Des crosses transformées en haches dans l’art néolithique armoricain : l’exemple du signe D de Dissignac (Saint-Nazaire, Loire-Atlantique, France)

A large number of Armorican engravings (Brittany, France) have been made by “pecking”. Each hammerstone impact caused the removal of a few square millimetres of rock, leaving distinctive groove called “flake negative”. The flake negatives are an authentic “signature of percussion” which informs us about the gestures employed by the engraver. The study of the signatures of percussion makes it possible for us to identify cases of superposition or to show as yet unperceived modifications of the engraved signs or transformations that have been carried out. For example, the technological study of Dissignac (Saint-Nazaire, Loire-Atlantique) showed the case of a crook transformed into a hafted axe. This method thus represents a new way in the development of the relative chronology of neolithic engravings in Armorica.     

Relecture d’un modèle architectural du III millénaire provençal : l’Habitation n 1 du Collet-Redon à La Couronne (Martigues, Bouches-du-Rhône)

The open-air site of Collet-Redon (Martigues, Bouches-du-Rhône) was discovered in the 1940s, and excavated by M. Escalon de Fonton until the beginning of 1980s. Those pioneering works gave up important series of artefacts and domestic structures of Late Neolithic and Bronze Age that permit to define a new Neolithic culture: the Couronnien group. The importance of this establishment, as a reference in research on Late Neolithic period in South of France, is particularly based on built remains revealed in a sector called “Habitation no. 1”. Quantity and quality of architectural structures allowed M. Escalon de Fonton to describe a Neolithic domestic unit, which became a model for interpreting other regional sites. Since 1999, various studies of artefacts and structures, coupled with an excavation, have been engaged in order to discuss first interpretations. The purpose of this article is to present our results concerning architectural remains of “Habitation no. 1” sector. Study of ancient publications and new observations on structures permit us to suggest a revision of the plan proposed for this third millenary construction.     

Sols et structures d’habitat du Paléolithique supérieur, nouvelles données depuis les Cantabres : la Galerie Inférieure de La Garma (Cantabrie, Espagne)

A brief review is done of the history of the research on Upper Paleolithic floors and structures, with a general outline of the main substantive and theoretical-methodological aspects. On the resulting “state of the art” we present the preliminary results of the study of the occupation evidences from the Lower Gallery of La Garma. In essence, it constitutes an astonishing ensemble of extensive Middle Magdalenian occupation floors, exceptionally rich and quite well preserved, including several structures and associated with rock art paintings and carvings of that period. The potential of the site is superlative, and the research’s project already begins to offer some interesting results of which this article is a fairly small advance.     

Nouvelle approche de l’art rupestre de l’Atlas saharien : les figurations de la période tardive

Figurations in Atlas have been studied numerous times, namely by Flamand and Frobenius between 1891 and 1914, by Vaufrey in 1939 and by Lhote between 1955 and 1970. And finally there were Iliou’s¹ and Hachid’s theses in the 1980s and Amara’s thesis in 2001. The study of the Atlas figurations discovered since 1847 brought new data on the engravings from the recent period. The originality of the engravings lies in the appearance of new themes, which had been unknown until yet. The presence of metal weapons figures enriches the records of the Atlas rock Art. The alphabetical signs, another new theme, give an identity to this Art. The work undertaken in this vast region raises the problem of the persistency of the Neolithic culture. All the figurations show some aspects of the evolution, which become permanent, mostly at the end of the recent period.     

L’art bourgeois de la fin du XIX siècle face à l’art mobilier Paléolithique

On the occasion of the centenary of the Emile Cartailhac’s « Mea culpa d’un sceptique”, we want to reflect on one of the main questions of our discipline: Why has so-called « cave art” only been accepted as Paleolithic art in 1902, whereas the so-called « mobiliary art” had been accepted as Paleolithic art at the beginning of 1860s? In this paper, we want to suggest a definition of the conception of primitive art during the last third of the 19th century in order to understand: (A) Why Paleolithic paintings in the walls of some caves (Niaux, Chabot, Altamira) were not accepted as Paleolithic art between 1860 and 1902. (B) Given that what we now call mobiliary art is the same artistic phenomenon that prehistorians of the late 19th century thought of as primitive art, this article allows us to suggest a genealogy of mobiliary art. This genealogy will enable us to show that this concept not only defines a wide variety of forms, from engraving stones to carving in antler or ivory, but hides a multiplicity of meanings and connotations which originated in the period between 1860 and 1900.     

