European Journal of Archaeology 23 (2) 2020, 162–185 This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), which permits non- commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the same Creative Commons licence is included and the original work is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use. All these Fantastic Cultures? Research History and Regionalization in the Late Palaeolithic Tanged Point Cultures of Eastern Europe 1 2 3 LIVIJA IVANOVAITĖ ,KAMIL SERWATKA ,CHRISTIAN STEVEN HOGGARD , 4 5 FLORIAN SAUER AND FELIX RIEDE 1Museum of Copenhagen, Denmark 2Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum of Łódź, Poland 3University of Southampton, United Kingdom 4University of Cologne, Köln, Germany 5Aarhus University, Højbjerg, Denmark The Late Glacial, that is the period from the first pronounced warming after the Last Glacial Maximum to the beginning of the Holocene (c. 16,000–11,700 cal BP), is traditionally viewed as a time when northern Europe was being recolonized and Late Palaeolithic cultures diversified. These cultures are characterized by particular artefact types, or the co-occurrence or specific relative frequencies of these. In north-eastern Europe, numerous cultures have been proposed on the basis of supposedly different tanged points. This practice of naming new cultural units based on these perceived differences has been repeatedly critiqued, but robust alternatives have rarely been offered. Here, we review the taxonomic landscape of Late Palaeolithic large tanged point cultures in eastern Europe as currently envisaged, which leads us to be cautious about the epistemological validity of many of the constituent groups. This, in turn, motivates us to investigate the key artefact class, the large tanged point, using geometric morphometric methods. Using these methods, we show that distinct groups are difficult to recognize, with major implications for our understanding of patterns and processes of culture change in this period in north-eastern Europe and perhaps elsewhere. Keywords: Late Palaeolithic, research history, geometric morphometrics, eastern Europe, cultural taxonomies, large tanged points INTRODUCTION Magdalenian and Epigravettian traditions began to move northwards (Gamble et al., During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), 2005; Riede, 2014; Wygal & Heidenreich, around 22,000 years ago, the higher lati- 2014). During this colonization, groups tudes of Europe were devoid of people. occupying particular regions began to When pronounced warming began around develop consistent differences in their 16,000 years ago, groups belonging to the material culture, characterized by shouldered © European Association of Archaeologists 2019 doi:10.1017/eaa.2019.59 Manuscript received 8 February 2019, accepted 7 November 2019, revised 9 July 2019 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.19, on 25 Sep 2021 at 11:52:08, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2019.59 Ivanovaitė et al. – All these Fantastic Cultures? 163 points (the Creswellian and Hamburgian: Salvatore, 2006;Shea,2014), as well as for Burdukiewicz, 1986), backed points (the the Late Palaeolithic in northern Asia Federmessergruppen/Azilian: Schild, 1996), (Vasil’ev, 2001), the Upper Volga region large tanged points (the Bromme culture (Lisitsyn, 2017), and Lithuania (Ivanovaitė and others, see below: Ekholm, 1926; &Riede,2018) that many, if not most, of Sinitsyna, 2002), and small tanged points the analytical units in use today are beset (the Ahrensburgian and Swiderian: Taute, by mdash;at times subtle, at other times 1968; Kobusiewicz, 2002). critical—local, regional, and national biases. Importantly, these regional cultural In eastern Europe, Wyszomirska- entities provide the key framework for Webert (1996: 97) viewed the plethora of inferring patterns and processes of migra- cultural units with a critical eye, enquiring tion, adaptation, and potentially even into the ontological and epistemological emerging ethnicity in this period. Once robusticity as well as the anthropological certain cultures and their attendant terri- meaning of ‘all these fantastic cultures’ tories are defined, they can move around, that, according to the then-prevalent view, their material culture or economic focus populated the region in prehistory. As a can change, and they can interact with one subset of these, the Late Palaeolithic is another. Indeed, without archaeological made up of several large tanged point cul- taxonomies, the goal of understanding tures, each with a rich and mixed research such past processes cannot be realized history. The