The paper starts with a discussion of different models addressing the spread of anatomically modern humans in Europe and the origins of the Aurignacian. The author's views are based on his technological analyses of early Upper Paleolithic lithic assemblages from four important European sites: Bacho Kiro in Bulgaria, Willendorf II and Krems-Hundssteig in Austria, and Geißenklösterle in Germany. The author argues against regarding the Aurignacian as a uniform, pan-European monolithic block. According to him, the Bachokirian from Bacho Kiro, often associated with a very early Aurignacian, does not belong to the Aurignacian lineage; it is rather to be seen as a transitional industry with roots in the Middle Paleolithic. The assemblages from Archaeological Horizons III and II of Geißenklösterle both represent a typical early Aurignacian which, in the author's view, has good parallels in the French Aurignacien ancien. The Aurignacien ancien complex is contrasted with the Proto-Aurignacian complex which is distributed especially in Mediterranean France but can also be found in Krems-Hundssteig. Though in some French sites the Proto-Aurignacian was found stratigraphically below the Aurignacien ancien, the chronological and phylogenetical relationships between the two complexes are not yet clear. In any case, the question of the origins of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe is much more complex than previously thought. Keywords: Aurignacian, Proto-Aurignacian, Europe, Chronostratigraphy, Lithic technology, Anatomically modern humans
