http://popups.lib.uliege.be/3041-5527/index.php?id=1987 Entrées d’index fr 0 http://popups.lib.uliege.be/3041-5527/index.php?id=6125 The concept of “cultural environment” is used usually as an intuitive one and various authors include their own sense in it. It would be useful to try to formulate this concept systematically for the possibility of comparing materials and ideas and for interpreting them. I propose to construct this concept on the basis of a new, multilevel approach to the evolutionary processes. The first step may be by dividing the cultural environment into two parts: the material artefacts (such as nests, burrows, etc. of animals and shelters, tools, graves of humans) and spiritual artefacts (such as the behavioural patterns of animals that are not innate and translated by learning and taboos, traditions, etc. of humans). The main changes in the cultural environment happened in the spiritual part. The artefacts of it are not saved and that creates a special difficulty and necessity for an interdisciplinary investigation of the problem of man and environment in the Palaeolithic. The earliest fossil remains of anatomically modern Homo sapiens that can be accurately dated to about 100,000 years ago are from Israel. These early humans had modern supralaryngeal vocal tracts and brain mechanisms that are necessary to produce human speech and syntax. They probably had a language that made use of a complex syntax and reasoning ability. The main complication of the cultural environment during the Palaeolithic was caused by the accumulation of a spiritual construction within certain human societies, improvement of syntax that was possible thanks the usage of language and the origin of specific human altruism, as one pillar of human morality. Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:00:14 +0100 Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:06:19 +0100 http://popups.lib.uliege.be/3041-5527/index.php?id=6125 http://popups.lib.uliege.be/3041-5527/index.php?id=1984 It is hard to believe that opinions about any fossil sample could vary as wildly and completely as opinions about Neandertals and their place in human evolution (compare Wolpoff et al. 2004 & Tattersall 2002). The Neandertal sample is more than adequate, and evolutionary theory is the universally held explanatory principle, so there must be more to the story. Part of this is the role Neandertals have come to play in our culture, but even this post-modernist explanation will not suffice. The most compelling explanation of how Neandertal studies landed in so deep a quagmire is that in determining how different Neandertals were from the human condition, the wrong question was being asked. Thu, 16 Jan 2025 09:41:58 +0100 Fri, 30 Jan 2026 15:37:06 +0100 http://popups.lib.uliege.be/3041-5527/index.php?id=1984 http://popups.lib.uliege.be/3041-5527/index.php?id=6071 The isolation of human populations in Europe and in Africa is critical for models of modern human origins based on speciation events and total replacement of Neandertals and other archaic human groups by modern humans. Pleistocene human samples from Africa, west Asia and Europe are investigated to assess the morphological evidence for both isolation and regional interconnections. Four types of data are utilized : (1) results of a multivariate analysis of frontal bone shape, (2) distribution of patterns of supraorbital torus/brow ridge shape, (3) incidence of "cladistic" markers for Neandertals, and (4) occurrence of occipital buns. Environmental factors possibly influencing middle and late Pleistocene human evolution are also discussed. It is concluded that enough evidence exists for biological interconnections around the Mediterranean during this period to rule out regional isolation extensive enough to foster speciation. Thus, Homo sapiens has been a single, polytypic species since the Middle Pleistocene. Fri, 30 Jan 2026 14:19:41 +0100 Fri, 30 Jan 2026 14:19:48 +0100 http://popups.lib.uliege.be/3041-5527/index.php?id=6071 http://popups.lib.uliege.be/3041-5527/index.php?id=5779 Les caractères particuliers du crâne et plus particulièrement de la face des Néandertaliens résultent de la conjonction de traits plésiomorphes tels que le grand volume facial comparativement au crâne cérébral, de traits "avancés", tels que le volume de la boîte crânienne, du fait de leur apparition tardive sur le plan chronologique, et de traits nettement spécialisés qui permettent d'assurer l'équilibre biomécanique de la tête par l'adoption d'une structure fortement pneumatisée de la face. Cette structure, qui marque également les formes progressives d'Homo erectus, concerne les adaptations des formations creuses de la face telles que les sinus frontaux et surtout maxillaires, les cavités orbitales et nasales, qui modèlent la morphologie faciale. Les particularités de la face néandertalienne et ses relations avec le neurocrâne montrent qu'on ne peut assimiler cette population fossile à Homo sapiens, stade qu'elle n'avait pas atteint, ni à Homo erectus, stade qu'elle avait dépassé. Les Néandertaliens apparaissent, non pas comme un cas particulier isolé, mais comme l'aboutissement en Europe d'un courant évolutif comparable à celui des autres régions du monde au cours du Pléistocène moyen. Neandertals' particular cranial characteristics and more particularly facial characteristics result from 1. the conjunction of plesiomorphic traits such as the great facial volume in comparison with the cerebral cranium, 2. "advanced" traits, such as the volume of the skull, due to the fact of their late appearance chronologically and 3. clearly specialized traits which assure the biomechanical balance of the head by the adoption of a strongly pneumatized facial structure. This structure, which also marks progressive forms of Homo erectus, concerns the adaptations of hollow formations of the face such as the frontal and above all the maxillaries sinuses and the orbital and nasal cavities which fashion the facial morphology. The particularities of the Neandertal face and its relations with the neurocranium shows that one cannot assimilate this fossil population to Homo sapiens, a stage that it had not yet attained, nor to Homo erectus, a stage that it had already gone beyond. The Neandertals appear, not as a particular isolated case, but the issue in Europe of an evolutionary trend comparable to that of other regions of the world during the middle Pleistocene. Thu, 11 Dec 2025 15:10:59 +0100 Thu, 11 Dec 2025 15:11:07 +0100 http://popups.lib.uliege.be/3041-5527/index.php?id=5779 http://popups.lib.uliege.be/3041-5527/index.php?id=5098 Two Eemian and four post-Eemian Middle Palaeolithic (MP) industrial traditions are recognised in the Crimea, namely : Late Acheulean, Eastern Taubachian, then Eastern Micoquian (Ak-Kaian), two kinds of para-Micoquian or Micoquian-related Charentoid industries (Kiik-Kobian and Staroselian), and Typical Mousterian (Kabazian). The Crimean MP undoubtedly belongs to the sphere of ideas and logic of development of the European Palaeolithic. However it survived until comparatively late (ca. 30 kyr BP) which adds originality to the process of the local MP / UP transition. Thu, 14 Aug 2025 14:44:56 +0200 Thu, 14 Aug 2025 14:45:09 +0200 http://popups.lib.uliege.be/3041-5527/index.php?id=5098