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Chapter 8: Conclusions

We have conducted four seasons of excavations at Pech IV. The process of putting together all the information that we have collected is now our major focus. We have been able to accomplish certain tasks, such as most of the detailed classification of the stone tool assemblages, during the course of these seasons, but much remains to be done in order for us to build as complete a picture as possible of the behavioral patterns of the Neandertal groups who lived at this cave site.

For the stone artifact assemblages, we will combine data about the these objects with information we collected when we studied the stone artifact assemblages recovered during the excavations of the 1950s and 1970s. We are especially interested in understanding how Neandertals used stone as a resource and tracking their movements over the landscape by examining the specific types of stone (raw materials) found at the site with the distance to known sources of these stone types. Equally important for us is to gain better insight into why the small stone tools of the Asinipodian were important to Neandertals, and perhaps what sorts of tasks they represent.

Our research is done in conjunction with a number of other specialists. Some of these scholars will be studying the large animal bones to give us a better idea about Neandertal subsistence and how it changes over time. Others will examine the small animals, such as different types of rodents, to help us better understand the local microenvironment of the cave and its immediate surroundings. We will obtain crucial information about the geological aspects of the formation of the cave at Pech IV from our project geologist. At the same time, we will continue to submit samples for dating, with the goal being to place the different layers of the site into an absolute chronological framework that gives us an idea of when these occupations date to in years before the present.

As all these different lines of evidence become available, we will be writing up the results of this excavation in a series of articles, as well as a book. Our ultimate goal will be to "tell the story of Pech IV" as accurately as possible and place the insights we gain into Neandertal behaviors into the broader context of their adaptations in southern France, as well as elsewhere in Europe. Please feel free to visit our additional website at http://www.oldstoneage.com which talks about each of our excavation seasons at Pech IV in detail including aspects such as daily life at an archaeological project, crew tasks, places to visit on crew days off, and movies of the daily excavations. This website also contains information about some of our other Paleolithic projects, both in France, as well as in Egypt.