Time for the Palaeolithic:

Radiocarbon dating and the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic of Europe

Discussion meeting

St Antony's College, Oxford 14th-16th April 2011

The Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit has led a 4 year programme seeking to improve the dating of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition of Europe. This workshop-conference aims to bring together the collaborating archaeologists and the wider team involved in the work to discuss the results and their integration.

Our key research questions, at the start of the project were:

What is the date of the earliest Aurignacian within the various regions of western Europe? Can we detect an east to west pattern of dispersal and can we delineate paths of movement?
To what extent did Aurignacian and Châtelperronian industries overlap in time?
What is the age of the latest Mousterian?
What is the relationship between climatic and environmental changes in Europe and the dispersal of the earliest AMH?

The conference will run for two days and consist of presentations from the Oxford team and collaborating archaeologists, with discussions of the results and their significance. The meeting, which is by invitation only, will be held on on the 14th-16th April 2011 at the St Antony's College Oxford.

There will also be a public day of lectures by invited Palaeolithic specialists. This will be held on Saturday April 16 at the Martin Wood Lecture Theatre, in the Physics Department of the University of Oxford.

A link here will soon contain more details of the meeting. In addition to the main conference sessions there is also a public open day on the 16th of April, with a tour of the Oxford laboratories later in the day.

Registration and Accommodation

Registration is now open at the Oxford University Online Store and will cost £60. The registration fee includes lunches, teas and coffees. It also covers a meeting 3 course dinner.

ACCOMMODATION:

We have pre-booked a small number of College rooms for attendees (20). This includes rooms at St Edmund Hall (£27 per night with breakfast £7:50 extra) and Keble College (Standard room £40 per night, single ensuite £60, Twin room £88).

All breakfast is included at Keble.

St Edmund Hall accommodation can be booked on the Oxford University Online Store.

Keble college accommodation can be booked on the Keble accommodation page. Include the word PALAEO to obtain the cheaper group booking cost.

Please note that spaces are limited but alternative accommodation can be arranged from a number of places:

Oxford hotel booking

Bed and Breakfast accommodation

Backpackers:

Oxford backpackers and Central backpackers

Publication

An edited volume of the proceedings of the meeting will be produced in association with Equinox Books, London.

Any enquiries can be sent to:

thomas.higham@rlaha.ox.ac.uk

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) for funding this research.