Introduction

The Middle Palaeolithic in Western Europe is characterized by a mosaic of lithic industries, with sometimes different techno-economic characteristics. Since its identification by De Mortillet in 1872, the Mousterian itself appeared to be a complex group comprised of diverse industries. In 1948, following the works of Boulon (1907) and Peyrony (1930), Bordes unveiled a new method for studying lithic assemblages and proposed a classification of the industries according to qualitative criteria, ...