Radiocarbon (AMS) dating the Classic Aurignacian, Proto-Aurignacian and Vasconian Mousterian at Gatzarria Cave (Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The site of Gatzarria (Pyrenean France) was excavated in the 1960s and 1970s by Georges Laplace. The importance of the site lies in the fact that it contains a stratified sequence of Aurignacian industries (Proto-Aurignacian — Classic Aurignacian — Late Aurignacian), a Châtelperronian layer, as well as a long sequence of Mousterian layers (including what has been termed the Vasconian Mousterian). It is thus a key site for assessing the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition as well as the techno-typological and chronological relationship between Aurignacian industries. As such, we decided to date animal bone samples by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon method (with ultrafiltration) from the Classic Aurignacian (Cbf), Proto-Aurignacian (Cjn2) and Vasconian Mousterian (Cjr) layers. After detailed evaluation of the stratigraphy of the site based on lithic analyses, projections, as well as refits of the Laplace excavation collection, we determined the most appropriate squares from which to sample and bones to select. The results are stratigraphically coherent, with an overlap in chronometric dates between the two early stratified Aurignacian industries : Classic Aurignacian 34 250 ± 550 and 34 400 ± 550 14C BP; Proto-Aurignacian : 36 300 ± 700 and 33 800 ± 550 14C BP. The Vasconian Mousterian, which has been argued as a late Mousterian facies by radiometric data, is older at this site than has been argued at other sites: Vasconian Mousterian: > 47 400 and > 50 300 14C BP. These represent the first dates ever obtained on this key site.This article presents the site, the selection and dating methodology and discusses the results within the larger western European Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition context, particularly that of the Pyrenean region. The critical importance of stratigraphy integrity assessments of museum collections of sites excavated before the benefit of geoarchaeological analyses is emphasized here, especially when considering chronometric dating.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".