magnon burials are ex-
cluded from the count, a higher proportion of Early Upper
Paleolithic than Middle Paleolithic burials are associated
with relatively unambiguous grave goods. The propor-
tional difference between the two is significant. Rather
than suggesting a radical behavioral departure in the
Early Upper Paleolithic, however, what this pattern sug-
gests to us is the emergence of a behavior that appears
to have been already well established in the Middle
Paleolithic.
Although Early Upper Paleolithic grave goods tend to
include bracelets, headdresses, necklaces, armbands, and
other ornaments in contrast to the animal bones found
in Middle Paleolithic contexts, it is now clear that Mid-
dle Paleolithic Neanderthals did manufacture some or-
naments (see d’Errico et al. 1998 for a review of some of
the evidence). Given the evidence of continuity sug-
gested by the inclusion of stone tools in many burials of
both periods, this suggests that the meaning originally
associated with unworked bones or bone fragments may
gradually have come to be embodied by ornaments. The
gradual nature of this phenomenon is supported by the
co-occurrence of animal bones and ornaments at Early
Upper Paleolithic sites such as Pavlov, Dolnı́ Věstonice,
and Lagar Velho. Perhaps the higher incidence of grave
features in the Middle Paleolithic sample also reflects
this phenomenon. It is, of course, impossible to know
the precise meanings these grave goods had for the ex-
tinct societies of which they were once part. Their time/
space distributions are orders of magnitude beyond those
of any real or imaginable foraging society or group of
societies known to us from ethnography (Clark 1993). It
is indisputable, however, that grave goods were an in-
tegral part of mortuary practices starting in the Middle
Paleolithic and increased in frequency in later peri-
ods—slowly during the Early Upper Paleolithic and more
rapidly in the Late Upper Paleolithic (Duff, Clark, and
Chadderdon 1992).
Discussion and Conclusions
Comparing the Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic ev-
idence for burial proves to be an illuminating exercise.
Gargett’s assumption that “the Upper Paleolithic evi-
dence reveals differences that obviate the need for a com-
parison between the two” (1999:30) is wrong. Indeed, the
picture that emerges is one of broad continuity between
the two periods. That said, there is also little doubt that
460 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 42, Number 4, August–October 2001
analyzing burials from the Upper Paleolithic en bloc
would show a quite different picture, as is suggested by
the pioneering studies of Binford (1968) and Harrold
(1980). This is largely because of the numerical domi-
nance of Late Upper Paleolithic, especially Magdalenian,
burials that postdate 20,000 years b.p. (Duff, Clark, and
Chadderdon 1992). However, the continuity clearly vis-
ible in the mortuary data of the Middle and Early Upper
Paleolithic suggests that the Upper Paleolithic taken as
a whole is not an appropriate unit of comparison. A com-
parison of the patterns derived from an analysis of Late
Upper Paleolithic burials with the patterns here identi-
fied for the Early Upper Paleolithic is under way.
The continuity documented across the Middle–Upper
Paleolithic transition, at least as far as burials are con-
cerned, cannot be reconciled with the radical culture
change at the onset of the Early Upper Paleolithic en-
visioned by most replacement advocates (e.g., Mellars
1989, 1996). It also contrasts sharply with Gargett’s ex-
pectations about the Upper Paleolithic as a whole. It
would appear from all this that the Upper Paleolithic as
a category is not a very useful analytical tool (see also
Lindly and Clark 1990, Straus 1990, Stiner 1994, Kuhn
1995). Subdivision into early (40,000–20,000 years b.p.)
and late (20,000–10,000 years b.p.) phases would make it
a much better framework for examining the behavioral
and biological processes that were taking place in West-
ern Eurasia at the time (Duff, Clark, and Chadderdon
1992).
The results of the work reported here reinforce those
of studies of lithic and faunal assemblages and of site
settings and context in underscoring the problems as-
sociated with uncritical use of temporal constructs de-
rived from typological systematics (Clark and Lindly
1991, Dibble and Rolland 1992, Bisson 2000). While use-
ful as a descriptive tool and a lingua franca for scholars,
la méthode Bordes, besides masking much variability in
the archaeological record, is based on unsupported as-
sumptions about qualitative differences between more
or less arbitrary phases of the Paleolithic. The findings
presented here call into question the basis for this tra-
ditional approach to the interpretation of Upper Pleis-
tocene assemblages.
In sum, categorical rejection of Middle Paleolithic bur-
ial is clearly unwarranted, and the continued use of tra-
ditional temporal and conceptual frameworks in Paleo-
lithic research is in need of serious rethinking. Such
rethinking should not be undertaken in the spirit of de-
fending entrenched positions in the modern-human-or-
igins debate, although it will likely have a significant
impact on them. Rather, it should be part of an effort to
increase the credibility of our interpretations, an objec-
tive often sidelined in scholarly disputes despite its cen-
tral importance in affirming the significance and unique-
ness of archaeology as a form of scientific inquiry.
Comments
iain davidson and william noble
School of Human and Environmental Studies/School
of Psychology, University of New England, Armidale,
N.S.W. 2351, Australia (Iain.Davidson@une.edu.au).
31 iii 01
Riel-Salvatore and Clark do not address what Gargett
(1999) demonstrated. Gargett’s point was that the good
taphonomic information from well-excavated Neander-
tal skeletons allows discussion of the taphonomic his-
tories of the bodies. He showed that among the remains
of Neandertals claimed as burials, two processes seem
to have operated. On the one hand are bodies crushed
by rockfall like beer cans that someone has stomped on.
These tend to be complete but broken collections of
bones, as at Shanidar and Saint-Césaire. This process is
also evident in the bodies of “early modern humans,”
contemporary with Neandertals, from Qafzeh. On the
other hand are bodies that had lain in natural depressions
in the sediment such as might have been formed by cry-
oturbation at La Ferrassie. Natural processes of sediment
formation had generally covered these bodies slowly; the
typical absence of significant limb segments strongly
suggested that the meat had rotted before interment of
the bodies. This taphonomic history would explain the
absence of the skull from the Kebara 2 skeleton. There
will be modern human bodies in caves for the same two
reasons as for Neandertals. That people were wandering
around in dangerous landscapes long after the emergence
of modern human morphology is shown by Otzi, the
Neolithic body found in the Austrian/Italian Alps (Spin-
dler 1994).
The inclusion of Saint-Césaire in table 2 confirms our
expectation that “beer cans”/rockfall victims occurred
after 40,000 years ago, and we have no doubt that some
bodies from this period would have been found with
missing parts just like the “rotten meat” Neandertals.
The numbers of bodies subject to the Neandertal ta-
phonomy will be much smaller because the time period
is shorter. If there were about 12 “beer cans” in the
100,000 years of table 1, in the 20,000 years of table 2
there should be about 2. This in itself suggests that there
is something rather different about the Early Upper Pa-
laeolithic sample that would account for the larger num-
bers of bodies per thousand years, and indeed there is
something different. Many of the burials are in the
open—certainly Dolnı́ Věstonice, Pavlov, Brno, Před-
mostı́, and Sungir are—and there are none in the open
for the sample in table 1. We have commented elsewhere
(Noble and Davidson 1996) that a single open-air “burial”
of a Neandertal would do more to confirm the hypothesis
of Neandertal deliberate burial than any manipulation
of the currently available (and not very reliable) evidence.
The presence of burials of modern humans in the open,
of course, is not unexpected, as the earliest (and earlier)
burials of modern humans in Australia are also in the

open (Davidson 1999a). Nothing could be a clearer in-
dication of the danger of ignoring taphonomic histories.
That there are more bodies per thousand years in the
sample in table 2 is itself suggestive of different occur-
rences affecting the items in the two tables, and further
analysis of the samples reveals what that difference
is—modern humans were and Neandertals were not de-
liberately buried.
It comes as a surprise, therefore, that Riel-Salvatore
and Clark argue that there is a similarity between table
1 and table 2. Inspection of the data in table 2 shows the
extent to which they have been willing to overlook ev-
idence that they present. A x2 test on the frequencies of
grave goods in the two sets of data gives a value (x2 p
9.5), which is highly significant (p ! 0.01). Further in-
spection of the nature of the grave goods confirms a sub-
stantial difference between table 1 and table 2—all of the
things claimed as grave goods in table 1 occur as part of
the debris left in caves used by Neandertals and might
have washed into natural hollows as part of the normal
sedimentation process. This has been pointed out before
by Harrold (1980). The grave goods in table 2 are different
from what is found in the earlier sample and would be
easier to associate with symbolic structuring of the world
(albeit we acknowledge the need for caution pointed out
by Riel-Salvatore and Clark).
We have classified the specimens from table 1 accord-
ing to Gargett’s (1999: fig. 9) analysis of “beer cans” (Qaf-
zeh, Shanidar, Dederiyeh) and “rotten meat” (La Cha-
pelle-aux-Saints, La Ferrassie, Le Roc de Marsal, Amud,
Kebara, and Kiik-Koba). We omit Teshik Tash because it
is so clearly ravaged that little can be said about the
original state of deposition of the body except that it was
not buried. “Grave goods” are rare with the “beer cans,”
and those with the “rotten meat” are mostly lithics.
There are two possible scenarios that do not require these
finds to be grave goods. Either the “rotten meat” had
their gear with them, like Otzi, and died in their beds,
or the lithics washed into the natural hollows where they
died. The fact that most of those in the sample were the
juveniles from La Ferrassie suggests that these are wash-
ins, as it may be less likely that very young infants were
carrying their gear. The “beer cans” did not generally
have grave goods (except for the flowers—and these have
been dismissed many times [Gamble 1989; Gargett 1989;
Noble and Davidson 1989, 1996]). We might be tempted
to go farther and suggest that Neandertals may not have
carried gear with them in the manner of Otzi anyway,
but carrying seems to have been the distinctive homi-
nine adaptation since 2.5 million years ago. It is more
likely that they did not sleep with their gear.
