Evidence from personal ornaments suggest nine distinct cultural groups between 34,000 and 24,000 years ago in Europe
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Mechanisms governing the relationship between genetic and cultural evolution are the subject of debate, data analysis and modelling efforts. Here we present a new georeferenced dataset of personal ornaments worn by European hunter-gatherers during the so-called Gravettian technocomplex (34,000-24,000 years ago), analyse it with multivariate and geospatial statistics, model the impact of distance on cultural diversity and contrast the outcome of our analyses with up-to-date palaeogenetic data. We demonstrate that Gravettian ornament variability cannot be explained solely by isolation-by-distance. Analysis of Gravettian ornaments identified nine geographically discrete cultural entities across Europe. While broadly in agreement with palaeogenetic data, our results highlight a more complex pattern, with cultural entities located in areas not yet sampled by palaeogenetics and distinctive entities in regions inhabited by populations of similar genetic ancestry. Integrating personal ornament and biological data from other Palaeolithic cultures will elucidate the complex narrative of population dynamics of Upper Palaeolithic Europe.
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These studies have focused on the analysis of Upper Palaeolithic personal ornaments, mobiliary art and funerary behaviours, all of which hold symbolic meaning and as such can better characterise cultural and social systems.
“These studies have focused on the analysis of Upper Palaeolithic personal ornaments, mobiliary art and funerary behaviours, all of which hold symbolic meaning and as such can better characterise cultural and social systems (Baker et al., 2024).”
From The Archaeology of Cannibalism: a Review of the Taphonomic Traits Associated with Survival and Ritualistic Cannibalism (2025) · cites this paper as Baker et al., 2024
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BackgroundSignalling Palaeolithic identity
Yeshurun, R. (2024) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-023-01805-4
- Authors
- Baker, J., Rigaud, S., Pereira, D., Courtenay, L. A., & d’Errico, F.
- Affiliations
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Baker, Jack
- Venue
- Nature Human Behaviour
- Published
- 2024-01-29
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 431-444
- ISSN
- 2397-3374 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4391324318
- Cited by
- 40
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 12
- FWCI
- 69.91
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hal.science
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature Human Behaviour (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR- 10-IDEX-03-02, ANR-10-IDEX-0003)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology › Archaeological and Geological Studies
- Keywords
- personal adornment, Upper Palaeolithic, hunter-gatherers, cultural diversity, isolation by distance, cultural groups
- MeSH terms
- Cultural Evolution, Europe, Humans, Population Dynamics, Cultural Diversity
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