Multivariate analyses of Aurignacian and Gravettian personal ornaments support cultural continuity in the Early Upper Palaeolithic

Abstract

Traditionally, lithic artefacts have served as the principal proxy for the definition of archaeological cultures in the Upper Paleolithic. However, the culture-historical framework in use, constructed unsystematically and shaped by regional research traditions, features a number of widely acknowledged drawbacks. Here we use personal ornaments to explore the nature of Early Upper Paleolithic cultural entities and establish to what extent they represent distinct or evolving cultural adaptations. We present an analysis of an updated georeferenced dataset composed of personal ornaments coming from two key successive Upper Paleolithic technocomplexes, the Aurignacian (42–34,000 years ago) and the Gravettian (34–24,000 years ago). Using a range of multivariate statistics, we demonstrate that, at both European and regional scales, people belonging to these technocomplexes wore similar personal ornaments, though fully-shaped personal ornaments appear more different between technocomplexes. We additionally show that the variability of the Aurignacian ornaments suggests more fragmented cultural clusters compared to the Gravettian, implying more extensive symbolic networks in the latter. Despite a long-standing consensus based on other archaeological proxies, which emphasises the dissimilarity between these cultural entities, our results demonstrate the complex nature of Upper Paleolithic cultures which are characterised by discontinuities in economic and technical systems and continuity in the culturalisation of the body.