La Quina

Middle and Upper Palaeolithic rock shelter complex in Charente, southwest France, and the name of a subdivision of the Charentian Mousterian tradition. The stone tool industry produced thick scrapers with a very curved cutting edge and stepped, splintered retouches. Another industry had many thin scrapers produced by Levallois technique. Human remains include 27 of Neanderthal type.

The rock shelter of La Quina in the Charente, southwest France, has revealed Mousterian and Upper Palaeolithic levels with radiocarbon dates. Human remains from the Mousterian include a female and a child skull regarded as of Neanderthal type. The site has given its name to a type of Mousterian and also a type of scalariform retouch found on scrapers.