Roc-La-Tour I, le site des Esprits : L’art du Magdalénien VI à Monthermé (Ardennes)

For 100 or 200 years during the late Bölling this site in the Ardenne, with its fine outlook, was the summer camp for a small group (10-15 persons) from the Paris Basin. No bone has been preserved (acid soil). Each of the four levels corresponds to at least five to 10 visits. The visitors were attracted to the site by the viewpoint, the dry ground and the presence of ochre and schist. Thousands of plaques and plaquettes were used and broken up before and after engraving. There are more engraved pieces than burins and borers: the visitors must have engraved every day. The engravings include five palimpsests, 32 tangled groups of incisions (« tangles ») and 75 fragmentary images of animals and human beings, with the same menagerie as in the South-West of France; a large majority of the figurative subjects are shown only partially, or merely roughly sketched; there are several human beings and one vulva. The 410 abstract signs can be classified into 14 categories, mostly different from those found in the South-West, and there are 215 groups of parallel lines. These engraved, smoothed or shaped plaquettes, together with 123 deposits of ochre, all contrast with the lack of similar finds on sites in the Paris Basin which are, however, 10 times richer as far as tools are concerned. There was an evolutionary course in the engravings (figures and signs): inception, development, acme and the start of a decline. This site complements those in the Paris Basin and the Ardenne left by the same persons; it is an integral, inseparable part of the remains of the same group of human beings.     

Le Magdalénien de la grotte « Grappin » à Arlay (Jura, France) : nouveaux regards

The “Grappin” or “Saint-Vincent's” cave, on the western slope of Jura, East of France, has been explored since 1889. From then to 1960, it has yielded substantial material dated to middle “à navettes” Magdalenian developing during the late Pleniglacial. The study of this settlement, although often mentioned, was never dealt with comprehensively until now. Due to its scientific importance for the middle Magdalenian of western Europe, the site is to be reinvestigated through a global interdisciplinary project entitled “The Tardiglacial and the start of Holocene in the Jura and its margins”. This paper will review our present knowledge of the site, radiocarbon dates and archaeological data. It also focuses on ornaments and engraved mobile art.     

L'analogie et la représentation de l'art primitif à la fin du XIX siècle

In this paper, we will examine the foundations of Western representation of Paleolithic art at the end of the nineteenth century. Taking the period of 1864-1902 into account, we will prove the leading role of analogy between “modern primitive societies” and “prehistoric societies” in the very definition of “primitive art”. According to us, the representation of the “primitive artist” at that time was largely based in comparison between art which came from modern primitive societies living in Africa, Australia or America, and prehistoric art which was authenticated at about 1865. Through this examination, we will show the way in which analogy functions as a main category in the construction of scientific knowledge.     

L’Homme fossile d’Asselar (actuel Mali). Étude critique,mise en perspective historique et nouvelles interprétations

During the well known Augiéras-Draper mission which took place in 1927 and 1928 between Dakar and Alger through the Sahara desert, T. Monod and V. Besnard discovered a human skeleton near the military post of Asselar in French Sudan (current Mali). Back in France, the fossil was given to the Institut de Paléontologie Humaine where M. Boule and H. Vallois were in charge of its study. This work was then published in 1932. After this first exhaustive study, Asselar man was barely used in anthropological studies, with the exception of O. Dutour's works in the 90's. The goal of this study is to understand why, despite some prestige, this fossil didn’t have the importance he was fated with its geographical and chronological position. Publications of the first third of the twentieth century, archives about this discovery and the skeleton it-self are in the center of this new analysis. Results show that because of the lack of specification about its unearthing and its dating, Asselar fossil is hardly usable in an anthropological perspective. It although shows that Boule et Vallois limited the study of this fossil to a discussion about the Grimaldi “race”, designation not use anymore. This race was created in 1906 by R. Verneau and the discussion of the relation between Asselar man and Grimaldi race was a virulent debate at this time. Finally, the study of Asselar skeleton with archeo-anthropological principles gave the opportunity to demonstrate, for the first time, a sepulchral context. This rehabilitation of Asselar fossil gives new perspectives which would be investigate with new approaches in dating, genetics, 3D imaging… and will fully contribute to discussions about North Africa peopling.     

La variabilité graphique du Molí del Salt (Vimbodí, Catalogne, Espagne) et l'art mobilier de la fin du Paléolithique supérieur à l'est de la Péninsule Ibérique

The Upper Paleolithic of Catalonia has been so far characterized by a very weak presence of artistic representations. This scarcity was especially surprising if we take into account the huge number of discoveries from other zones of the Iberian Peninsula (Valencia, the Cantabrian region). In this paper we present four objects of portable art found at the Molí del Salt site (Vimbodí, Conca de Barberà, Tarragona). Below a mesolithic layer, dated to 8 ka BP, there is an Upper Magdalenian sequence with several dates between 10.8 and 12.5 ka BP. These magdalenian levels have yielded four plaques of schist with engravings, including several animal figurines and one human representations. Once the objects are described, we will place them in the context of the portable art from the Late Upper Paleolithic of Mediterranean Spain. From these data, the chronocultural successions based on the Upper Magdalenian-Microlaminar Epipaleolithic distinction will be discussed.     