Overall, then, the data in tables 1, 2, and 3 show that
there was a substantial difference between the bodies
that date earlier than the Early Upper Palaeolithic and
the sample of later ones. Riel-Salvatore and Clark have
elegantly confirmed the importance of Gargett’s (1999)
analysis. Neandertals (and contemporary early modern
people) were not buried; people from the Upper Palaeo-
lithic (and contemporary people in other parts of the
world) often were. This is a separate matter from the
r i e l - s a l v a t o r e a n d c l a r k Grave Markers F 461
issue of variation in symbolic behaviour during the Up-
per Palaeolithic (Davidson 1997, 1999b).
f. d’errico and m. vanhaeren
Institut de Préhistoire et de Géologie du Quaternaire,
CNRS, and Université Bordeaux I, Talence, France
(f.derrico@iquat.u-bordeaux.fr). 3 iv 01
The potential of Palaeolithic burials for the debate on
the origin of symbolism and, by extension, of articulated
oral language and cultural modernity has been often un-
derestimated, and the literature on the subject is mainly
composed of surveys, mostly of old finds, and osteolog-
ically based descriptions. Therefore, we welcome Riel-
Salvatore and Clark’s attempt to use burials as an in-
dependent means of evaluating processes of biological
and cultural change during the Upper Pleistocene. That
said, we find that their attempt has some major
weaknesses.
The assumption on which they base their analy-
sis—that the earliest phases of a cultural phenomenon
must necessarily be characterized by simpler forms of
behaviour—should certainly be substantiated before be-
ing accepted as a reliable theoretical framework. Not
only have many cultural anthropologists already criti-
cized this faith in the continuous and inexorable progress
of mankind (e.g., Kuper 1988) but also one can wonder
whether mortuary practices are the best place to apply
such a model. As is shown by the ethnography of tra-
ditional societies, complex cultural systems may be
characterized by simple burials with high archaeological
visibility or, alternatively, complex mortuary practices
that leave little or no archaeological evidence. Also, du-
rable grave goods may be absent in burials produced by
highly complex societies. We see, in principle, no reason
this should have been different in Upper and even Middle
Palaeolithic societies. If we are right, the pattern that
Riel-Salvatore and Clark try to read as a process may
instead represent snapshots of behaviours from different
societies with equivalent cognitive abilities. It would, in
this case, be only the presence or absence of funerary
practices rather than their apparent variability that mat-
ters for identifying evolutionary trends.
We see a major epistemological problem in Riel-Sal-
vatore and Clark’s way of “testing” Gargett’s natural
interpretation. It is not by comparing and looking for
differences between Middle Palaeolithic and Upper Pa-
laeolithic burials that one can establish whether the for-
mer are natural or anthropic in origin. We need natural
analogies to test natural interpretations, and it is pre-
cisely the lack of these analogies that, in our view, keeps
the debate on Neandertal burial practices open and even-
tually weakens Gargett’s position. The inadequacy of
Riel-Salvatore and Clark’s approach is demonstrated by
the fact that, according to their model, they would have
considered the Middle Palaeolithic burials natural in or-
igin if they had found significant differences between
them and the Upper Paleolithic burials. Still, given the
variability of mortuary practices in traditional societies
462 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 42, Number 4, August–October 2001
(see Pearson 1999), differences between Middle Palaeo-
lithic and Upper Palaeolithic burials do not imply the
natural origin of the former and may, in the absence of
a natural analogue, simply reflect cultural changes with
no evolutionary implications. In other words, we cannot
oblige Middle Palaeolithic people to bury their dead in
the same way Upper Palaeolithic people did to grant
them the right to be incorporated into modern humanity
while at the same time claiming diversity of mortuary
practices to be a hallmark of cultural modernity.
We also have reservations about the criteria used here
to separate the Middle from the Upper Palaeolithic and
subdivide the latter. The chronological criterion—before
and after 40,000 b.p.—is of little value considering the
uncertainty of the dating methods of this period and the
fact that most of the burials are not directly dated. The
blade/flake ratio is even more inadequate. Blade-based
industries occur in the Middle Palaeolithic, and not just
in the Near East (Bar-Yosef and Kuhn 1999), and flake-
based industries occur in the Upper Palaeolithic. The use
of this last criterion seems to overlook the contribution
to the characterization of Palaeolithic industries of re-
cent technological studies (see Zilhão and d’Errico
1999a:357 for an extensive discussion). These studies
have shown that Upper Palaeolithic technocomplexes,
seen as chronologically and spatially defined technical
systems, are useful analytical entities for exploring cul-
tural variability, including changes in mortuary prac-
tices, and the ecological adaptation of European hunter-
gatherers during oxygen-isotope stages 3–2. Independent
of their views on the transition, most of our colleagues
share with us the opinion that insight into this time
period will not be reached without a better characteri-
zation of these entities. Riel-Salvatore and Clark’s cru-
sade against the Upper Palaeolithic technocomplexes is
even more surprising given that they use chronological
limits between technocomplexes (Gravettian/Solutrean)
to establish an “arbitrary” frontier within the Upper Pa-
laeolithic. Why not, instead, get rid of all chronological
barriers and look for significant clusters in the available
data? This would be more coherent and avoid the im-
pression that boundaries are being chosen to fit the
model.
Criticisms can also be leveled at their database. Given
that many scholars believe that the placing of grave
goods in Neandertal burials has not been unambiguously
proven, a thorough examination of the evidence, includ-
ing observations on site taphonomy, should have been
their first concern. This does not appear in their list,
which incorporates almost all of the claimed evidence,
sometimes dubious, for symbolic behaviour associated
with Middle Palaeolithic burials.
Incidentally, Riel-Salvatore and Clark group Zilhão
and d’Errico with researchers such as Mellars who “argue
that despite their ability to act symbolically, Neander-
thals apparently never ‘refined’ this capacity to the same
degree as modern humans and were therefore con-
demned to be replaced by them.” From the debate on
this topic (see d’Errico et al. 1998; Zilhão and d’Errico
1999a, b; Mellars 1999) it is clear that they defend a quite
opposite view—that Neandertals were fully capable of
symbolic behaviours and may even have produced them
before contact with anatomically modern humans, as is
suggested by archaeological evidence, notably from Arcy,
and a critical reappraisal of relevant sites and C14 dates.
Riel-Salvatore and Clark’s attempt to examine the em-
pirical evidence without any wishful thinking about a
human type’s cognitive abilities in fact complements
Zilhão and d’Errico’s effort, which was, however, carried
out in a quite different theoretical framework.
ro b e r t h . g a r g e t t
Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology, School of
Human and Environmental Studies, University of
New England, Armidale, N.S.W. 2351, Australia
(gargett@pacificlegacy.com). 1 iv 01
Riel-Salvatore and Clark caricature my recent contri-
butions (see also Gargett 2000) by implying that Gargett
(1999) is nothing more than a replay of Gargett (1989)
when in fact it examines a wide range of processes that
determine the preservation of skeletons in caves and
rock-shelters. Furthermore, instead of grappling with the
issues I raise they defer to Binford (1968), Harrold (1980),
and Defleur (1993), none of whom has adequately ex-
amined the variables with which I deal in my recent
article. Their unwillingness to acknowledge my misgiv-
ings about what they treat as evidence for burial severely
hobbles their argument. Beyond this, their paper has
other serious failings.
First, their argument begs the question whether pur-
poseful burial occurred in the Middle Paleolithic. Their
“sample” of Middle Paleolithic “burials” includes only
those specimens that conform to criteria they say allow
one to infer purposeful burial. If this is truly a test of
what they claim is my “position” (i.e., that purposeful
burial first occurred in the Upper Paleolithic), why do
they ignore the many fragmentary Middle Paleolithic re-
mains? The relatively few more-or-less-intact specimens
claimed as burials represent only a small subset of a
sample that describes a continuum of preservation in-
cluding, for example, single fragments, disarticulated,
fragmented, and incomplete skeletons, articulated por-
tions of skeletons, articulated complete or nearly com-
plete skeletons, and everything in between. The vast ma-
jority of Middle Paleolithic specimens fall into the first
two of these categories, and the vast majority of putative
burials fall into the third; only a few could be considered
complete or nearly so. Riel-Salvatore and Clark draw the
line opportunistically at various places along that con-
tinuum. Clearly, this is stacking the deck in favor of their
hoped-for outcome.
Furthermore, they contend that they began by select-
ing articulated specimens and included only those for
which other archaeological discoveries supported the in-
ference of purposeful burial. Yet their sample includes a
number of specimens that are anything but articulated
(to say nothing of those for which the degree of articu-
lation is a matter of interpretation)–for example, Teshik-

Tash, Régourdou, La Ferrassie 4a, and Saint-Césaire.
These specimens were apparently included because of a
belief that they had been purposefully buried based on
fragments of bone or chipped stone interpreted as funeral
offerings and inferences of invisible pits and other so-
called ritual structures. Thus, Riel-Salvatore and Clark’s
sampling technique has the effect of skewing the data
on which their test is to be conducted.
Perhaps most damaging to their argument, the “evi-
dence” that Riel-Salvatore and Clark employ is at best
equivocal. For example, in the absence of articulation as
a sign of purposeful burial, interpreting Teshik-Tash’s
goat horns as a ritual structure depends on the belief that
the individual had been purposefully buried (or at least
that Neandertals were capable of burying their dead). In
much the same category is the claim that the mounds
at La Ferrassie are “ritual structures,” which fails to take
into account the obvious, abundant evidence of cry-
oturbation in stratum c/d (from which all of the remains
at La Ferrassie derive). The mounds that Peyrony (1934)
describes are in all probability sediments that have been
distorted and convoluted by cryoturbation. Laville and
Tuffreau’s (1984) photograph of the witness profile at La
Ferrassie clearly shows the result of cryoturbation in
stratum c/d, and Heim (1968) includes a profile that
clearly and unequivocally illustrates the convoluted sed-
iments. Four of these convolutions are on the order of
50 cm high. However, in Heim’s diagram the tops of at
least two of them are leaning to one side and have the
shape of cresting waves. Such a profile could not have
occurred if the mounds had been artificially created and
later covered naturally with sediment (unless they were
then subjected to cryoturbation—a coincidence that I
would find it hard to imagine, although it is impossible
to rule it out). Here, then, are the present-day remnants
of “mounds” like the nine so often considered mortuary
structures. With clear evidence for cryoturbation just a
few meters away from the putative burial mounds, must
one go on believing that they were created with a ritual
purpose in mind?
Finally, Riel-Salvatore and Clark’s criteria for assessing
behavioral “continuity” are only weakly justified. On
the face of it, comparing the Middle Paleolithic with the
Upper Paleolithic is a reasonable test of what they call
my “hypothesis.” But is it reasonable to suggest that
significant patterns will be observable on both sides of
the Middle/Upper Paleolithic “boundary”? The answer
seems to depend on one’s definition of “significant” and
one’s choice of “pattern.”
