REFLECTIONS ON THE ANALYSIS OF THE TRANSITION OF THE PALEOLITHIC ONE HALF TO THE SUPERIOR IN THE EUROPEAN WEST

Abstract

In the last decade, the analysis of the transition from Middle to Upper Palaeolithic has become indispensable in any debate or publication, mainly in what refers to the Iberian Peninsula, not only from an archaeological and cultural point of view, but also
from an anthropological point of view. Theories that inexorably related the Neanderthals with the Middle Palaeolithic and the first "anatomically modern" humans with the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic have been already forgotten, and from the
anthropological point of view it seeks to define, finely, the morphological differences benveen the Neanderthals and the first Horno sapiens. The discovery of new fossils, as well as the use of novel computer technologies andlor statistical techniques, have demonstrated how many of the morphological parameters, traditionally used to differentiate both populations, have been invalidated.