Journal of Archaeological Science (2002) 29, 1439–1449 doi:10.1006/jasc.2002.0806, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on Specialized Early Upper Palaeolithic Hunters in Southwestern France? Donald K. Grayson Department of Anthropology, Box 353100, University of Washington, Seattle WA 98195, U.S.A. Franc ¸oise Delpech Institut de Pre ´histoire et de Ge ´ologie du Quaternaire, UMR 5808 du CNRS, Avenue des Faculte ´s, Universite ´ Bordeaux I, 33405 Talence, France (Received 7 November 2001, revised manuscript accepted 4 January 2002) Paul Mellars has long used cave and rockshelter ungulate faunal assemblages from southwestern France to argue that the early Upper Palaeolithic people of this region focused their hunting on reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), and that such specialized hunting distinguishes the Upper from the Middle Palaeolithic in at least this region. We examine this argument quantitatively, using a sample of 133 Mousterian, Cha ˆtelperronian, and Aurignacian ungulate assemblages. We show that only five Aurignacian assemblages, from three sites, stand out in terms of the degree to which their ungulate faunas are dominated by a single taxon. We also show that some Mousterian cave and rock shelter ungulate assemblages are more heavily dominated by large bovids than Aurignacian assemblages are dominated by reindeer, and that Mellars’ argument is highly dependent on the exclusion of open sites from the analysis and on the numerical threshold he has selected to indicate hunting specialization.  2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: MOUSTERIAN, AURIGNACIAN, CHA | TELPERRONIAN, NEANDERTALS, PLEISTOCENE, REINDEER, FRANCE. Introduction P aul Mellars’ 1973 examination of the nature of the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition in southwestern France has had a substantial im- pact on archaeological approaches to understanding this complex period of time. By focusing on a small set of apparently relevant attributes—for instance, chang- ing stone tool morphology, the use of bone, antler and ivory for tool manufacture, the appearance of personal ornaments, and the long distance transport of raw materials—he produced a powerful synthesis that closely matched what others were concluding from the analysis of Mousterian and Upper Palaeolithic ma- terials across Europe (e.g., Klein, 1973). His efforts in this realm helped set the stage for what was to follow and remain at the centre of the current debate on the fate of the Neanderthals (e.g., White, 1982; Klein, 1989, 1992, 1995, 1999, 2000; Potts, 1998; McBrearty & Brooks, 2000). Here, we address one of the issues that Mellars raised in 1973, ‘‘that the highly specialized hunting of one species of animal was particularly characteristic of the upper Palaeolithic period’’ (1973: 261), and that such hunting distinguishes the Upper from the Middle Palaeolithic in at least this region. Although, as Mellars (1973) carefully noted, this was not a novel argument (e.g., Braidwood & Reed, 1957; Binford & Binford, 1966; Binford, 1968), he amassed far more data to support it than had his predecessors. It is also an argument that Mellars has continued to make, and to refine, over the years (e.g., Mellars, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1996). Recently, for instance, he has suggested that Cha ˆtelperronian ‘‘Neandertal goups practiced a relatively broad spectrum foraging pattern, usually involving substantial exploitation of at least three or four different species . . . by contrast, most of the faunas recovered from early Aurignacian levels in the same region show a striking specialization on reindeer, with reindeer often comprising more than 90% of the documented remains’’ (Mellars, 1998: 500). To be sure, Mellars (1998) recognizes that the differences he sees in southwestern France between Mousterian and Cha ˆtelperronian faunal assemblages on the one hand, and those provided by Aurignacian ones on the other, may simply reflect changing climatic conditions. However, he has also argued that ‘‘regard- less of whether certain Mousterian groups practiced a significant element of deliberate economic specializ- ation in the exploitation of particular animal species, it 1439 0305–4403/02/$-see front matter  2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.