There is, first of all, the straightforward kind of pattern
that one can read off the skeletons—sex, age, patholog-
ical lesions. But sex and age are “straightforward” only
if one overlooks the difficulty of, for example, determin-
ing sex in skeletons that are, more often than not, miss-
ing the telltale pubic architecture, requiring a determi-
nation based on robusticity and comparison with
present-day human sexual dimorphism. Assessing rela-
tive robusticity is in no way straightforward in a very
robust, biogeographically widespread morphospecies
such as the Neandertals, which have an unknown degree
r i e l - s a l v a t o r e a n d c l a r k Grave Markers F 463
of sexual dimorphism. What this means for Riel-Salva-
tore and Clark’s data on differential mortuary treatment
is an open question, but one can certainly be skeptical
about their conclusions. They seem unconcerned that
many of these “patterns” are reified categories that have
their origin in the questionable interpretations of other
archaeologists.
Next there is the kind of pattern that one needs to
argue more strenuously for. For example, Riel-Salvatore
and Clark aver that fragments of bone might just rep-
resent the beginning of a trajectory of cultural transfor-
mation that sees them as the meaningfully constituted
Middle Paleolithic equivalent of the carved images and
ornaments of the Early Upper Paleolithic. Although this
is a plausible scenario, it is by no means the basis for an
unequivocal inference of “continuity.”
The most egregious misuse of the notion of pattern is
in their so-called burial features (primarily pits and
mounds). We are told that there are 31 pits associated
with Middle Paleolithic remains, and these are presented
as support for claims of purposeful burial. In all cases of
unobservable pits, the inference that the pit once existed
depends on the a priori assumption that the individual
had been purposefully buried—more circular argument.
Moreover, such pits could just as easily be seen as pre-
requisite for natural burial. Low spots (regardless of how
they were created, and there are many natural ways) pro-
mote natural burial. Under the circumstances it is hard
to see such “evidence” as compelling, especially given
that the very few observable depressions were filled not
with the same sediments into which they were dug,
which would be expected in a purposeful burial, but with
the same sediments that overlie those into which they
were dug, which is strongly suggestive of natural in-fill-
ing and in any case precludes the use of the pit or low
spot as unequivocal support for the claim of purposeful
burial.
All of Riel-Salvatore and Clark’s conclusions rest on
arguments from want of evident alternatives. Ultimately
their argument is fallacious and their analysis uncon-
vincing because both rest on the a priori acceptance of
shakily supported claims of purposeful Middle Paleo-
lithic burial.
I am resigned to the reality that most paleoanthro-
pologists will never be persuaded by my “position,” but
I hope that readers will see that my skepticism is rig-
orously empirical and grounded in a nuanced under-
standing of archaeological site formation. Moreover, I
hope that they will see this paper for what it is—a whole-
sale recycling of dubious archaeological claims in the
pursuit of evidence for the regional “continuity” model
of modern human origins.
erella hovers and anna belfer-cohen
Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91905, Israel (hovers@
h2.hum.huji.ac.il). 30 iii 01
Tracing uniquely human behaviors has always been a
focal point of prehistoric research. Riel-Salvatore and
464 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 42, Number 4, August–October 2001
Clark are to be congratulated for bringing to the forefront
of contemporary discussion the complexities of the ar-
chaeological record concerning intentional human burial
in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. They achieve this
by confronting the available data instead of accepting
Gargett’s (1999:30) premise that “the Upper Paleolithic
evidence reveals differences [in burial behavior] that ob-
viate the need for a comparison” between these two
periods.
Indeed, in the Paleolithic we are dealing with time and
space distribution orders of magnitude greater than those
“of any real or imaginable foraging society or group of
societies known to us from ethnography.” Another im-
portant point made by Riel-Salvatore and Clark is that
the simplistic equation of culture with hominid type is
counterproductive to attempts to understand culture
change at the Middle/Upper Paleolithic boundary. With
these points taken, a caveat is called for: human behavior
is multifaceted, encompassing as it does constituents
which are variably and not always understandably in-
terrelated. Dealing with the Paleolithic, we rest assured
that the unfolding record is one of mosaic cultural ev-
olution rather than of a linear trajectory of change. Un-
derstanding the Paleolithic story depends on the scale of
one’s observations and insights as it does on the data
themselves. Unquestionably, human behavior becomes
more complex through time, but when observed in more
restricted time spans the Paleolithic pattern of culture
change is clearly not linear. At any given time and place,
some behaviors may change gradually while others re-
main static and yet others may undergo dramatic mod-
ifications. The European Middle and Upper Paleolithic
record is a case in point.
Much of the recent anthropological literature epito-
mizes intentional burial as the marker of a plethora of
symbolic capacities (see Gargett 1999 and references
therein). But the existence of intentional burial in the
Middle Paleolithic record speaks only to the presence of
this particular behavior as part of the cultural package
of hominids at this time. Intentional burial is not as-
sociated exclusively with any one of the hominid taxa
known from this time span (Belfer-Cohen and Hovers
1992, Schepartz 1993, Tillier 1990) and may well be an
expression of a shared, “pleisiomorphic” capacity for
symbolic behavior (Hayden 1993, Hovers et al. 1995).
From the perspective of mosaic cultural evolution, the
occurrence of intentional burial need not be taken a
priori as an indication of the existence of other symbolic
behaviors, nor is it a yardstick against which the inten-
sity of other symbolic behaviors can be measured. By
extension, where change through time is patterned as
mosaic evolution, the rate of change in mortuary behav-
ior cannot be used as a proxy for the tempo and mode
of cultural evolution. It is for this reason that, even if
one accepts that mortuary behavior changed gradually
from the Middle Paleolithic to the Early Upper Paleo-
lithic, the occurrence of large-scale parietal art in the
Early Upper Paleolithic, ca. 30,000 years ago, at Chauvet
and Cosquer Caves (Bahn and Vertut 1997) remains un-
accounted for. Other mechanisms need to be invoked in
order to explain first the revolutionary and dramatic ap-
pearance of such art and second its coexistence with the
relatively conservative mortuary behavior.
Moreover, gradual shift in burial practices does not
appear to be an all-inclusive pattern of change through
time between the Middle and the Early Upper Paleo-
lithic. Gradualism is more apparent than real for some
characteristics of burials, as is clearly seen from Riel-
Salvatore and Clark’s table 3. For instance, at Sungir, an
Early Upper Paleolithic site dated to 30,000–25,000 years
ago (Bader 1998:217), the sheer numbers (over 13,000
beads) and variety of grave goods are overwhelming
(Bader 1998:72–73, 77; Gamble 1994:186–87). Certainly
this site resembles more the finds known from the Late
Upper Paleolithic than it does accepted instances of in-
tentional burial in the Middle Paleolithic.
Gradual transformation as the main explanatory
mechanism of culture change masks the boundaries be-
tween “cultures.” The differences among the Chatel-
perronian (considered to be a Mousterian-based tradi-
tion), the Aurignacian (believed to be intrusive into
Western Europe), and the regional variants of the Grav-
ettian (d’Errico et al. 1998, Otte and Keeley 1990) are
obliterated when burial data are used to treat the Early
Upper Paleolithic as a whole. These classifications and
cultural subdivisions of the entities of the Early Upper
Paleolithic rely mainly on lithic techno-typological cri-
teria and certainly have their problems. Nevertheless,
classifications of this type are more consistent with the
dynamics of the period, including population move-
ments and influx into Europe during the time span of
the Early Upper Paleolithic (e.g., Semino et al. 2001).
While the article deals with a particular phenomenon
of human behavior, it relates to a profound analytical
issue—the “measure” of the phenomena observed in the
archaeological record. It seems that whenever we suc-
ceed in obtaining an answer that has eluded us for years
(in the case, the validity of Middle Paleolithic burials),
we have to face the consequences of that answer. These
are rarely, if ever, simple or clear-cut. One way to come
to terms with this unsettling reality is by remembering
that this is, in fact, the normative procedure of scientific
inquiry.
g ro v e r s . k r a n t z
363 Gunn Rd., Port Angeles, Wash. 98362, U.S.A.
(krantz@olypen.com). 2 ii 01
Riel-Salvatore and Clark have done rather well in fol-
lowing the modern rules of successful publication: (1)
keep the subject as narrow as possible to minimize the
number of people who are qualified or likely to criticize
it; (2) quantify all data for at least arithmetic manipu-
lation (statistics is better and computer analysis is best);
(3) follow Established Doctrine wherever possible; and
(4) provide an impressive bibliography that proves that
you did your homework.
Their biggest failing is in rule 1, where they have in-
cluded both Middle Paleolithic (Mousterian) and Early

Upper Paleolithic interments and covered the fairly large
area of Europe and the Near East; there are simply too
many people who are or believe they are familiar with
this subject. Still, they have managed to keep their da-
tabase down to just 77 examples. Their major opponent,
Gargett, did somewhat better with rule 1 by covering
only the earlier time zone and using far fewer examples,
but at least they avoid the Later Upper Paleolithic and
stay out of the rest of the world.
The quantification of data (rule 2) is a bit looser than
might be desirable because so much information is miss-
ing or unclear, but the arithmetic treatment is as detailed
as the data allow. At least they are able to make a fairly
good case, given these data, for a less-than-dramatic
change of interment circumstances at the Middle-to-
Early-Upper Paleolithic boundary.
They follow rule 3 in accepting without question that
the Skhūl and Qafzeh burials are of Mousterian date. I
disagree, however, and hope soon to publish some in-
formation showing that the Skhūl burials were almost
certainly about 35,000 years old and those at Qafzeh per-
haps a bit more recent. What bothers me most is their
acceptance of La Ferrassie as “definite” burials when the
excavators themselves (Capitan and Peyrony in 1909,
cited in Boule and Vallois 1952:215) stated quite clearly
that there was no evidence to this effect. Without them
Riel-Salvatore and Clark’s picture of a gradual transition
from Middle through Upper Paleolithic would be greatly
altered. Their conclusion is an apparent requirement of
the multiregional-evolution theory. An alternative view
would be of a remarkably rapid in-place transition. For
this to have been the case, the reason for that transition
would have to be correctly identified.
My inclusion of rule 4 will annoy some of my good
friends. For students’ papers, the bigger the bibliography
the better—it shows that they have read all the pertinent
material. For a professional paper the practice ought to
be to cite only enough sources to avoid plagiarism and
those that the usual readers might want to consult.
