Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-nr592 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-01T03:22:32.884Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dating the Cassis rufa shell from the Mousterian levels of the Grotte du Prince, Monaco

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Brian Hayden ,
D. E. Nelson  and
Jean Cataliotti-Valdina
Brian Hayden
Affiliation:
Archaeology Department, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
D. E. Nelson
Affiliation:
Archaeology Department, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Jean Cataliotti-Valdina
Affiliation:
ERA 38, Centre de Recherches Archéologiques (CNRS), Sophia Antipolis, Valbonne, France
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A fragment of Cassis rufa shell, in modern times a species of the Indian Ocean, was reliably reported from the deep Mousterian deposits excavated at the beginning of the century from the Grotte du Prince, Monaco. Because its known habitat is so distant and exotic, there has always been question about the specimen's authenticity. A radiocarbon determination shows it to be recent, and no evidence for long-distance movement of shell in the European Middle Palaeolithic.

Information

Type
Notes
Information
Antiquity , Volume 67 , Issue 256 , September 1993 , pp. 609 - 612
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

ABBOTT, R.T. 1968. The helmet shells of the world (Cassidae), Part I, Indo–pacific Mollusca 2 (9): 69–70.Google Scholar
BAR–YOSEF, D. 1989. Late Paleolithic and Neolithic marine shells in the southern Levant as cultural markers, in Hayes, C. (ed.),Proceedings of the 1986 shell bead conference, Rochester Museum and Science Center Research Records 20: 169–74.Google Scholar
BAR–YOSEF, O. 1989. Upper Pleistocene cultural stratigraphy in southwest Asia, in Trinkaus, E. (ed.),The emergence of modern humans: 154–80.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
DAVIS, J.C., et al. 1990. LLNL/UC AMS facility and research program, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, B52: 269–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HAYDEN, B. 1993. Neandertal cultural capacities: a reviewand reconsideration, Journal of Human Evolution, 24: 113–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
NELSON, D.E. 1991. A new method for carbon isotopie analysis of protein, Science 251: 552–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
REESE, D. 1989. On Cassid lips and Helmet shells, Basor 275: 33–9.Google Scholar
REESE, D. 1991. The trade of Indo–Pacific shells into the Mediterranean basin and Europe, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 10: 159–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
RENFREW, C. 1986. Review of Clark, G. Symbols of excellence, Antiquity 60: 238–9.Google Scholar
STUIVER, M., PEARSON, G.W. & BRAZIUNAS, T. 1986.Radiocarbon age calibration of marine samples back to 9000 Cal yr BP, Radiocarbon 28 (2B): 980–1021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
STUIVER, M. & POLACH, H. 1977. Reporting of 14C dating, Radiocarbon 19 355–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar