Questioning the first Aurignacian: mono or multi cultural phenomenon during the formation of the Upper Paleolithic in Central Europe and the Balkans

International audienceFor several decades, it has been commonly admit 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 (eg. 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