Despite all of the above, I find some useful contribu-
tions here. The need to decouple Early from Late Upper
Paleolithic is not sufficiently appreciated, and yes, there
is clear continuity from Mousterian to their immediate
successors in Europe in terms of lithic techniques and
skeletal remains, while in the Levant this seems not to
be the case. Until the appearance of the Chatelperronian
there was no change in the Mousterian Neandertals
other than the beginning of tooth-size reduction (Brace
1995). It was gratifying to learn that the rare occurrences
of Mousterian red ochre had been rubbed on hard sur-
faces, not on soft bodies. What is most conspicuously
missing is any successful explanation of why the earliest
Upper Paleolithic in Europe included Neandertals
whereas the Mousterian in the Levant included some
skeletons of more modern anatomy. What was the nature
of the cultural transition, and how did it relate to human
anatomy?
r i e l - s a l v a t o r e a n d c l a r k Grave Markers F 465
lars larsson
Institute of Archaeology, University of Lund, S-223 50
Lund, Sweden (Lars.Larsson@ark.lu.se). 31 iii 01
There are good arguments both for and against the ex-
istence of deliberate burials in the Middle Palaeolithic.
Let us hope that the debate over natural processes versus
culturally based activities will continue. What tends to
receive less consideration is the fact that burial is an act
rooted in a mental conceptual world. It is not just a ques-
tion of the criteria for regarding a collection of human
bones as a grave but also what variations within a cri-
terion one is prepared to accept.
We project our own conceptions of symbolic acts onto
a culture borne by Neanderthal man—a species seem-
ingly different from our own, with a conceptual world
which may have differed significantly from that repre-
sented by Homo sapiens sapiens. This is why Riel-Sal-
vatore and Clark’s claim to be able to distinguish clear
similarities in the treatment of human bodies during the
Middle Palaeolithic and Early Upper Palaeolithic is so
important. Certain differences are suggested between
burials in this period and those in the later Upper Pa-
laeolithic. Further interesting aspects of mortuary prac-
tice could also have been considered. One of these is the
preservation of the skeleton. If only complete, articu-
lated skeletons are accepted as evidence of burial (Gar-
gett 1999), many finds will probably be excluded. At the
end of the Upper Palaeolithic and the beginning of the
Mesolithic, there are several instances in which consid-
erable handling and circulation of skeletal parts occurred
both peri- and postmortem (Cauwe 1998, Cook 1991).
Articulated skeletons are rarely found here, which means
that these cases are not included among burials. Yet there
are strong indications that human bones were used in
rituals associated with conceptions about the special
status of humans, and there is no doubt that they rep-
resent traces of actions with symbolic value.
This means that the identification of collections of
human bones as graves is not really such an important
issue. Is it not more important to try to discover the
preconditions for the deliberate handling and deposition
of skeletal parts, using arguments for or against some
form of symbolic act? In this context the assessment of
the Early Palaeolithic hominid remains from Atapuerca
assumes significance (Bahn 1996). The same applies to
the interpretation of the distribution of hominid remains
and other bones at the Early Palaeolithic site of Bilzings-
leben—whether as a form of symbolic handling (Mania
1998:51–55) or the result of natural taphonomic pro-
cesses (Gamble 1999:172). If it is possible to distinguish
special patterns in the distribution and composition of
these skeletal parts, then they are of more significance
for abstract thinking about ideas on the treatment of the
body after death than complete skeletons in cave
deposits.
The discussion of grave goods in conjunction with
skeletons can scarcely be left as a simple matter of pres-
ence versus absence. This is clear from observations from
Mesolithic burials (Larsson 1993)—admittedly much
466 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 42, Number 4, August–October 2001
later than those studied here but nevertheless capable of
providing important insights into human behaviour over
time and space. Here deliberately deposited objects occur
not just alongside the interred but, in several cases, in
the grave fill a few centimetres above it. This makes the
question of grave goods more complicated. It has not
been possible to determine whether such deposits can
be compared to the “real” grave goods in the Middle and
Upper Palaeolithic graves discussed here.
If, with Gargett, one assumes that some deaths were
caused by rockfalls, one may wonder why similar oc-
currences are not found in southern Africa, where nu-
merous caves were inhabited during the Middle Palaeo-
lithic—although it should be pointed out that relatively
few have been studied in detail. That rockfalls really did
occur is clear from the pieces of cliff found in the stra-
tigraphies. If they were a common cause of death, not
only humans but also other cave-dwelling animals, such
as hyenas, would be found in more or less undisturbed
positions. This aspect does not appear to have been
considered.
Gargett argues ad absurdum in cases where a natural
death on account of natural processes cannot be ruled
out. It would be more rewarding to learn his criteria for
accepting something as a grave. Riel-Salvatore and Clark
have adopted more creative approach. We must keep in
mind that we are not going to arrive at an unambiguous
view of the occurrence of burials during the Middle Pa-
laeolithic or even, in certain cases, the Upper Palaeo-
lithic. It is important, however, that the phenomenon
continue to be critically studied, chiefly with arguments
for and against the criteria for interpreting remains as
the result of a conscious act of symbolic relevance.
alexander marshack
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 02138, U.S.A.
1 iv 01
Riel-Salvatore and Clark have evaluated the flaws in Gar-
gett’s arguments and data concerning Middle Paleolithic
burial and symboling capacity. I agree with much of their
presentation and will not dwell on the details. However,
having for years argued for a broad and diverse range of
pre- and early Upper Paleolithic symboling and problem-
solving capacities, I present some data and pose some
questions concerning the presence or absence of Paleo-
lithic burial data that may have relevance to the issues
they raise.
Riel-Salvatore and Clark note that the dating and sig-
nificance of the beads and imagery found in the multiple
burial at Cro-Magnon have been questioned. There are
data at Cro-Magnon that raise issues of a different type.
The left temple of the female interred in the same cave
of Cro-Magnon has a hole the size and the shape of a
spear point. When Paul Broca, the neuroanatomist who
had recently found that language could be disabled by
injury to the left frontal lobe, examined it, in the 19th
century, he wrote that a “flint instrument” had appar-
ently produced the hole and that “the width of the open-
ing shows that the brain must have been injured . . . but
the skull shows that she survived some 15 days” (Broca
1873). The woman would probably have had some loss
of language or cognition. When I reported Broca’s de-
scription (Marshack 1985) I was informed by numerous
colleagues that there was no evidence of interpersonal
violence or intergroup aggression in the Upper Paleo-
lithic. An argument against Broca’s interpretation of the
hole was, in fact, published some years later, suggesting
that it had probably been caused by the pickaxe of a
worker during the excavation (Delluc and Delluc 1989).
A macrophoto of the hole, prepared for me by M. Sakka
of the Musée de l’Homme, documents a rounding of the
edge in a process of healing rather than the jagged edge
that would occur if a pickaxe had struck an ancient skull.
A dozen years later an arrowhead was discovered in the
thigh of a late Upper Paleolithic female buried at San
Teodora Cave in Sicily (Bachechi, Fabri, and Mallegni
1997), with the comment that “new bone growth . . .
indicate(s) that the individual under study survived the
wound for some time.” Broca had also noted that the
“old man” buried at Cro-Magnon had a “hollow similar
to that produced in our day by a spent ball” in one of
his femurs. It is not the fact of such injury that is relevant
but that such injuries may have been more common than
is indicated in our rare Paleolithic burials.
Paleolithic hunter-gatherers were seasonally mobile,
and so deaths would periodically have occurred during
a group’s seasonal round. Would accidental death at a
seasonal camp have invited a burial that was different
from that found at longer-term sites or shelters or in their
nearby caves? Would the pragmatics of burial at a tem-
porary habitation have led to a simple burial, probably
in a shallow pit, have grave goods or criteria indicating
status or rank as noted by the Binfords, or have contained
at most the momentary weapon or tool of that individ-
ual? Such simple burials would not have persisted ar-
cheologically, not only because of taphonomic processes
but also because of their seasonal locale and context. The
“old man” at Cro-Magnon had survived till his burial at
the apparently “long-term” seasonal site at Les Eyzies;
the female, with an injury to skull and brain, would not
have been highly mobile and was probably able to survive
for some weeks because of a seasonal encampment at
Les Eyzies. There is a sense in Cro-Magnon that there
had been separate recurrent burials. The cave is at the
foot of the high cliff shelf and overhang of the Abri Pa-
taud, which overlooks the Vézère River and its flood-
plain. Hallam Movius excavated many levels at Pataud
extending from the Aurignacian and Perigordian to the
Proto-Magdalenian and Solutrean, a period encompass-
ing some 15,000 years. Where, except for the four skel-
etons in Cro-Magnon a few yards below, were all the
burials? Did their absence mean that no one had died
near there, that there were no burials, or that tapho-
nomical processes had destroyed thousands of years of
evidence? Would those who died while the group was
camped on the shelf have been buried on that shelf, on
the floodplain below, or, depending on the season, on the
 r i e l - s a l v a t o r e a n d c l a r k Grave Markers F 467

plateau a few yards above the overhang? If interred on
the plateau in winter when the ground was frozen, would
a “burial” have been under a lattice of antlers or
branches? Such a plateau “burial” would not have lasted
for centuries, but it might have lasted long enough to
mark that territory and place for some generations of a
cultural group using the shelter. The pragmatics of con-
text, as much as the symbolism of burial, may always
have been part of burial behavior.
The Neanderthals, like anatomically modern humans
of the early Upper Paleolithic, were seasonally mobile.
Their close-encounter hunting of big game was often
dangerous. Would the pragmatics of a Neanderthal burial
at a transitory hunting site or encampment have differed
from more “formal” burials at long-term seasonal shel-
ters such as those at La Ferrassie? The well-known burial
at Shanidar may not, as some argue, have been a “flower
burial,” but it was certainly a seasonal burial at a sea-
sonal place. What type of burial would have occurred
when a Neanderthal group was “on the road”? At the
other end of our chronology, by the later Upper Paleo-
lithic not only had there been an increase in population,
social complexity, and intensive exploitation of re-
sources within a territory but longer-term sites had in-
creasingly become embedded in a more complex sym-
bolic cultural surround. The Franco-Cantabrian sanctu-
ary caves regionally document this generic process.
Would burials at culturally embedded sites have differed
from burials at transitory ones? Would the grave goods
found or absent in different burials have often been con-
textual and seasonal? There is inferential evidence in
some late Upper Paleolithic imagery that childbirth may
have occurred at some remove from a site’s hearth, craft,
and sleeping areas. Would the death of a woman or infant
at such a time have invoked a simple burial near the
birthing place? Would such a contextual burial, which
might skew the available record, indicate a cultural dis-
crimination of women?
