This venus is known as the Venus of Abri Pataud near Les Eyzies.
Photo:
(left) from:'Discovering Perigord Prehistory' by B & G Delluc, A Roussot & J Roussot-Larroque.
(centre and right) Photograph by Don Hitchcock 2008 of displays at the site. The photo at right is of a facsimile.
Profiles of the dig looking south (left diagram, cliff to the left of the diagram) and north (right diagram, cliff to the right of the diagram) at the respective remaining walls of the dig.
The following text is from:'Discovering Perigord Prehistory' by B & G Delluc, A Roussot & J Roussot-Larroque.
Abri Pataud consists of an immense balcony of a hundred metres length where Cro-Magnon man lived, hunted and gathered. They were seminomads.
It was excavated between 1953 and 1964. 14 archaeological layers with altogether forty successive camps of hunters of reindeer, who settled on 20 000 year old sites under the cliffs of Les Eyzies were discovered. The site and museum is in the village of Les Eyzies.
A small block bearing the engraved silhouette (58 mm high) of a woman with atypical proportions was found. According to H. Movius, it came from level 3 (Perigordian VQ - a period which, approximately 21 000 years ago, corresponded to the coldest period of the Würm glaciation). The occupants built a veritable house between the cliff and the blocks of fallen rack. Or at least, this is the interpretation from the numerous artefacts left behind on their living floors which included hearths, the remains of prey, flint tools, objects of adornment, numerous art objects, and even debris from the painted decoration of the rock-shelter (Musee de l'Homme; copy at the Musée de Abri Pataud).
My thanks to Sharon Rogers/walkhound who alerted me to the existence of this excellent book.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Abri Pataud excavation site
Map of the Abri Pataud position, in the middle of Les Eyzies.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at the Abri Pataud Museum.
The site has been well signed, with enough information that visitors can get some idea of the change in occupation and the changing climates.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Throughout all the occupation of the Abri Pataud, the biological environment of the Perigord was an open forest where mixed pines, birches, oaks and some other trees such as elms, maples, limes, ashes, alders, beeches, fir trees, walnut trees, hazel trees, and willows also grew.
Abri in English means shelter, or rock shelter, and Pataud refers to a previous owner of the site.
At the time of occupation, the area had large areas of grassland, and was populated by animals from the far north such as reindeer, musk ox, arctic fox; by animals from the steppes of Central Asia such as saiga antelope and the whistling hare; and by animals from the mountains such as ibex and chamois.
All these mammals mixed with bison, horses and, less frequently, with aurochs, deer, mammoths, and the woolly rhinoceros. Among the carnivores, there are the brown bear, and the cave hyena. Reindeer constituted their principal game. They also practised fishing and gathering. The animals, in addition to their meat, provided them with the raw materials of their craft industry: skin, tendons, furs for clothing; wood and bone for clothes, tools and weapons.
Text: translated and adapted from http://www.ac-bordeaux.fr/Pedagogie/SVT/pataud97.htm (this site has since disappeared)
(Left) diagram of Level 3, about 24 000 BP, showing the position of the venus of Abri Pataud, engraved stones, fireplaces, bones of animals, and painted surfaces.
(Right) Diagram of Level 7, about 30 000 BP, showing the position of fireplaces and of fallen limestone blocks.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: A display at the excavation site.
(Left) Abri Pataud Profile
The excavation site is beneath an abri of limestone, at the site of a former barn. The shelter was formed by the action of water infiltrating porous limestone, and undergoing successive actions of freeze and thaw, with the dust and rocks falling from the overhang onto the surface below over a period of tens of thousands of years.
The archaeological remains are thus sealed by fine or coarse material which has fallen from the roof of the shelter.
The average rate of deposition was 55 cm per 1000 years, or an average of half a millimetre per year.
Photo: Farrand (1975)
Text: translated and adapted from http://www.ac-bordeaux.fr/Pedagogie/SVT/pataud97.htm (this site has since disappeared)
Complete cross section of the deposits at l'abri Pataud, from the excavations by Movius.
Depths of the beds are in metres. Commas are used in the European convention where English speakers use decimal points. Thus 0,50 means 0.50 metres, or 50 centimetres, and 3,30 means 3.30 metres, or 330 centimetres.
Photo: Cheynier (1960)
(left) The Abri Pataud Museum
The limestone is a marl (limestone and clay mixed) at the base, but there is a harder limestone bioclastic which overhangs the shelter.