Le « nucléus Donggutuo » et sa signification dans l’industrie du paléolithique inférieur de Donggutuo, bassin de Nihewan, Chine du Nord

As one of the most important Lower Pleistocene sites of the Nihewan basin in North China, Donggutuo (DGT) site is well known for its fine retouched small tools and characters of flake industry. However, new excavations still reveal some new discoveries and educe some new issues to us. For example, the “DGT core” introduced in this article is a new discovered typotechnology and indicates new economic strategy of the local people, which was never known before in this area at the time of 1.1 Ma B.P. The paper provides general background and statistic analysis of DGT industry including special method applied to the “DGT core” and discusses possible influence of environmental change for the emerging of the “DGT core”. The “DGT core” shows a germinated microlithic tradition and reflects a cultural diversity of early humans in the Lower Paleolithic in North China.     

Figurations de l’amas stellaire des Pléiades sur deux roches gravées de la région du Mont Bego Z IX. GII. R 4 et Z IX. GIII. R 6

Two engraved rocks are situated 140 m from each other at an altitude of about 2250 m. One of them is called “female dancer”, and the other, “the Pleiads”, and both show a group of seven small pitted areas, of which one is smaller than the others and ‘ identified as the “Pleiads stellar cluster”, often depicted or mentioned during Antiquity and also throughout various historical periods.On each of these rocks, a large halberd, whose handle is oriented east-west, was traced along a natural fissure in the rock and engraved in the center of the composition. The “Pleiads stellar cluster” is represented on each of the two rocks beside the halberd : although situated to the west above the halberd blade on the “female dancer” rock, it is placed to the south and to the left of the halberd handle on “the Pleiads” rock. This difference may mark two distinct calendar data.The position of the different figures in the compositions illustrated on these two rocks, in particular inversions in the representation of some of them may indicate two distinct periods of the agricultural yearly cycle: on the rock called “female dancer”, the “heliacal raise” at summer's end, marking the beginning of the harvest and, on the rock called “the Pleiads”, the “heliacal setting”, just before winter, after the end of the harvest, when the rains soaks the ground and it is time to plow.     

Les faunes d’ammonites du Pliensbachien inférieur des séries dauphinoises de la Durance (Jurassique inférieur, Barrage de Serre-Ponçon, Hautes-Alpes, France)

The Liassic ammonite faunas and especially those of the Early Pliensbachian are of major importance for the understanding of the stratigraphic framework of the “Dauphiné” zone of the southern subalpine ranges (“dôme de Remollon”). Until now, only listed by the authors, these faunas are, for the first time, described and illustrated in the present paper. With about twenty species, these faunas cover the whole of the Early Pliensbachian. There are poorly diversified and of clearly Euroboreal affinities. Nearly all of the species are abundant and common in most of the NW European fossiliferous localities. Despite of a paleogeographical location fairly close to the Alpine zones (Southern Alps and Austroalpine units) with rather diversified faunas of mainly Mediterranean affinities, none Mediterranean taxa are present in the studied area. Unfortunately, the current stratigraphic and paleogeographic knowledge do not allow to ascertain if this reflects a separation due to paleoenvironmental or true paleogeographic barriers. In this latter case, the general geologic implications would be remarkable.     

Proposition méthodologique pour une étude des esthétiques du Mésolithique : une analyse sociologique-anthropologique de la fin du Tardiglaciaire et durant le Postglaciaire en Europe occidentale

Do the decorated productions cover esthetics, i.e. the whole of the symbolic systems of a culture of hunters-gatherers? How to leave this glance with the aesthetic requirements that we other Westerners, pose on all things… and to exceed the debate of the artistic expressions thought from the aesthetic point of view, like “works of art” objects and “stylistics” objects? It is out of question “to make a fetish” of the productions decorated “works of art” while placing them at the starting point with our reflexion, (Studying them from a functional, technological, typological, art for art, meaningful point of view…) but to associate another of dimensions of the aesthetic experiment, i.e., the context of the decorated productions.     

