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Upper Palaeolithic

Upper Palaeolithic – Time of anatomically modern humans (~45–12 Ka) featuring blade-based toolkits, cave art and personal ornaments.

Middle Palaeolithic

Middle Palaeolithic – Neanderthal-dominated period (~300–45 Ka) with prepared-core (Mousterian) industries.

Lower Palaeolithic

Lower Palaeolithic – Earliest stone-tool stage in Europe (>1 Ma to ~300 Ka) characterised by core-and-flake and hand-axe technologies.

Varve

Varve – Annual sediment layer (light summer + dark winter) in lake cores, providing year-by-year climatic records.

Strontium baseline

Strontium baseline – Geographic pattern of ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios in soils/waters used to trace human or animal provenance.

Solutrean

Solutrean – LGM techno-complex (c. 24–20 Ka) in SW Europe, featuring heat-treated laurel-leaf bifacial points.

Roche moutonnée

Roche moutonnée – Asymmetric bedrock knob polished up-ice and plucked down-ice, indicating glacier-flow direction.

Plaquette

Plaquette – Small engraved stone tablet of Upper Palaeolithic art, portable and often with animal or geometric motifs.

Periglacial

Periglacial – Cold-climate zone adjacent to glaciers where freeze–thaw and permafrost dominate landscape processes.

OSL

OSL (Optically Stimulated Luminescence) – Dating method measuring trapped electrons in quartz/feldspar to time last sunlight exposure.

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