Source/Archive record SSF56333 - Understanding Late Middle Palaeolithic Neandertal Landscape-use during Short-Term Occupations in Britain

The goal of this research was to study a “snapshot” of Neandertal (Middle Palaeolithic) landscape-use and mobility within Britain during Marine Isotope Stage three (MIS3) (c. 60- 30ka BP) under short lived climatic conditions at the extent of their Northern range. Following a creation of a definitive gazetteer of all relevant sites and find-spots, a new method for analysing the 2D shape similarity of handaxes was used. Using the pixel counts of non-overlapping regions of overlaid handaxe silhouettes, a single numerical value can be obtained to describe the difference in shape between two handaxes. This avoids the problem of determining a variable derived from dimensions to adequately represent “shape” for handaxe analysis. In conjunction with cluster analysis it can be shown that despite handaxes in the British Late Middle Palaeolithic being highly variable, there are recurring “styles” as well as examples that have an almost identical 2D shape to one another. From this, definable degrees of similarity are available for the typological dating of the context-lacking isolated finds of British Late Middle Palaeolithic handaxes. When find-spots are plotted using a GIS, regularity of distribution can be observed, as can regional shape divisions. This may tentatively permit the visualisation of the movements of specific Neandertal groups or even individuals in the landscape. Location attribute analysis of find-spots was less successful but was still able to show a tendency for handaxes to be found close to rivers both vertically and horizontally, regardless of method of discovery suggesting their use as route ways and living environment of Neandertals.