The Abri Pataud rock shelter was occupied by the Cro Magnon man (Homo sapiens sapiens) for a period of 15 000 years, from 35 000 BP to 20 000 BP, which corresponds to the recent Wurm period, and the cultures of the Aurignacian, Gravettian and Solutrian. The average temperature was at that time approximately 5°C cooler than the current average temperature.
Over the nine metres depth of the dig, 14 archaeological levels may be observed, corresponding to 40 successive occupations. The old grounds are well marked by grey layers containing the ashes from the hearths. Some are easily definable.
The archaeological layers contain many vestiges of occupation, including the hearths, flint tools, and bones broken to extract the marrow.
Towards the top of the excavation, in layer two, where the shelter had been reduced to only one metre in height and two metres depth, were found the remains of three burials, of three adults and a baby.
Occupation of the shelter ceased in the Magdalanian period.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Text: translated and adapted from http://www.ac-bordeaux.fr/Pedagogie/SVT/pataud97.htm (this site has since disappeared)
The cliff of Abri Pataud, looking downhill away from the Museum.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Au fond de l'abri, dans une espace bas de plafond, avait été deposé le corps d'une jeune femme d'environ 16 ans, accompagnée d'un enfant nouveau-né. Le crâne de la jeune femme avait été récupéré par la suite et déposé à 4 mètres de distance, protégé entre des pierres.
At the back of the shelter in a space with a low ceiling had been deposited the body of a young woman about 16 years old, with a newborn child. The skull of the young woman was recovered later four metres away, lying protected between stones. It has been placed on top of the mandible, which is still in situ, for the photo.
Text: Translated and adapted from a display at the excavation site.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: A display at the excavation site.
This skeleton of one of the finds at the site may be a facsimile.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: A display at the excavation site.
The famous statue of the woman found at Abri Pataud, holding a bone needle which is one of the artefacts found at the site.
As can be seen, the girl has been depicted with fairly heavy eyebrow ridges. At the time the statue was conceived, it was thought that the skeleton had Neanderthal aspects, but this is not now seen to be the case.
The roof of the Abri can be clearly seen forming the ceiling of the Museum.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: A display at the excavation site.
Gravettien Final (Périgordien VII) - 22 000 ans
Image vulvaire gravée sur un bloc éboulé de la voûte de l'abri. au voisinage du squelette de la jeune femme déposée avec le bébé nouveau-né.
Gravettien Final (Périgordien VII) - 22 000 BP
A depiction of a vulva engraved on a block fallen from the roof of the abri, near the skeleton of the young woman buried with a newborn baby.
Text: Translated and adapted from a display at the excavation site.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: A display at the excavation site.
Gravettien récent (Périgordien VI) - 24 000 ans
Tracé énigmatique en forme de serpentin et ovale allongé centré sur une ligne de cupules, gravés sur un des blocs éboulés formant le mur extérieur de l'habitation de la couche 3.
Gravettien recent (Périgordien VI) - 24 000 BP
Enigmatic serpentine-shaped and elongated oval engraving centred on a line of cupules, engraved on loose blocks forming the outer wall of the dwelling of layer 3.
Text: Translated and adapted from a display at the excavation site.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: A display at the excavation site.
Large engraved rock (as in the colour photo above) with "serpentine" decoration.
Rock X-8 (cf section Fig 14, and top plan, fig. 12) which constituted the western limit of Level 3 in Trench V, exhibited a very interesting and enigmatic "serpentine" engraving on the eastern, or inner, surface that had been completely buried by the Lens 2 deposit. A photograph of this rock in situ is reproduced in plate 33. (as shown) Near the uppermost limits of the serpentine pattern, a cigar shaped depression with four dots running down the centre of its flat base may be discerned.
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
Ovales gravés. Couche 3. Périgordien VI.
Engraved ovals in Layer 3, Périgordien VI.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at the Abri Pataud Museum. This appeared to be an original.
The Abri Pataud Museum is situated in the only section of the Abri Pataud shelter which did not collapse. On the ceiling, which is in its natural state as a rock face, there is the bas-relief of an ibex, estimated to have been carved about 19 000 years ago. The features are only just discernible in flat lighting, but come into sharp relief when the light is allowed to come in from a sharp angle.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: The roof of the Abri Pataud Museum. The carving is in an awkward place for easy viewing, but the designers of the museum have organised the display really well, arranging a mirror and lighting so that the ibex can be easily seen.
The same images of the ibex, flipped so that the image displays what the ibex looks like in real "life", not reflected in a mirror.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: The roof of the Abri Pataud Museum.
