The French archaeologist Ludovic Slimak has spent the past 30 years rummaging fields and caves from the Horn of Africa to the Artic Circle, and, of course, his beloved Rhône Valley in France. For the past year and a half, his team of 45 researchers have been on a roll, publishing paper after paper on early humanity’s history between 54,000 and 42,000 years ago. All in the scientific community recognises his work’s ambition, but some also regard it as controversial. The Conversation caught up with him by phone to his home in the Pyrenees mountains. He talked Homo sapiens, flints and responded to his critics.
Natalie Sauer: In early May, you published a potentially groundbreaking paper claiming that Homo sapiens had not colonised Europe in one, but three distinct waves between 54,000 and 42,000 years ago. According to this viewpoint, each migratory wave yielded its own archeological culture: the Neronian (54,000 years ago), the Châtelperronian (between 45 and 46,000 years ago) and the Proto-Aurignacian (42,000 years ago). Could you start off by unpacking the study’s findings, and then situate it within the context of your research in recent years?
Ludovic Slimak: The paper of 3 May explains that what we thought to be the first wave of colonisation of Sapiens from the Neart East to Europe was in fact the last of three waves. In the process, Homo sapiens interacted intermittently with the Neanderthals over thousands of years. It’s a large view of continental Europe till the Eastern Mediterranean coast, which claims that we have missed something huge and what we saw in the Rhône Valley is only the visible tip of misunderstandings on the early Sapiens’ presence in the continent.
