Solène ESCARGUEL

Title

Middle Palaeolithic tool use, technologies and site function: the case of Biache St-Vaast

Summary

Biache-Saint-Vaast (Pas-De-Calais, France) is a key site for the understanding from the Lower to the Middle Palaeolithic. It revealed an Early Middle Palaeolithic Neanderthal occupation, dated to around 220,000 years ago. Among the stratigraphic layers, level IIA stands out for its exceptional preservation, yielding a rich assemblage of Levallois-concept lithic tools, animal bones and the oldest known pre-Neanderthal human remains in Western Europe.

Since the late 1970s, extensive technological studies have been conducted on the lithic material, including functional (use-wear) analyses. Level IIA is currently interpreted as a specialized butchery area, with a focus on meat and hide provisioning. A knapping area completes the activities onsite, in preparation for the hunting expeditions. The site’s location—on a valley slope near wetlands—suggests deliberate hunting strategies linked to the landscape, focused on megaherbivores and bears.

This research benefits from the exceptional preservation conditions, also enabling the development of new methodological approaches to macro-wear analysis (edge removals, rounding, fractures). The corpus includes both retouched and unretouched lithic tools from Level IIA, providing a unique opportunity to better understand the functional complementarity between expedient and formally shaped tools within a specialized toolkit.