Une lame de faucille sous la stèle gravée Chalcolithique dite du « Chef de tribu », Vallée des Merveilles, région du Mont Bego, Tende, Alpes-Maritimes

The carved stele known as the “head of the tribe”, attributed to the Chalcolithic, erected at an altitude of 2290 m in the chaos of blocks in the Merveilles torrent in the Mont Bego region at Tende, was removed from its original standing place. Earth extracted from under the stele and sieved yielded a sickle blade in very fine and homogeneous Bedoulian pale biege translucid flint, pressure flaked on a heated core. The blade bears a light polish caused by cereal harvesting. This sickle blade is similar to those widely used in the southern Chassey culture (4300 to 3000 years before our era) but also sometimes in the Campaniform culture, during the ancient and middle Bronze age, like in Murée cave, in the Verdon gorges. The location of the sickle blade at the foot of the carved stele, known as the “head of the tribe”, is not just coincidental. It is highly probable that the blade was intentionally placed beside this rock. It is seemingly during a ritual ceremony that this sickle blade, probably still inserted in a wooden handle, was intentionally placed, in a propitious gesture or as an offering, beside the stele known as the “head of the tribe”.     

Paléolithique supérieur et Mésolithique en Méditerranée : cadre culturel

The origin of the Upper Palaeolithic around the Mediterranean was the result of the local evolution, particularly in the Near East and in the Lower Nile basin, and of the migration from this zone to South-Eastern and Central Europe. The Initial Upper Palaeolithic in the Near East belt was the effect of local evolution from the industries based on Levallois concept to the industries which developed leptolithic blade technologies. This evolution is well registered in multi-layer sites in the Syro-Palestinian belt (Emirian/Ahmarian), which was the starting point of the diffusion of these “transitional” industries in South-Eastern and Central Europe. This diffusion could be identified with the migration of first anatomically Modern Humans. The Early Upper Palaeolithic in Europe — dated to the second half of the Interpleniglacial — was, at least partially, based on these “transitional” industries and manifested by the appearance of the Aurignacian, contrasted with local cultures such as the Uluzzian in Mediterranean Europe. During whole the Interpleniglacial Europe was separated from Northern Africa dominated by local evolution of Middle Palaeolithic (Middle Stone Age) cultures (mostly expressed by the Aterian), and by specific “transitional” industries on the southern Mediterranean coast (Early Dabbian) and in the Lower Nile basin. The Last Glacial Maximum and the corresponding sea level recession opened new possibilities of contacts between the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula in both directions (Aterian-Solutrean and Gravettian-Early Iberomaurusian), which are still difficult to be proved before new chronostratigraphic correlations are made. At the same time we register links between south-eastern Europe and western Anatolia; the real border between Near Eastern and European Mediterranean cultural zones was marked, in the Late Glacial, by the Taurus chain. During the Late Glacial the cultural separation between Europe and Africa was particularly marked. Only in the Aegean basin the first sea navigation facilitated contacts which become widespread as late as in the Early Holocene with neolithization trough maritime contacts.     

L’ambre campanien du Mas d’Azil (Ariège,France) : gisement,micro-inclusions,taphonomie

The amber of Le Mas d’Azil (Ariège, France), fashioned by the Magdalenian people of Le Mas d’Azil cave, was collected in clay levels rich in Cupressinoxylon Göppert, of the Campanian Labarre Sandstone Formation, which is a large deltaic set, infilling the sub-Pyreneean trough. The amber pieces are small and resemble modern resin exudates on coniferous trunks. We describe following micro-inclusions. Actinomycetes: Cardonia stellata, nov. gen., nov. sp., located close to the surface of amber pieces, is abundant and displays chains of conidia and isolated aleuriospore. Nocardiopsis ? sp. D is rare. Actinomycete “de type Salignac” is abundant. Its filaments often display a tendril shape, which seems to prelude to a mycelium fragmentation. Other bacteria: Leptotrichites resinatus Schmidt ( Schmidt and Schäfer, 2005), poorly represented, is more variable than the already known material; cf. Sphaerotilus sp., very abundant, also displays differences with the Cenomanian “Sphaerotilus sp.”. Eukaryotes: one fungal filament, and a group of spores, pollens or cysts. Inorganic inclusions: gas bubbles, pseudo-protists of B and C? types, and tiny, transparent, cubic crystals. It seems that most of the quoted prokaryotes were resinicolous organisms, able to settle on the surface of the exudate, and grow in the resin, after inoculation either by a contact with the substrate, or by an anemophilic dispersion of spores. This “taphonomic way” seems here to be more general than trapping.     

La flore probable : un mode d’expression des gradients écologiques en France

The application of the criterion of fidelity of plants to plants over four millions botanical observations in France is considered to characterize the ecology of 215,000 phytosociological surveys. Among those discriminant plants, some are missing of the surveys, but they can have a certain probability of occurrence: these plants are called “probable plants” and they represent the “probable flora” of a territory. The study of their geographical distribution shows ecological gradients of flora across France in a better way than only considering the botanical observations. In fact, this method mitigates the discontinuities of taxa observations whose absence may be due to historical and/or anthropogenic factors.