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The preservation of palaeoenvironmental and archeological records in cave and rock shelter contexts is often called into question for Pleistocene sequences. Records are always fragmentary and the preservation of sediments and archaeological remains is partial and differential, according to site history. The karst deposits are often frequently described as disturbed due to post-depositional processes and phases of erosion over time. However, taphonomical analyses and some very well-preserved evidence attest to the capacity of caves to record data. Systematic and interdisciplinary fieldwork and studies allow for the reconstruction of some characteristics of Neanderthal occupations in their biostratigraphical and geochronological context. The geographic area under consideration here is the Rhône Valley. The right bank of the Middle Rhône Valley has yielded more than ten Middle Palaeolithic sites. Some of them have been studied recently through interdisciplinary fieldwork, providing new data on the end of the Middle Pleistocene and the beginning of the Upper Pleistocene. For this paper, we focus on four sites dated from the end of MIS 5, MIS 4 and the beginning of MIS 3, containing layers with evidence of Neanderthal occupations: Saint-Marcel, Abri du Maras, Abri des Pêcheurs and Le Figuier. All these sites are rock shelters or cave chambers and porches belonging to a karst system. The aim of our research program is to provide as much data as possible on Neanderthal occupations in their environmental contexts, in order to describe subsistence strategies and land use throughout time and potential links with climatic changes. In this paper, we evaluate the feasibility of assessing the relationship between climatic change and behaviour during the Middle Palaeolithic by describing the main archaeological material and palaeoenvironmental records of these four sites. Then, in the discussion, we conjointly examine the data from each site to assess this key question, even though the low resolution of cave and rock shelter records makes it difficult to establish an accurate chronology for human occupations and to provide a detailed description of the environment around the site for each human occupation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological radiocarbon databases are being increasingly used as a proxy of past demographic trends. In this paper we compile and analyze an extensive database of paleoecological information and 14 C dates from archaeological sites in northwestern Patagonia (Argentina, South America). On this basis, we assess the regional distribution of human populations since the late Pleistocene, and their relation with the evolution of Patagonian climate and landscapes. We explore the spatial and temporal distribution of evidence and discuss sampling biases affecting the record in different ecological contexts. The analysis is set in the frame of three main ecological regions that have implications for human subsistence: Andean forest, grass steppe, and shrub steppe. The intensity of the archaeological signal differs among these regions through time, being stronger and more homogeneous in the grass steppe. In the Andean forest and the shrub steppe the signal is weaker and even absent during short periods of the middle Holocene. We suggest likely sampling biases contributing to these tendencies, since these three regions present variable research cover and intensity. On the other hand, we also suggest that these differences may reflect variations in the intensity of human occupation, in favor of more attractive environments for hunting (i.e., areas where guanaco are generally more abundant). This macro-regional synthesis of the paleoecology and archaeology of northwestern Patagonia provides a platform for developing future oriented research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]