This is simply a set of questions concerning the pos-
sible variability of early burial behavior and its depen-
dence on context and circumstance. The available data
are, of course, crucial, but can one adequately argue pro
or con degrees of early species capacity for symboling
behavior from the nature, quantity, or presence/absence
of a particular class of data at a particular time or place?
m. mussi
Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità, Università di
Roma “La Sapienza,” Rome, Italy (M.Mussi@caspur.it).
2 iv 01
To comment on a review paper such as this, two ques-
tions must be answered first: (1) Is the assembled data
base adequate? and (2) Is the chronology correctly
assessed?
As far as the data base is concerned, I will focus on
the Italian sample of Upper Palaeolithic burials, includ-
ing adjacent south-eastern France. As my table 1 shows,
in the time range considered there are approximately
twice as many specimens from Italy as are presented by
Riel-Salvatore and Clark. Six were discovered at Barma

table 1
Mid Upper Palaeolithic (30,000–20,000 years b.p.) Burials from Italy and Adjacent South-Eastern France

Specimen Sex Age Positiona Orientation Ochre Featuresb Grave Goods

Grotta du Marronier ? ca. 8 ? ? yes P yes

Grotta du Figuier ? 2–3 ? SE-NW yes D yes
Grotta dei Fanciulli 4 M adult E N-S yes P, St yes
Grotta dei Fanciulli 5 F old F N-S ? P, St yes
Grotta dei Fanciulli 6 F? 13–15 F N-S yes P, St yes
Grotta del Caviglione M adult E/F S-N yes P? St yes
Barma Grande 1 M adult E N-S yes P? St yes
Barma Grande 2 M 33–35 E E-W yes P yes
Barma Grande 3 F? 12–13 E E-W yes P yes
Barma Grande 4 F? 14–15 E E-W yes P yes
Barma Grande 5 M adult E N-S no ? yes
Barma Grande 6 M adult F N-S ? ? yes
Baousso da Torre 1 M adult E NW-SE yes ? yes
Baousso da Torre 2 M 25–30 E NW-SE yes ? yes
Baousso da Torre 3 ? ca. 15 EV NW-SE no ? no
Arene Candide 1 M 14–15 E S-N yes P, St yes
Paglicci 2 M 13–14 E SW-NE yes St yes
Paglicci 25 F 18–20 E N-S yes P yes
Ostuni 1 F ca. 20 E/F S-N ? P, St yes
Ostuni 1 bis ? fetus – – – – –
Ostuni 2 ? not child E/F S-N ? ? ?
Veneri 1 M ! 30–35 E/F S-N yes P yes
Veneri 2 F ! 30–35 E/F S-N yes P yes

sources: Onoratini and Combier (1996), Mussi (2001).

a
E, extended; F, tightly flexed; E/F, extended with flexed legs; EV, extended on the abdomen.
b
P, burial pit; D, use of a natural depression; St, stones variously arranged.
468 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 42, Number 4, August–October 2001
Grande, one of several Ligurian sites at which C14 de-
terminations on human remains are currently under way
(V. Formicola, personal communication, 2000). The pre-
liminary results do not contradict previously suggested
archaeological correlations (Mussi 1986, 1996, 2001).
While state-of-the-art knowledge cannot be expected of
authors working with secondhand inventories (including
May 1986, notorious for both incompleteness and du-
plication [Mussi 1989]), there should be at least some
critical assessment of the literature. Bisson, Tisnerat, and
White (1996), instead, are quoted at face value to claim
that the Barma Grande burials “postdate 20,000 years
b.p.” The so-called new dates for Barma Grande have
already been discussed elsewhere (Bolduc, Cinq-Mars,
and Mussi 1996). Suffice it to say that Bisson, Tisnerat,
and White make use of three bone samples, one without
any known depth and a second belonging to a rodent;
the third was apparently found at ⫺8 m, where an Au-
rignacian level once existed: the resulting age is 19,000
years, while an age in excess of 30,000 years would be
expected if this futile exercise in “paleostratigraphy” had
any scientific meaning at all.
At a general European level, Riel-Salvatore and Clark
do not mention the “Red Lady of Paviland,” redated by
Aldhouse-Green and Pettit (1998), and omit most of the
evidence on Předmostı́ that is easily available in Jelı́nek
(1991). Combe Capelle and Les Cottés are included, but,
according to Gambier’s revision (1990), they do not be-
long to the Palaeolithic.
Then, much emphasis is given to the “proposal” of
subdividing the Upper Palaeolithic into “early”
(40,000–20,000 years b.p.) and “late” (20,000–10,000
years b.p.) to allow a better understanding of changes
through time. Not only has such a subdivision long been
standard among both archaeologists and physical an-
thropologists—and obviously in the study of burial prac-
tices—but it has already been further refined: at an in-
ternational symposium held in Moravia in 1995, the
need for the identification of a Mid Upper Palaeolithic,
between 30,000 and 20,000 years ago, was discussed by
a group of 27 specialists from 11 European countries and
substantiated by an even wider number of scientific con-
tributions (Mussi and Roebroeks 1996, Roebroeks et al.
2000). If this more detailed subdivision is used, not only
all the specimens assembled in my table but practically
all those of Riel-Salvatore and Clark fall within the Mid
Upper Palaeolithic time range: they are Cro-Magnon bur-
ials related either to the final Aurignacian or to the Upper
Perigordian (Bouchud 1966, Movius 1969), with Combe
Capelle and Les Cottés best dismissed and only one Early
Upper Palaeolithic grave left, Saint-Césaire, the only Up-
per Palaeolithic burial of a Neandertal. It is quite clear
that, all over the middle latitudes of Eurasia, from the
Atlantic coast to Siberia, the Mid Upper Palaeolithic bur-
ials are the first uncontroversial evidence of anatomi-
cally modern humans’ burying their dead. Their age clus-
ters in the millennia around 25,000 years b.p., while the
Neandertal graves span 50,000 years or more, with the
latest, Saint-Césaire, some 10,000 years earlier than the
Mid Upper Palaeolithic burial.
The time gap and some recurrent characteristics of the
Mid Upper Palaeolithic burials such as a mostly ex-
tended position, stones and other arrangements, gener-
alized use of ochre, and elaborate grave goods all argue
against the hypothesis of continuity in mortuary prac-
tices. Furthermore, the many robust and tall adolescents
and adults of the Mid Upper Palaeolithic burials are
linked by recent studies not to hybrids but to anatomi-
cally modern human groups interconnected by signifi-
cant gene flow and enjoying high nutritional standards
(Formicola and Giannecchini 1999, Churchill et al.
2000).
To sum up, this poorly researched paper fails to provide
either a new methodological approach or circumstantial
evidence allowing a better understanding of Palaeolithic
graves or of the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition.
lawrence g. straus
Department of Anthropology, University of New
Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M. 87131, U.S.A.
(lstraus@unm.edu). 23 iii 01
The time-honored and deeply ingrained but ultimately
arbitrary categories of Middle and Upper Paleolithic
mask long-lasting processes of biocultural evolution in
Western Eurasia. Reifying them has forced prehistorians
to support an essentially punctuationist model of change
that is increasingly indefensible. Riel-Salvatore and
Clark’s analysis adds to the evidence indicating consid-
erable continuity in many aspects of human adaptation
across the latter half of the Upper Pleistocene and sup-
ports an analytical distinction between earlier and later
Upper Paleolithic time.
This is not a new idea; it was clearly enunciated by
John Campbell (1977) in his study of the Upper Paleo-
lithic of Britain—which is not surprising, since the two
periods of human occupation were separated by a hiatus
in settlement of this northerly region of Europe due to
abandonment during the Last Glacial Maximum. Among
many others seeing such a distinction in the record, Free-
man (1973) and then I (e.g., Straus 1977) suggested that
there was major intensification in human subsistence in
the later Upper Paleolithic in Cantabrian Spain, with
more similarities in terms of hunting and gathering be-
tween the Middle and the earlier Upper Paleolithic than
between the Early and the Late Upper Paleolithic. The
notion of the “Upper Paleolithic” as a monolithic
“stage” in human evolution is highly debatable. Human
culture and even anatomy were not the same under, for
example, the interstadial conditions of Hengelo or Arcy,
the pleniglacial ones of the Last Glacial Maximum, the
nearly interglacial ones of Bölling/Alleröd, or the Dryas
III crisis. The distinction between Early and Late Upper
Paleolithic is of proven significance in the study of bi-
ological stress and functional anatomy, as linked with
behavioral changes including technology and subsis-
tence (e.g., Brennan 1991, Churchill, Weaver, and Nie-
woehner 1996). There are major differences in technol-
ogy, subsistence, art, and human settlement between the

Mousterian and the Magdalenian (e.g., Straus 1983), but
there are no absolute breaks in all aspects of culture from
one intervening Mortilletian period to the next.
At the same time, it is now undeniable that Nean-
dertals (not just Cro-Magnons) were capable of change
(see d’Errico et al. 1998, but with caveats in the com-
ments) and that there were regional developments in
subsistence (e.g., Stiner’s 1994 evidence for increased
hunting in west-central Italy after ca. 55,000 b.p. and
possibly Farizy, David, and Jaubert’s 1994 suggestion of
specialized bison hunting in southern France), in tech-
nology made by Neandertals (e.g., the Chatelperronian
of France and Spain [e.g., Pelegrin 1995; Arrizabalaga and
Altuna 2000], the Olchevian of Croatia [Karavanic 1995],
and possibly the Uluzzian of Italy [Kuhn and Bietti 2000]
and the Szeletian sensu lato of Central Europe [e.g.,
Allsworth-Jones 1986]), and even in representation (e.g.,
the ca. 54,000-year-old engraving on a flint nodule at
Quneitra on the Golan Heights [Goren-Inbar 1990]). In
fact, as has been pointed out (most recently by Bar-Yosef
and Kuhn 1999), Neandertals had repeatedly invented
prismatic blade manufacturing sometime early in the
time range of the Middle Paleolithic, and this was only
one aspect of the variability and flexibility that charac-
terized the technology of this “stage” (e.g., Kuhn 1995).
In short, the story can be seen as a play in three
acts:
Prologue: The Neandertals change (whether on their
own or as a result of contacts with Cro-Magnons or both).
