ABSTRACT
The Middle and Upper Palaeolithic periods in Europe differ widely in terms of the material culture associated with them. Each period is also associated with two distinct types of hominids: the Neanderthals, in the Middle Palaeolithic, and anatomically modern humans – people who were physiologically like ourselves – in the Upper Palaeolithic. The purpose of this chapter is to outline the degrees of difference between the stone tool material cultures of the two periods, and to explore a way of accounting for these differences through the idea that Neanderthals did not have the same pattern of childhood and development as that demonstrable in modern humans. We will discuss what is and is not known about childhood in Neanderthal societies, and propose a model of how such knowledge can be used to interpret the material culture of those societies.
