A Preliminary Report on Pech de l'Azé IV, Layer 8 (Middle Paleolithic, France)

International audience; Pech de l'Azé IV (Dordogne, France) is a collapsed cave with an approximately three meter sequence of wellpreserved Mousterian assemblages. At the base of the sequence, resting on bedrock, is a ~50cm thick layer (Layer 8) of dark, primarily anthropogenic sediments that show unambiguous evidence of Neandertal use of fire dating to the time of OIS 5c. The faunal assemblage, which suggests a temperate, wooded environment, has evidence for the exploitation of some small game, and provides possible evidence for some non-subsistence related activities. The stone tool assemblage is characterized by the use of Levallois technology and, among the retouched tools, scrapers are predominant. Raw materials were primarily local and the complete reduction sequence is present in the assemblage with no evidence for import or export of prepared elements. Because of the state of preservation of all aspects of this layer, it represents one of the clearest examples of human management of fire in the European Middle Paleolithic.