An empirical evaluation of the case for a Châtelperronian-Aurignacian interstratification at Grotte des Fées de Châtelperron
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This paper addresses the recent debate surrounding claims about the presence of a small Aurignacian assemblage interstratified between Châtelperronian deposits at the site of Grotte des Fées de Châtelperron. We review the current debate and provide an assessment of the various studies that have been published in its context. As a way to evaluate whether the original claims stand irrespective of potential taphonomic disturbances at the site, we undertake a comparison of the frequency of putative ‘Aurignacian diagnostics’ in this and nineteen other Châtelperronian assemblages from south-western France. No matter how these diagnostics are defined, this analysis demonstrates that such implements are not abnormally more abundant at Châtelperronian assemblages, even when considered solely for Level B4, which is said to document the debated interstratification. We propose alternative explanations for the presence of such curated tools made of exotic lithic raw materials in the context of the assemblage from Grotte des Fées that are more concordant with what is known about the impact of sample size on typological richness and about the mobility patterns of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, and conclude with some thoughts about the significance of interstratification in Paleolithic deposits.
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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 | 0.011 | 0.041 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.011 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 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".