Isabelle Crevecoeur
@isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
1.6K followers 390 following 48 posts
Dr., Paleoanthropologist Senior Researcher @CNRS @PACEA_Bordeaux lab, @univbordeaux, France PhD in Biological Anthropology #Paleoanthropology #Prehistory #HumanEvolution #Archaeology #Bioanthropology #Neanderthal
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isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
‼️📣Extremely proud to see this great collaborative work out!

Oldest Shell Ornament Workshop in Western Europe at Saint-Césaire: www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1...

#Prehistory #Archaeology #Chatelperronian #Shells #Beads #Homosapiens #Neandertal #Ornament

Details of discovery & implications ⏬ 🧵 1/20
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
www.pnas.org
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
Well done @nclsmartin.bsky.social👏👏
martamlahr.bsky.social
#ESHE2025
Super talk by @nclsmartin.bsky.social ‘Bony labyrinth morphology reveals 40,000 years of settlement history and population isolation in NE Africa’
Nile Valley: pop discontinuity in late Up Ple – endogamy?
AHP pop connectivity
Horn: also ~biol isolation, pathologies! huge variation
Reposted by Isabelle Crevecoeur
teyssand31.bsky.social
Happy to be associated to this paper led by @isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social with important input of @solangerigaud.bsky.social
cnrs.fr
CNRS @cnrs.fr · 15d
#PressRelease 🗞️ The oldest workshop for making shell jewellery has been unearthed at the Palaeolithic site of La Roche-à-Pierrot. 🐚

👉 www.cnrs.fr/en/press/old...
Reposted by Isabelle Crevecoeur
teyssand31.bsky.social
Heureux d’être associé à ce travail de longue haleine dirigé par @isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social avec la participation décisive de @solangerigaud.bsky.social
cnrs.fr
CNRS @cnrs.fr · 15d
#Communiqué 🗞️ Le premier atelier de fabrication de parures en coquillages en Europe de l’Ouest a été découvert à Saint-Césaire en Charente-Maritime. Daté d’au moins 42 000 ans, cet assemblage unique en Europe de l’Ouest a pu être associé au Châtelperronien. 🐚

👉 www.cnrs.fr/fr/presse/le...
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
Merci Caroline!! Du réchauffé pour toi 😅😉, mais quelle plaisir de voir cela publié !
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
🥇Last but not least, thanks to all the volunteer excavators and all the institutions that supported Saint-Césaire Research Project:
@cnrs.fr @univbordeaux.bsky.social @pacea.bsky.social
Département de Charente-Maritime, Ministère de la culture, DRAC Nouvelle Aquitaine, #Paleosite
(20/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
🥇 This study is proof that teamwork really does make the dream work. Every contribution mattered, and together we built something bigger than the sum of its parts. Feeling lucky to work with such an amazing, multidisciplinary team of brilliant people (19/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
⛏️ 🐚 This rare combo of early Upper Paleolithic industry + shell beads in W. Europe highlights cultural variability and suggests Châtelperronian makers were influenced by, or part of, early Homo sapiens dispersals (18/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
🧑🧑 We suggest repeated encounters between biologically & culturally distinct groups shaped how people saw themselves & others, sparking in Europe a need for intergroup and self-identification (17/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
🐚 🦴 Potential ornaments in Middle Paleolithic contexts are rare and lack beads. Ornament use only becomes widespread and consolidated with Homo sapiens groups arriving in the region ~55–42 ka (16/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
🐚 🦴 Compared to these sites, Saint-Césaire stands out for its monospecific bead accumulation and site function. It is also unlike other Châtelperronian ornamentations, which center on bone and tooth beads (15/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
🌍 🐚 Regional diversity of personal ornament in Europe associated to pre-Aurignacian Upper Palaeolithic techno-complex, with shell beads exclusively found in Mediterranean-Uluzzian contexts (14/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
🧹 📈 Spatial stats tested associations among artefacts, fauna, shells & pigments.
▶️ Shells + pigments + Châtelperronian cluster together;
▶️ Bison links with Mousterian

‼️First evidence of shell beads with Châtelperronian artefacts ‼️

(13/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
🧹 📈 The two lithic components show distinct alteration patterns, size distributions, and post-depositional processes (solifluxion vs. runoff), enabling clear spatial differentiation (12/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
⛏️🧹 Unlike the area excavated by Levêque, this layer is ~45% Châtelperronian (2 points, 3 cores, 15 blades/fragments), while the Mousterian component is mixed and heterogeneous, combining Discoid and Levallois systems (11/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
⛏️🧹 Both Châtelperronian & Mousterian artefacts occur in that layer dated between ~48-42 ka—so which techno-cultural association? Taphonomic, lithic & spatial analyses by François Bachellerie, Brad Gravina & Marc Thomas provide a clear answer... (10/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
🔴 🔬Geochemical analyses of the red and yellow pigments by Laure Dayet show they aren’t local—their source lies at least 40 km from La Roche-à-Pierrot (9/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
🐚 🔬Microscopic analyses by @solangerigaud.bsky.social revealed that perforated shells show no wear, and pigment staining comes from nearby hematite. With 14 intact shells, little/no wear, and high fragmentation, the evidence supports a shell ornament workshop (8/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
🐚 The littorina, characterized by a wide range of natural colors when fresh, originate from the Atlantic coast, situated about 100 km away from La Roche-à-Pierrot at the time of the occupation (7/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
🐚 🔴 In just 1 m², 184 shells and shell fragments (MNI = 58, mostly Littorina obtusata), alongside 183 pieces of hematite were recovered—both with clear human modifications. Thirty shells show pressure perforations, and the pigments bear percussion marks (6/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
⛏️🧹 From 2018 to 2020, excavations of the layer once attributed to Levêque’s Châtelperronian revealed—in the best-preserved and thickest part of the sequence—the oldest known shell ornament workshop, dated to at least 42,000 years ago (5/20)
isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social
⛏️🧹 New excavations at La Roche-à-Pierrot—begun in 2013 under François Bachellerie & Eugène Morin, and directed by Isabelle Crevecoeur since 2015—aim to untangle site formation processes and have yielded fresh chronological and archaeological data (4/20)
doi.org/10.1016/j.qu...
Redirecting
doi.org