The Mousterian is a techno-complex of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the latter part of the Middle Paleolithic, the middle of the West Eurasian Old Stone Age. It lasted roughly from 160,000 to 40,000 BP. If its predecessor, known as Levallois or Levallois-Mousterian, is included, the range is extended to as early as c. 300,000–200,000 BP. The main following period is the Aurignacian of Homo sapiens.
The Châtelperronian is a proposed industry of the Upper Palaeolithic, the existence of which is debated. It represents both the only Upper Palaeolithic industry made by Neanderthals and the earliest Upper Palaeolithic industry in Central and Southwestern France, as well as in Northern Spain. It derives its name from Châtelperron, Allier, France.
The Upper Paleolithic also called the Late Stone Age is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago, according to some theories coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity in early modern humans, until the advent of the Neolithic Revolution and agriculture.
Alhama de Granada is a town in the province of Granada, approx. 50 km from the city of Granada. The name is derived from the thermal baths located there, which are called الـحَـمّـة al-hammah in Arabic.
Spy Cave is located in Wallonia near Spy in the municipality of Jemeppe-sur-Sambre, Namur Province, Belgium above the left bank of the Orneau River. Classified as a premier Heritage site of the Walloon Region, the location ranks among the most significant paleolithic sites in Europe. The cave consists of numerous small chambers and corridors.
Teshik-Tash 1 is a Neanderthal skeleton discovered in 1938 in Teshik-Tash Cave, in the Bajsuntau mountain range, Uzbek SSR, Central Asia.
Jebel Irhoud is an archaeological site located just north of the locality known as Tlet Ighoud, approximately 50 km (30 mi) south-east of the city of Safi in Morocco. It is noted for the hominin fossils that have been found there since the discovery of the site in 1960. Originally thought to be Neanderthals, the specimens have since been assigned to Homo sapiens or Homo helmei and, as reported in 2017, have been dated to roughly 300,000 years ago.
The prehistory of the Iberian Peninsula begins with the arrival of the first hominins 1.2 million years ago and ends with the Punic Wars, when the territory enters the domains of written history. In this long period, some of its most significant landmarks were to host the last stand of the Neanderthal people, to develop some of the most impressive Paleolithic art, alongside Southern France, to be the seat of the earliest civilizations of Western Europe and finally to become a most desired colonial objective due to its strategic position and its many mineral riches.
Paleolithic Europe, the Lower or Old Stone Age in Europe, encompasses the era from the arrival of the first archaic humans, about 1.4 million years ago until the beginning of the Mesolithic around 10,000 years ago. This period thus covers over 99% of the total human presence on the European continent. The early arrival and disappearance of Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis, the appearance, complete evolution and eventual demise of Homo neanderthalensis and the immigration and successful settlement of Homo sapiens all have taken place during the European Paleolithic.
Vindija Cave is an archaeological site associated with Neanderthals and modern humans, located in the municipality of Donja Voća, northern Croatia. Three of these Neanderthals were selected as the primary sources for the first draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome project.
Neanderthals are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. They most likely went extinct due to assimilation into the modern human genome, great climatic change, disease, or a combination of these factors.
Mezmaiskaya Cave is a prehistoric cave site overlooking the right bank of the Sukhoi Kurdzhips in the southern Russian Republic of Adygea, located in the northwestern foothills of the North Caucasus in the Caucasus Mountains system.
Scladina, or Sclayn Cave, is an archaeological site located in Wallonia in the town of Sclayn, in the Andenne hills in Belgium, where excavations since 1978 have provided the material for an exhaustive collection of over thirteen thousand Mousterian stone artifacts and the fossilized remains of an especially ancient Neanderthal, called the Scladina child were discovered in 1993.
The Obi-Rakhmat Grotto is a Middle Paleolithic prehistoric site that yielded Neanderthal fossils. It is a shallow karst cave near the junction of the Chatkal and Pskem Rivers at the southwestern end of the Talassky Alatau Range in the Tien Shan Mountains, 100 km (62 mi) northeast of Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
The Goyet Caves are a series of connected caves located in Wallonia in a limestone cliff about 15 m above the river Samson near the village of Mozet in the Gesves municipality of the Namur province, Belgium. The site is a significant locality of regional Neanderthal and European early modern human occupation, as thousands of fossils and artifacts were discovered that are all attributed to a long and contiguous stratigraphic sequence from 120,000 years ago, the Middle Palaeolithic to less than 5.000 years ago, the late Neolithic. A robust sequence of sediments was identified during extensive excavations by geologist Edouard Dupont, who undertook the first probings as early as 1867. The site was added to the Belgian National Heritage register in 1976.
The Cave of the Angel refers to several cave-related structures located in the Aras mountain range near the town of Lucena, Córdoba province in Spain. The site contains lithic material of an Acheulean typology and dates to that from the Middle Pleistocene to the Upper Pleistocene. There is geological, paleontological, and archaeological evidence indicating an intense and long-term occupation of this site. The numerous bone and lithic remains found in this site, as well as the matrix surrounding them, reveal exposure to fire. This, along with the finding of a wide and deep combustion structure in the stratigraphic profile, support the hypothesis that at the time of the occupation of the site by humans there was processing and consumption of big mammals.
Ventas de Zafarraya is a village in the municipality of Alhama de Granada, Granada, Spain. It is just north of a mountain pass between spurs of the Sierra de Alhama to the west and the Sierra de Tejeda to the east, on the main road from Vélez-Málaga to Alhama de Granada. The village was destroyed by an earthquake in 1884, but was rebuilt.
The 1884 Andalusian earthquake occurred on 25 December 1884 at 9:08 p.m in Andalusia, south of Spain, and had an estimated magnitude of 6.7 . It shook a poor region where many of the houses were built without foundations, with lime or mud mortar, and with weak joints. 10,715 buildings were badly damaged, of which 4,399 were completely destroyed. Fortunately, many people were in the streets celebrating Christmas, or casualties would have been higher, but there were over 1,200 deaths and 1,500 serious injuries. The heavy snow that followed the earthquake caused further suffering and deaths. Help was slow to arrive at first, but as the news spread food and blankets arrived, then tents, and then donations from around the world helped with reconstruction.
The Uluzzian Culture is a transitional archaeological culture between the Middle paleolithic and the Upper Paleolithic, found in Italy and Greece.
Fumane Cave is a dolomite cave in the Fumane Valley, which was formed in the Neogene period. The cave contains rich evidence of three prehistoric hominid cultures: Mousterian, Uluzzian and Aurignacian. Additionally, the cave has some of the oldest cave art that has been discovered in Europe.
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