iconic large tanged point (Roberts & Vander Linden, 2011). Yet, forms, in all its diversity (Figure 1), the techno-typological classifications in the basis of cultural classifications. Today, the European Palaeolithic have been repeat- proposed cultural geography for this edly critiqued. For the Middle Palaeolithic period is characterized by substantial taxo- of Europe and the Near East, the infam- nomic diversity (Table 1). These groups ous debate between Lewis Binford, are traditionally used to infer processes of = = = = François Bordes, and Paul Mellars in the ‘palaeohistory’ (sensu Kozl= owski & = = = = 1960s largely broke with the tradition of Kozl = owski, 1979): the territories, collective casting such archaeological phenomena as actions, and migrations of identity- ethnic entities; yet a legacy of taxonomic conscious ethnic groups (Figure 2). inconsistency still haunts this period As elsewhere, these projectile points are (Clark, 1999, 2009; Bisson, 2000; Clark invested with chronological, spatial, and, by & Riel-Salvatore, 2006; Shea, 2014). extension, cultural specificity (O’Brien & Similarly, a soul-searching debate rocked Lyman, 1999). Otte & Keeley (1990)have the Levantine Epipalaeolithic in the noted, however, that taxonomic units in this 1990s, pitching those who saw material period are usually based on early antiquarian culture variation as reflecting ethnic units excavations of but a few key sites, reflected (Fellner, 1995; Kaufman, 1995; Goring- in the practice of naming them after these Morris, 1996; Phillips, 1996)againstthose loci classici; they also point out that ‘explana- who were sceptical of such attributions for tions offered for the events in such epistemological reasons (Clark, 1996)or sequences, whether explicit or implicit, tend preferred behavioural ecological explanations to focus on local phenomena or events and (Neeley & Barton, 1994; Barton & Neeley, reinforce ideas of local continuity and evolu- 1996). In addition, it has been remarked in tion’ (Otte & Keeley, 1990: 577). A more relation to the European and Levantine acerbic critique has been voiced by Houtsma Middle/Upper Palaeolithic (Felgenhauer, and collegues, who argued that ‘[o]nly when 1996;Tomášková, 2003; Clark & Riel- researchers of the Late Palaeolithic Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.19, on 25 Sep 2021 at 11:52:08, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2019.59 164 European Journal of Archaeology 23 (2) 2020 Figure 1. Examples of tanged points from eastern Europe. a) Examples from the type site of Bromme (Denmark). b) Archaeological units in eastern Europe featuring tanged points. c) Examples of tanged points from the Pitted Ware site of Kainsbakke (Denmark). Scale: 10mm. The colour palette corresponds to the visualization used throughout this article. Illustrations: Bromme (Redrawn after Taute, 1968; Fig. 95: 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10), Tieply Ruchey II (Sorokin, 2009; Fig. 3:1), Anosovo (Zaliznyak, 1999; Fig. 31: 2), Woronowka (Redrawn after Szymczak, 1991; Fig. 18:1), Velyky Midsk (Redrawn after Zaliznyak, 1999; Fig. 12:3), Merkys-Ūla (Redrawn after Rimantienė, 1971; Fig. 19:5), Margių (Redrawn after Rimantienė, 1999: Fig. 19:13), Koromka (Redrawn after Zaliznyak, 1999; Fig. 28:29), Burdeniszki (Redrawn after Szymczak, 1995; Fig. 6:2), Kainsbakke (Redrawn after Rasmussen & Richter, 1991; Fig. 21:2). habitation of the Northwest European Plain history of the Late Palaeolithic large tanged escape the constraints of contemporary point cultures in eastern Europe. Following national borders and the paradigmatic Sauer and Riede (2019), such source-critical straight-jackets of provincialism and regional interrogations provide evaluations of the chauvinism, which lead to insularity, will we epistemic status of the units in question. be in a position to gain analytical control of We find many units problematic in this the totality of extant data partitioned into regard and, using geometric morphometric uniform and mutually comparable sets of (GMM) approaches, we offer an alternative demonstrably relevant attributes’ (Houtsma way of capturing tanged point variability et al., 1996: 143). Their critique is arguably across the region without abstraction from as valid for the eastern extension of the the evidence base. NorthEuropeanPlainasitisforitswestern end. Most radically, Clark and Lindly (1991) have argued that this entire way of RESEARCH HISTORY AND CURRENT LATE thinking in terms of archaeological cultures PALAEOLITHIC CULTURAL TAXONOMIES: supposedly reflecting past peoples, their SPLITTERS VS LUMPERS actions,