Act 1: Certain useful inventions (e.g., Aurignacian
split-base antler points) diffuse widely via a network of
social relations or via human movements—or both—but
with considerable regional variation in content and tim-
ing under often relatively benign environmental
conditions.
Act 2: With a climatic downturn, humans create a yet
more elaborate set of regionally specific cultural re-
sponses (e.g., the Pavlovian, the Font-Robert Gravettian,
the Périgordian) and then abandon northern Europe for
refugia in the south, where there are dramatic develop-
ments in weapons-related technology, subsistence inten-
sification, settlement systems, regional population den-
sity and territorialism, and symbol systems and ideology
(e.g., the Solutrean, the early Epigravettian).
Act 3: Gradual but irregular amelioration of climate
brings expansion of the human range into upland and
montane areas and eventually recolonization of northern
Europe by Magdalenian bands equipped with complex,
specialized lithic and osseous technologies and a wide-
spread network of symbols and social relationships made
manifest by portable art styles and exotic objects such
as marine and fossil shells, amber, and special nonlocal
flints.
Epilogue: Dramatic environmental changes, with gen-
eralized reforestation, glacial retreat, sea-level rise, and
extinction of Pleistocene faunas, lead to radical simpli-
fication of technologies, termination of the old symbol
system, and a variety of strategies for survival ranging
from (momentarily) clinging to old ways to rapid
“mesolithization.”
r i e l - s a l v a t o r e a n d c l a r k Grave Markers F 469
Overall, the story is one of mosaic evolution (see, e.g.,
Straus 1996, 1997). Human burial appears among Nean-
dertals in some regions (Belgium, Germany, southwest-
ern France, and Israel), and some of those regions also
tend to be rich in Cro-Magnon burials, while other
equally archaeologically rich regions (e.g., Cantabrian
Spain) have none. Some regions (Liguria, Moravia) have
many Upper Paleolithic burials but few or no demon-
strable Neandertal ones. In the critical period between
40,000 and 27,000 b.p. (uncalibrated), some regions see
the early appearance of so-called Aurignacian assem-
blages, others have particular “transitional” industries
of their own, and yet others (notably southern Iberia)
witness the long survival of Mousterian technology
(sometimes associated with Neandertals). The burial ev-
idence highlighted by Riel-Salvatore and Clark thus
makes sense in a murky situation. The so-called Middle-
to-Upper Paleolithic transition can be characterized as a
“punctuation event” only from the perspective of a ge-
ological time scale. When we want to approach an un-
derstanding of processes we must look at things more
closely, and then they get complex. In many respects,
the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition may amount
to a trait-frequency distribution shift, ultimately part of
continuum of change that we call “evolution.”
Finally, I would note that Riel-Salvatore and Clark
mistakenly classify the Starosele child burial as a Nean-
dertal when the latter attribution was convincingly dis-
proven in the pages of this journal by Marks and col-
leagues (1997) as a very likely intrusive Muslim
interment.
anne-marie tillier
UMR5809 Laboratoire d’Anthropologie des
Populations du Passé, Université Bordeaux 1, Avenue
des Facultés, 33405 Talence, France (am.tillier@
anthropologie.u-bordeaux.fr). 6 iv 01
Riel-Salvatore and Clark address the question of the va-
lidity of Gargett’s rejection (1989, 1999) of the present
archaeological evidence for purposeful burial of a few
Middle Paleolithic hominids. According to Gargett, most
reports of such discoveries have failed to recognize the
role of natural depositional events. As a member of the
Kebara team, I was quite surprised to learn (Gargett 1999:
64) that if the right hipbone of the Kebara 2 hominid was
better preserved than the left it was because it “was near-
est the cave’s entrance” and therefore “nearer the source
of wind-blown and colluvial sediments.” In fact the Ke-
bara 2 skeleton was oriented generally west-east and
both hipbones had the same orientation with regard to
the cave entrance.
Riel-Salvatore and Clark tend to accept a view already
expressed by others (e.g., Tillier 1990, Belfer-Cohen and
Hovers 1992, Hayden 1993, Hovers et al. 2000, Bar-Yosef
2000) that Gargett’s approach to the criteria that appear
to be primarily of behavioral relevance in the Middle
Paleolithic hominid sample is rather subjective. Indeed,
the view that, in contrast to Upper Paleolithic hominids,
470 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 42, Number 4, August–October 2001
Middle Paleolithic hominids (either Neandertals or early
modern humans) lacked the capacity for innovative be-
havior beyond their quest for food seems to be less com-
mon among scholars trained in the Old World.
Riel-Salvatore and Clark compare Middle Paleolithic
and Early Upper Paleolithic sites on several categories
of “mortuary data.” Their aim is to submit both samples
of hominid skeletal remains currently considered as the
results of purposeful burials “to the same critical scru-
tiny,” and they deserve credit for this approach. Their
analyses are based on the examination of distributions
of variation within and between the two hominid sam-
ples of biological (age at death, sex, bone lesions, phy-
logenetic affiliation) and taphonomic (body position, pit,
archaeological deposits) data. While they make some
cautious remarks in their introduction, we expect them
to express more uncertainties in their analysis before
adopting any interpretation. Yet the data presented are
not always appropriate and/or up-to-date. Although I
cannot discuss the paper in detail, I have a few comments
to offer.
In table 1, the mention of a probable burial for La Fer-
rassie 8 is quite surprising in the light of its original
description (Heim 1982:13). It is Qafzeh 11 instead of
Qafzeh 9 that exhibits a bone lesion, as does the Qafzeh
10 immature specimen (Vandermeersch 1981; Tillier
1984, 1999). There is no reason to consider the Staroselye
child a probable Neanderthal burial; this specimen is
fully modern in its skeletal morphology (Howell 1957,
Alekseev 1976, Tillier in Ronen 1982:315) and absolute
dating (Marks et al. 1997).
Discussing the sex distribution of the burials, Riel-
Salvatore and Clark assert that “more males were re-
covered than females.” However, they should recognize
that sex estimation based on invalid criteria is question-
able. For instance, among Middle Paleolithic hominids
in Europe, the low frequency of female skeletons can be
explained by the choice of the discriminant variable em-
ployed in sex estimation, cranial capacity (La Quina 5,
Spy 2).
Finally, I wonder why there is no analysis of the chron-
ological aspects inferred in both the Middle and the Up-
per Paleolithic. For each time period all the sites are
treated as a sample. The available dates for the Middle
Paleolithic sites provide evidence of a long human oc-
cupation, and consequently the data come from sites sep-
arated by tens of thousands of years. Moreover, regarding
the Upper Paleolithic sites listed in table 2, there are
major problems in chronology, as most of the sites have
never been accurately dated. Thus, Combe-Capelle can
no longer be considered part of the Upper Paleolithic
sample (see esp. Gambier 1989:195–96).
Examining the Middle/Upper Paleolithic transition,
Riel-Salvatore and Clark argue that it is possible to rec-
ognize a certain continuity in mortuary behavior. From
my personal experience I am confident that this is the
case and that it is one more argument for the humanness
of Middle Paleolithic hominids.
Reply
g. a. clark and j. riel-salvatore
Tempe, Ariz., U.S.A. 25 v 01
Although we do not necessarily agree with all of them,
we very much appreciate the thoughtful comments on
our essay. Our position is that, if Gargett’s criteria for
evaluating the intentionality of Middle Paleolithic bur-
ials are to have general applicability, they should also be
applied to burials claimed for the Early and Late Upper
Paleolithic. As does Straus, we think it advantageous to
divide the Upper Paleolithic into early and late phases
in pattern searches of all kinds that seek to compare it
with the Middle Paleolithic. This is because human ad-
aptations to the middle latitudes of western Eura-
sia—variable from one geographical region to the
next—were also very different before and after 20,000
years ago, given that the first 20,000 years of the Upper
Paleolithic correspond to the relatively mild, although
deteriorating, paleoclimates of oxygen-isotope stage 3
(57,000–24,000), whereas those of the 24,000–11,000-
years interval (oxygen-isotope stage 2) correspond to the
pleniglacial maximum and subsequent recovery. The di-
visions of the Paleolithic (and, indeed, the Paleolithic
itself) were created (not discovered) by several genera-
tions of French prehistorians in order to erect a temporal
grid that would bring order to Stone Age archaeology in
the years before the development of radiometric chro-
nologies (Sackett 1981). They embody all kinds of im-
plicit preconceptions and assumptions about biological
and cultural evolution and their material correlates that
have no intrinsic meaning apart from the conceptual
frameworks that define and contextualize them. These
conceptual frameworks are accidents of history, ulti-
mately arbitrary, always vague, and seldom made ex-
plicit, producing miscommunication as scholars define
and use differently terms and concepts thought to be held
in common (Clark 1991).
Davidson and Noble claim that we don’t address Gar-
gett’s argument that consideration of taphonomic pro-
cesses allows for more nuanced assessments of the in-
tentionality involved in claimed human burials. We
disagree. In fact, one of us (GAC) has explicitly defended
Gargett’s approach, describing it as “commendable and,
in fact, essential if the discipline is ever to overcome the
naı̈ve and anachronistic expectation that first-hand
knowledge of data is a sine qua non for credible research
conclusions” (Duff, Clark, and Chadderdon 1992:222).
Instead, we take issue with what he concludes from his
research (that all Middle Paleolithic burials can be ac-
counted for by taphonomic processes). And we are cer-
tainly not advocating a disregard for taphonomy. Quite
the contrary (although taphonomic research is still very
much a work in progress—still in the pattern-searching
stages). All we claim is that something might be gained
by taking into consideration the firsthand observations
of the original excavators. A more accurate restatement

of their final paragraph and one that squares better with
our pattern search would be that some Neandertals were
intentionally buried (and some were not), some Early
Upper Paleolithic hominids were buried (and some were
not), and some Late Upper Paleolithic hominids were
buried (and some were not). This pattern continues into
the Mesolithic and beyond (Newell, Constandse-Wes-
termann, and Meiklejohn 1979, Newell et al. 1990, Clark
and Neeley 1987). Frequency shifts over time are due to
the combined effects of better preservation and demo-
graphic factors resulting from the compression of human
populations into southern European refugia during the
pleniglacial maximum (clearly a Late Upper Paleolithic
phenomenon). We do not doubt the importance of Gar-
gett’s research. If we had thought it trivial we would not
have bothered to write the article in the first place.
