Us and Them: How to Reconcile Archaeological and Biological Data at the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic Transition in Europe?

Between ca. 50,000 and 35,000 years ago, one of the most profound upheavals in the history of humanity occurred with the replacement of the so-called “archaic” groups (Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo luzonensis) by anatomically modern humans. Distinct macro-regional technocomplexes have long been distinguished in the European archaeological record, mainly based on their lithic typo-technological attributes and intermediate archaeo-stratigraphic position between final Mousterian and early Aurignacian assemblages. Here, I first review the data on the Châtelperronian, Uluzzian, and Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician groups, and finish with the industries grouped under the term Initial Upper Palaeolithic. I then attempt to discuss the archaeological data in the light of the most recent palaeogenomic data obtained from Homo sapiens fossils and integrate this information into considerations of the relationships between the so-called transitional industries and the first phases of the Aurignacian, the latter of which are always posterior to the former on the European continental scale.