Not that Original after All: the Chrono-Cultural Framework of the Upper Paleolithic on the Bistriţa Valley (Northeastern Romania)

Abstract

From the initial researches in the 1950’s, the geological and archeological sequences preserved on the Bistrița terraces have been constantly thought to provide a remarkably complete chronicle of the Upper Paleolithic in eastern Romania. The local Pleistocene geological archives hosted Aurignacian, Gravettian, Epigravettian and Swiderian layers. Various chronological data and cultural interpretations accumulated in the following decades granted the local Paleolithic some unusual features, such as the bizarrely young chronology of the Aurignacian technocomplex (27–21 ka uncal. BP), involving its partial contemporaneity with the local Gravettian (24–16 ka BP). Based on a previous critical reassessment of the original lithic toolkits the present paper attempts at assembling the most important results recently obtained through new archeological researches in several settlements in the area (Poiana Cireșului, Bistricioara-Lutărie I and III, Bistricioara ‘La Mal’). A consistently revised chrono-cultural framework is proposed. The key changes involve a virtually complete rejection of an Aurignacian occurrence and an improved chronology of the Gravettian/Epigravettian technocomplex, now overtly related to several better documented sequences along the Prut and Dniestr rivers.

Keywords: Upper Paleolithic, northeastern Romania, Bistrița Valley, Aurignacian, Gravettian, Epigravettian, chronology, lithic technology.