The First Upper Paleolithic Human Remains from Belgium: Aurignacian, Gravettian, and Magdalenian Fossils at the "Troisième caverne" of Goyet (original) (raw)

The OGS-7 (Ounda Gona South) site at Gona was discovered in February 2000 and first described in the Journal of Human Evolution in 2003. It was, and still is, the oldest in situ archaeological site known, at 2.6-2.55 Ma, with abundant stone artifacts and fossil fauna found in association. Other publications in 2005 and 2010 further elaborated upon aspects of the fauna, stone raw materials, and lithic technology exhibited by the OGS-7 assemblage. As important as the site is, the original archaeological assemblage came from less than three square meters of excavation. In 2010, we significantly expanded the excavation of the site into the hillside and recovered hundreds of additional artifacts and faunal specimens. Here we report on some preliminary observations of this new assemblage. In some respects, the additional material that we have recovered supports previous inferences we have made concerning, for example, raw material selectivity and probable carcass processing. The recovery of numerous small cores, though, in addition to several lithic refitting sets, allows us to describe in more detail the lithic technology exhibited by this assemblage. Further excavations are planned at the site, in addition to future work on lithic replication, use wear, and local paleoenvironmental reconstruction. Comparisons will be made with the other early sites at Gona, in particular the East Gona sites (EG-10, -12, -13, and -24) and OGS-6.