Davidson and Noble also point to the contextual di-
chotomy of Early Upper Paleolithic open-air burial and
Middle Paleolithic burial in caves and assert that a single
Middle Paleolithic burial in an open-air context “would
do more to confirm the hypothesis of Neandertal delib-
erate burial than any manipulation of currently available
(and not very reliable) evidence.” This statement is puz-
zling because table 1 does include an open-air Middle
Paleolithic burial, Taramsa 1, in Egypt’s Nile Valley (Ver-
meersch et al. 1998). Gargett also acknowledges the ex-
istence of this alleged burial but does not discuss it in
detail, preferring instead to “leave it up to the reader to
scrutinize Vermeersch et al.’s argument in light of the
criteria [RG] brings to bear in this paper” (Gargett 1999:
30). In other words, he dismisses the one case that has
the greatest potential to undermine his argument.
There are, indeed, proportionately more Early Upper
Paleolithic open-air burials than Middle Paleolithic ones.
However, most of them (10/13, or 76.9%) are clustered
in Moravia, where no Middle Paleolithic burials are re-
ported. With the exception of Sungir, all the others (19/
32, or 59.4%) are located in caves or rock shelters—the
same contexts from which claimed Middle Paleolithic
burials in those areas are reported. Interestingly, this ap-
plies to all the sites mentioned in Mussi’s table, which
she claims are so evidently linked to the central Euro-
pean sample. To us, this bimodal pattern in burial con-
texts suggests different land-use strategies rather than a
qualitative shift in behavior. It might be linked to to-
pography, bedrock, and geomorphological processes pre-
ceding and subsequent to the Early Upper Paleolithic,
which in turn affected the prevalence of caves and rock
shelters in the landscape in the various regions of west-
ern Eurasia. Northern Egypt is a good example. In ad-
dition to Taramsa 1, three open-air Early Upper Paleo-
lithic burials (Nazlet Khater 1 and 2, Kubbaniya) are
known from the area (Vermeersch et al. 1984, Wendorf
and Schild 1986). In fact, all Upper Pleistocene burials
in northern Egypt are in the open air, just as all western
European burials are located in caves, irrespective of pe-
riod. These observations lend support to our argument
that the context of burial had much more to do with the
kinds of physiogeographical features available for human
use in a given region than with any hypothetical behav-
r i e l - s a l v a t o r e a n d c l a r k Grave Markers F 471
ioral changes associated with the Middle–Upper Paleo-
lithic transition.
D’Errico and Vanhaeren misconstrue our interpreta-
tion of the frequency data (and our view of evolution)
when they claim that we expect progressive changes in
the material correlates of social complexity over time.
Evolution is directionless, shaped only by context and
history (Clark 1999a). Arguing for vectored changes in
particular aspects of adaptation is not the same thing as
arguing for “progress” in any global or universal sense.
The question is why the incidence of intentional burial
apparently increases over time, not whether it was pre-
sent at all in the Middle Paleolithic. While we acknowl-
edge the possibility that our pattern searches might rep-
resent “behavioral snapshots” (i.e., sampling error—this
is true of any pattern search using archaeological data),
we contend that the key to understanding what inten-
tional burial means is precisely whether Middle and Up-
per Paleolithic hominids had equivalent cognitive abil-
ities. There is no consensus on this. One monitor of
cognitive development is whether, and to what extent,
hominids practiced intentional burial.
The divisions of the Paleolithic, the Paleolithic itself,
and the biological taxonomic units Neandertals and
modern humans are essentialized, reified, typological
categories the behavioral significance of which is by no
means clear. As originally conceptualized, they were just
arbitrary ways of dividing up time and morphological
variation. Hominids living in western Eurasia during the
later phases of the Middle Paleolithic might have in-
terred their dead with greater frequency than those of
the early phases of the Middle Paleolithic not because
of progressive increases in cognitive development
(which, nevertheless, undoubtedly occurred over evolu-
tionary time), but because of changes in adaptation to
strictly local environments that might have selected for
treating dead bodies differently over time. It isn’t clear
to us what d’Errico and Vanhaeren mean by “natural
analogies” or “natural interpretations.” We acknowledge
that modern mortuary practices are extremely variable
and add that, for the same reasons, they were probably
extremely variable in the past. We used the conventional
Middle–Upper Paleolithic boundary at 40,000 years ago
while acknowledging its arbitrary nature and do not dis-
pute the many conflicting criteria used to define it (see,
e.g., Clark 1999b). We do dispute the utility of the Upper
Paleolithic technocomplexes (e.g., Aurignacian) as ana-
lytical units. For one thing, it is by no means clear what
they represent behaviorally. It is our opinion that “tech-
nocomplexes” exhibit little or no time-space discrete-
ness, are useless for exploring cultural variation, are not
demonstrably “cultural” at all (i.e., do not correspond to
identity-conscious social units), and, despite a com-
mendable shift in emphasis from typology to technology,
are often interpreted in exactly the same ways as typo-
logical constructs (i.e., as due to identity-consciousness
manifest in social units like the tribes, nations, and peo-
ples of history). Finally, we did not intend to suggest that
Mellars (1999) and Zilhão and d’Errico (1999a) have sim-
ilar views of human origins. For Mellars, moderns re-
472 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 42, Number 4, August–October 2001
placed Neandertals without admixture because they
were cognitively (hence technologically) more advanced
and therefore able to outcompete Neandertals and dis-
place them from their traditional homelands. For Zilhão
and d’Errico, moderns and Neandertals were cognitively
equivalent and Neandertals underwent a Middle–Upper
Paleolithic transition independent of and earlier than
that involving moderns and the Aurignacian; to the ex-
tent to which the latter replaced the former it was be-
cause of genetic swamping (allowing for admixture and
an arguable influx of moderns after 40,000 years ago).
We are somewhat taken aback by Gargett’s critical
reaction to our paper, given our general endorsement of
his approach. We reiterate that we disagree with Gar-
gett’s conclusions (which are the same in the 1989 and
1999 essays) and with some of the criteria he uses to
evaluate pattern rather than questioning the appropri-
ateness of examining the question in the first place (see
Clark and Lindly 1989b). Everything in archaeology is
more or (usually) less secure inference. It is impossible
to address any issue or problem in science without mak-
ing a priori judgments about the variables considered
significant to measure, the methods deemed appropriate
to measure them, and, ultimately, the meaning assigned
to pattern. How we go about doing this is what makes
our inferences weak or strong, naı̈ve or sophisticated. As
is Gargett’s, our entire argument is circumstantial; nei-
ther he nor we regard a single criterion in and of itself
as sufficient to lead to secure inference. We were curious
to see what pattern would look like if we employed a
standardized set of criteria to monitor intentionality in
human burial over the Middle and the Early Upper Pa-
leolithic and if we divided up time differently than he
does. He accuses us of stacking the deck in favor of be-
havioral continuity over the transition by using novel
criteria for dividing up time (which, it should be noted,
is a reference variable used to measure change attributed
to other causes) and by selective use of both burial data
and criteria designed to support the anticipated outcome
of our pattern search. We could turn that accusation
around and suggest that Gargett displays only an out-
dated, typological understanding of pattern variation in
the Paleolithic archaeological record, compounded by a
variety-minimizing, essentialist view of Upper Pleisto-
cene biological variation. But we don’t do that. We sim-
ply suggest that, until we have a tighter, more reliable
chronometric framework for assessing variability in the
relevant sites and areas, subdividing the Upper Paleo-
lithic into “early” and “late” phases might provide us
with a better analytical tool for studying the full range
of hominid behavior and morphological variability over
the course of the Upper Pleistocene than the conven-
tional bipartite subdivision.
On the question of fragmentary remains, Gargett
seems oblivious to the fact that crucial “bits and pieces”
of humans show up in archaeological contexts through-
out the Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and even Neo-
lithic in many areas of western Eurasia. What does that
say about fragmentation as a criterion for inferring in-
tentionality? We also dispute Gargett’s contention that
we have caricatured his argument. As he points out, the
importance of taphonomy in Paleolithic archaeology is
seldom adequately recognized, and the role of geoar-
chaeology in contemporary archaeological research can
hardly be overemphasized. However, by depicting it as
an arbitrary approach that seeks to eliminate human
agency altogether, Gargett misrepresents the aim of
geoarchaeology, which is the careful study of all site for-
mation processes and agents, including those associated
uniquely with hominids. To imply that hominids could
have had no role in the preservation of human remains
at sites that are defined first and foremost by their pres-
ence courts absurdity.
We explicitly state that we give the original excava-
tors’ reports the benefit of the doubt with respect to their
capacity to monitor intentionality. While we acknowl-
edge that our understanding of site formation processes
has advanced considerably over the past 30 years and
that Gargett is right to be skeptical, second-guessing peo-
ple who were fully competent professionals in their era
seems to introduce as many problems as it solves. We
suggest that we know as much about Neandertal sexual
dimorphism as we do about sexual dimorphism during
the Early Upper Paleolithic and that there are many cri-
teria for determining sex (e.g., gonial angle, cranial boss-
ing, characteristics of the orbits, distal humerus, etc.)
other than gracility and pubic architecture. Having ex-
cavated about 50 human burials (albeit from recent time
frames), Clark can testify that in many contexts pits are
relatively obvious, clear-cut features and not something
that is easily confounded with the action of natural pro-
cesses. Unequivocal pits are well-documented from Pa-
leolithic contexts (e.g., Freeman and González-Echegaray
1973).
It is with some relief, then, that we turn to Hovers
and Belfer-Cohen’s sympathetic comment. Gargett’s as-
sertion that “the Upper Paleolithic evidence reveals dif-
ferences [in burial behavior] that obviate the need for a
comparison” (1999:30) between the Middle and the Up-
per Paleolithic is probably the most unfortunate sen-
tence he has ever written! We can only agree with Hovers
and Belfer-Cohen that our construal of pattern over the
transition is a complex picture of changing monitors of
human adaptation. It is this temporal-spatial mosaic that
calls into question the relatively abrupt and comprehen-
sive “replacement” scenarios for the appearance of mod-
ern humans in western Europe (Straus 1997, Clark
1997a). Hovers and Belfer-Cohen remark on the evidence
for Early Upper Paleolithic parietal art and the number
of beads and variety of grave goods at Sungir as Early
Upper Paleolithic examples that mirror patterns more
common in the Late Upper Paleolithic. We do not argue
that there are no Early Upper Paleolithic burials as com-
plex as some Late Upper Paleolithic burials or that there
are no Early Upper Paleolithic examples of fully devel-
oped parietal art. However, it is clear that art, ornaments,
organic technologies, and burials are much more com-
mon when scaled to unit time and space in the Late
Upper Paleolithic than in the Early Upper Paleolithic,
and it is no coincidence that burials and art are concen-

trated when and where they are. Their time-space dis-
tributions can be explained as the material consequences
of the demographic compression that was such a con-
spicuous feature of the Pleniglacial and Tardiglacial in
the west (Barton, Clark, and Cohen 1994, Clark, Barton,
and Cohen 1996) and the relative prevalence of caves in
these regions.
