9 Questioning the First Aurignacian: Mono or Multi Cultural Phenomenon During the Formation of the Upper Paleolithic in Central Europe and the Balkans • XLIV/1 • pp. 9–29 • 2006 NICOLAS TEYSSANDIER QUESTIONING THE FIRST AURIGNACIAN: MONO OR MULTI CULTURAL PHENOMENON DURING THE FORMATION OF THE UPPER PALEOLITHIC IN CENTRAL EUROPE AND THE BALKANS ABSTRACT: For several decades, it has been commonly admitted that the Aurignacian was an homogeneous techno- complex related to the first diffusion of modern humans in Europe. The typo-technological Pan-European homogeneity of the Aurignacian has been explained on the basis of bone and lithic specific tools currently known since the Near East to the Atlantic coast (e.g. split-based points, Dufour bladelets, carinated and nosed end-scrapers). This predicted cultural homogeneity has led many authors to interpret the Aurignacian as the first East-West migration of modern men in Europe. The revision of 4 major so-called Aurignacian sequences located in the Balkans and in central Europe (more particularly from east to west Bacho Kiro in Bulgaria, Krems-Hundssteig and Willendorf in Austria and Geissenklösterle in Germany) is in contradiction with this model. In the Balkans, Bacho Kiro is more comparable with some transitional units than with the Aurignacian. In Central Europe, Austrian and German sites enable us to distinguish two distinct cultural traditions actually integrated in the Aurignacian: the Proto-Aurignacian and the Early classical Aurignacian (Aurignacian I). Their relationship and their place in the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition are discussed at the end of the paper. KEY WORDS: Anatomically modern humans (AMH) – Aurignacian – Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition – Bachokirian – Proto-Aurignacian – Early Aurignacian (I) – Central Europe – Balkans – Lithic technology INTRODUCTION One of the most critical issues in evolutionary anthropology is actually related to the behavioural and cognitive processes which underlied the technical and socio- symbolic mutations associated with the appearance of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe. As commonly argued, the sudden proliferation of symbolic items, antler and ivory tools associated with a durable miniaturization and much expressed standardization of lithic forms surely represent one of the best expressed global breaks in the Pleistocene record of the Old World (Mellars 1989, 1996, Bar-Yosef 1998, 2002, Gamble 1999). Associated with the "Aurignacian material culture", it has long been said that the widespread distribution from the Near-East to the Atlantic coasts of these so-called "culturally modern" patterns was the result of the initial dispersal of anatomically modern humans (AMH) in Europe (e.g. Mellars 1989, 1996, 1999, 2004, Djindjian 1993, Otte 1996, Bocquet-Appel, Demars 2000, Kozlowski, Otte, 2000, Davies 2001, Conard, Bolus 2003). The abrupt coincidence between what is interpreted as a clear break in the cultural evolution and the first appearance of AMH in Europe has generally favoured a "single-species model" for the origin of modern human behaviour in Europe (e.g. Mellars 1989, 2004, 2005, Stringer, Gamble 1993,