Composite View to the Past

Debates of alleged human modernity and archaism have dominated much of the recent Eurasian Paleolithic archaeological literature. Most debate has tended to proceed through the position and relative disposition of various interesting theoretical questions, such as "When did Modernity arrive in Europe?", or "Which Pleistocene human chronospecies brought Modernity to Europe?", or even, "Were Neanderthals modern?" Some even ask, "Were Neanderthals human?" The evidence on which such debates have occurred have tended to consist of data derived from artifact seriations and various attribute analyses of lithic technology, and, especially since the late 1980s and 1990s, upon mitochondrial DNA and other (unfortunately non-comprehensive) genetic studies. Some of the issues arising from these debates provide the focus for this present study.