We do not dispute Hovers and Belfer-Cohen’s claim
that even if intentional burial is shown to exist in the
Middle Paleolithic this behavior need not have been
symbolic or linked to other forms of symbolic behavior
(Chase and Dibble 1987). At the same time, our study
does suggest that at least some of the Middle and Early
Upper Paleolithic burials are directly comparable, with
the implication that if we elect to attribute symbolic
loading to all Early Upper Paleolithic inhumations we
must also extend this interpretation to comparable Mid-
dle Paleolithic burials. It is also possible that what had
originated as an essentially utilitarian form of behavior
(getting rid of a dead body) might eventually have taken
on a symbolic loading, although this possibility lacks any
clear-cut test implications. Our goal was not so much
to try to demonstrate that Middle Paleolithic hominids
had symbolic behavior as to show that we must be care-
ful to avoid interpretive double standards when dealing
with comparable data sets (Roebroeks and Corbey 2000,
Gaudinski and Roebroeks 1999).
Tongue in cheek, Krantz chastises us for covering too
large an area and time span and thereby inviting criti-
cism. The intent of the paper was to compare the Middle
with the Early Upper Paleolithic rather than with the
Upper Paleolithic en bloc, where, we argue, Late patterns
likely swamp Early ones and thus give the impression
of less continuity than may in fact be the case. Human
origins research is not for the faint of heart; we certainly
were not trying to avoid criticism. Along with the rest
of the profession, we will be interested to see evidence
for very young dates for Skhūl and Qafzeh. At present,
and depending on the method used, Skhūl is dated from
81,000 to 119,000 years ago, Qafzeh from 92,000 to
115,000 years ago (Bar-Yosef 1998:47). The Levantine
Mousterian now extends back to ca. 270,000 years ago
(Mercier et al. 1995). By using the available dates for
Skhūl and Qafzeh we were not subscribing to what
Krantz calls “established doctrine.” Although he ac-
knowledges archaeological evidence for continuity in ad-
aptation in Europe, he appears to think the situation is
different for the Levant. There is, however, abundant ev-
idence for archaeological continuity in the Levant, ac-
knowledged even by staunch advocates of biological re-
placement (e.g., Bar-Yosef 1998). On a global scale, there
are no correlations whatsoever between “kinds” of hom-
inids and “kinds” of archaeological assemblages.
Larsson’s observations regarding the tricky business of
inferring subtle differences in cognition are points well
taken. We tried to take skeletal preservation into account
but were often limited by the nature of the published
accounts and the lack of a taphonomic focus among
many early workers. Having said that, the whole point
of the exercise (and an important subtext of the modern-
r i e l - s a l v a t o r e a n d c l a r k Grave Markers F 473
human-origins debate in general) is that documented in-
tentionality in human burial tells us something inter-
esting and important about human cognitive evolution
(although clearly it is not the only monitor of cognition).
Regarding rockfalls and fragmented but complete skel-
etons (Gargett’s “beer cans”), Larsson remarks that if
rockfalls were a common cause of death we might expect
to find evidence of other cave-dwelling animals with
“beer can” signatures. While we acknowledge that rock-
falls occurred in caves and rock shelters throughout ge-
ological time and that they were episodic and occasion-
ally cataclysmic, to invoke them to explain complete but
crushed human skeletons appears to us to be reaching.
To the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence that
hyenas and cave bears were ever killed by rockfalls, and,
given the very sporadic human use of caves and rock
shelters throughout prehistory, the probability is prac-
tically nil that the two “events” would ever have
coincided.
Marshack raises a number of interesting questions
about skeletal evidence for interpersonal violence (better
documented in the Mesolithic, when unambiguous cem-
eteries show up for the first time), the possible effects of
mobility on whether people were buried, and socio-
demographic factors that might have selected for in-
creasingly frequent burial (hence improved archaeolog-
ical “visibility”) during the Late Upper Paleolithic.
Although we used all the data available to us and ac-
knowledged that they almost certainly do not represent
the full range of mortuary practices over the relevant
time and space intervals, unless there is systematic bias
due to contextual factors (e.g., caves versus open sites,
short-term versus long-term sites, etc.) there is no reason
to think that the sample we analyzed would be biased
in any particular direction (although, of course, it is dom-
inated by remains recovered from caves and rock
shelters).
Perhaps our most acerbic critic is Mussi, who sees
little redemptive value in the paper. She claims that we
have the chronology of the Italian sites wrong (and in
consequence omitted some cases under the mistaken im-
pression that they were late), evidently giving greater
weight to typological criteria for assemblage definition
than to hard radiometric evidence. This theoretical
stance is problematic in a number of respects. For one
thing, the Italian Upper Paleolithic industries have tra-
ditionally been classified according to Laplace’s analyt-
ical framework, which differs markedly from that
of Bordes. Second, not all Italian workers adopt a chron-
otypological approach. Bietti (1991) points out that many
of the so-called Upper Paleolithic index-fossil tool types
occur in varying frequencies outside the prehistorian-
defined analytical units to which they are supposedly
confined (see also Kuhn and Bietti 2000). Italy also ap-
parently lacks a Solutrean. Clearly, radiometric dates and
paleoenvironmental data are the only secure foundations
upon which to erect any kind of prehistoric chronology.
Mussi advocates dividing the Upper Paleolithic into
three stages, including a Mid Upper Paleolithic dated
between 30,000 and 20,000 years ago into which most
474 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 42, Number 4, August–October 2001
of our Early Upper Paleolithic cases would fall. No basis
for this subdivision is offered. While it is clearly a good
idea to divide the Upper Paleolithic into more meaning-
ful units, the division we use makes more sense than
the one proposed by Mussi, since the Late Upper Pale-
olithic marks the beginning of the last glacial downturn
(i.e., it has paleoclimatic correlates that were likely to
have affected human behavior throughout western Eur-
asia). That our subdivision has “long been standard
among both archaeologists and physical anthropolo-
gists” is news to us, since practically all publications by
replacement advocates use the more conventional Mid-
dle–Upper Paleolithic division at ca. 40,000 years ago. In
our view, the conventional schema is favored by most
replacement advocates precisely because of the expec-
tation that the archaeological and the biological transi-
tions should coincide. They have this preconception
about pattern because one population (moderns making
Aurignacian tools) is thought to be replacing another one
(Neandertals making Mousterian and/or Châtelperron-
ian, Uluzzian, etc., tools). However, as mentioned above,
there is no empirical support for a correlation between
hominid biological types and archaeological assemblage
types. Biology and culture can and do vary independently
of one another.
Since we agree with him, there is little we can add to
Straus’s remarks except that we must find a way to break
the confines of the normative, typological thinking that
dominates most discussion of pattern in biological and
cultural variation over the last half of the Upper Pleis-
tocene. In particular, the basic analytical units (e.g., Au-
rignacian, Châtelperronian, Neandertal) have become
“naturalized” and so are seldom subjected to critical
scrutiny. Many workers treat them as if they were ob-
jectively “real,” intrinsically meaningful, and unprob-
lematic, with the implication that the systematics used
to generate them are themselves unproblematic. We sug-
gest that this is rather naı̈ve. In default of a concern with
epistemology (notably lacking in this type of research),
we have no way to determine whether workers in dif-
ferent research traditions are defining and using these
analytical units in the same ways or to justify them as
behaviorally meaningful (i.e., as appropriate for address-
ing transition questions). In other words, it is simply
taken for granted that the analytical units and the sys-
tematics that underlie them are adequate to address tran-
sition questions. We strongly suspect that they are not
(Clark 1997a).
We assure Tillier that we are painfully aware of the
empirical insufficiencies of our data and of the difficul-
ties in inferring the age and sex of incompletely pre-
served human remains (see Giles 1970 for a useful sum-
mary) but had to proceed on the basis of published
accounts. Isolated human remains are the norm through-
out the Pleistocene, and it is only with the appearance
of cemeteries late in the Mesolithic that samples de-
monstrably representative of the range of variation
within a biological population become available (Clark
and Neeley 1987). Uncertainties about dating have al-
ways figured prominently in transition research, pri-
marily because the interval of interest lies at the limits
of the most widely used and reliable radiometric dating
method in Europe, radiocarbon. And there are those (e.g.,
Mussi) who put more faith in typology than in absolute
dates. We acknowledge the probable error, also noted by
Straus, in regard to the Staroselye child (Marks et al.
1997). In the years since its discovery in 1953, the phy-
logenetic status of the Staroselye child (an infant of
18–19 months) has been much debated (see Marks et al.
1997:116, 117 for a useful summary). It is interesting that
it has changed in concert with prevailing views of what
constitutes a “modern human,” underscoring the diffi-
culties attendant on assigning very young (albeit com-
plete) individuals to biological taxonomic units.
Whether Paleolithic humans buried their dead has
been debated for well over a century and will doubtless
continue to be debated for the foreseeable future. We
hope to have shown here that, if we are to develop a
better understanding of this phenomenon, it is impera-
tive that we look at Upper Pleistocene burial as a process
and try to place it in the context of the changing regional
adaptations of which it was once a part. Our research
casts doubt on the utility of conventional chronotypo-
logical conceptual frameworks as organizing devices, as
has a complementary study based on the totality of pre-
Mesolithic human interments (Riel-Salvatore 2001). The
range of commentary shows that, intellectually, Paleo-
lithic archaeology is alive and well and that its practi-
tioners, despite diverse theoretical perspectives, none-
theless contribute to intelligent discourse about key
issues of the remote human past. A plurality of perspec-
tives is essential to the development of the discipline as
a rigorous scientific endeavor capable of generating new
knowledge about the human career. The assumptions,
biases, and preconceptions that underlie the logic of in-
ference in the various intellectual traditions involved in
the research must also be subjected to critical scrutiny
if we are to avoid the miscommunication that often re-
sults when workers differ among themselves with re-
spect to what constitutes data, what questions are im-
portant to ask of data, and how data should be analyzed.
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