MERCIER , Norbert

The La Combette rock-shelter, located in the Luberon mountains (Southern France), is an essential local archaeological discovery. The site comprises several Palaeolithic layers suggesting multiple phases of Mousterian occupation. The sediment sequence of c. 7 m thickness indicates rapid changes in the environmental conditions, which led to an...

Dating the Early Middle Palaeolithic Laminar Industry from Djruchula Cave, Republic of Georgia

A selection of 37 burnt flints from Jelinek's excavations at Tabun were dated by thermoluminescence. The results indicate that the bottom of unit I (Garrod's Layer C) should be given an age of 171±17 kybp(transition from oxygen isotope stage 7 to 6) and that units XIII to II (Layers Ed to D) were deposited betweenc. 330 and 210 kybp,i.e.during...

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The stratigraphic and lithic evidence at the site of Bérigoule is not sufficient for the determination of the age of two Mousterian archaeological layers. Thermoluminescence (TL) dating of heated flint from the two levels provides chronometric age estimates. The TL-ages show a high degree of variability, ranging from 54 to 90 ka for Level I and...

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New excavations have been undertaken at Diepkloof Rock Shelter (DRS; South Africa) since 1999. It is one of the very few sites where Howiesons Poort and Stillbay assemblages can be collected from the same archaeological sequence. These Middle Stone Age techno-complexes are particularly interesting for their affinities with the much younger...

The Shi'bat Dihya 1 site in western Yemen, dated by optically stimulated lu-minescence to 55 ka, provides insight into the Middle Paleolithic peopling of the Arabian Peninsula. The archaeological layer is interstratified within thick, sandy silt floodplain deposits filling a piedmont basin. Luminescence dates, lack of soil development, and...

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The thermoluminescence dating method was applied to 77 heated flints from the Mousterian layers of Hayonim Cave in order to provide a precise TL-based chronology for this important Levantine sequence. A detailed dosimetric study was performed by using 76 dosimeter capsules and revealed strong spatial dose-rate variations. In parallel, Fourier...

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