(right) Enigmatic "art object" (cat. no. 1964), a natural waterworn pebble vaguely modified in the form of an animal.
(left) It was found in Lens 1 of Level 2 in Trench VII, Square F. View looking northeast showing the object in situ.
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
Art object, level 3 (1150)
1. Dolomitic limestone fragment with engravings of three bison heads - obverse (top) surface.
2. reverse (bottom) surface.
3. obverse surface showing relief and sections through the piece.
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
Art object, Level 3, Cat. No. 3224, engraved limestone pebble compressor or flaking tool.
1. obverse (top) surface of object.
2. reverse (bottom) surface of object.
A variety of interpretations (as shown on the photo) can be made of the lines engraved on this stone.
It should be noted that there were a number of slabs with painted or engraved surfaces, and in the majority of cases the slabs were found lying with the treated surface downward, close by the rear wall, amongst an almost continuous layer of slabs which had spalled off the rear wall. Thus many of the decorated slabs had originally been a part of the rear wall of the abri.
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
There were many animal bones found in the Abri. Shown here are bones from bear, wolf, hyena and fox.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at the Abri Pataud Museum.
Broyeur à ocre rouge
Grindstone for red ochre.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at the Abri Pataud Museum.
Hearth
(left) At the base of Level 5 (Périgordian IV) in Trench II, Square B, in the front of the site, this group of river stones was found in Lens W. Normally features of this type are associated with hearths.
(right) Surface of the hearth complex (Hearths W, X, and Y) found in Level 7: Lower (Intermediate Aurignacian-b). The two smallest, Hearths X and Y, were truncated when the large basin for Hearth W was prepared. An ash sample from Hearth W gave a C-14 date of ca 30 850 BC.
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
The mousterian has not been discovered at Abri Pataud, but it has been found at L'Abri Vignaud, which is simply the continuation of the Abri Pataud towards the south, in layer 14 there.
The lithic industry at L'Abri Vignaud consisted of racloirs (scrapers), denticulés (Denticulate -
A flake or blade that has two or more concave removals) and éclats à encoches (notched flakes).
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum. These appeared to be originals.
Un outil caractéristique du Moustérien - le racloir transversal. C'est un éclat souvent épais, dont le bord transversal porte une retouche continue formant un tranchant perpendiculaire à la direction du débitage de l'éclat.
A characteristic Mousterian tool - the transverse scraper. It is an oftentimes thick flake, of which the edge is perpendicular to the direction of cutting, or in this case scraping.
(the drawing is of the particular tool shown above - Don)
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum.
This is an excellent drawing of a mammoth showing both the skeleton and the original physical outline of the animal, scientific name Elephas Primigenius, as well as a section of the tusk found at Abri Pataud and noting where it came from on the original animal, in red on the drawing.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum.
Display to illustrate that a flint core or nucleus can be made to give both lames (blades, flakes that are twice or more as long as they are wide) and éclats (flakes).
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum.
Les niveaux les plus profonds de l'Abri Pataud appartiennent à l'Aurignacien ancien caractérisé par l'abondance des grattoirs sur lames à bords retouchés et des lames à retouches latérales. Les types de grattoirs particuliers à l'Aurignacien comme les grattoirs carénés et les grattoirs à museau sont également présents. La couche 11a livré quelques fragments de pointes en os à base fendue considérées comme caractéristiques de l'Aurignacien 1.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum. These appeared to be originals.
Un outil caractéristique de l'Aurignacien ancien - le grattoir sur lame aurignacienne. C'est un grattoir aménagé sur une grande lame dont les bords, portant de larges retouches écailleuses, présentent souvent une silhouette concave dessinant une encoche ou un étranglement lorsqu'elles apparaissent sur les deux bords.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum. These appeared to be originals.
The deepest levels of the Abri Pataud Aurignacian belong to the early Aurignacian, characterised by an abundance of scrapers on blades, retouched on the blade ends and on the sides. The particular scrapers of the Aurignacian such as carinate (keeled, ridged) and nosed scrapers are also present. Layer 11a delivered a few fragments of bone points with split bases, regarded as characteristic of the Aurignacian 1.
A characteristic tool of the early Aurignacian - a scraper on an Aurignacian blade. It is a scraper formed on a large blade with the edges having deeply concave retouches, often giving in silhouette a waisted appearance when they appear on both sides, as here.
(the drawing is of the tool shown - Don)
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum.
This is an illustration, for reference and explanation, from another site of a particularly good Grattoir à museau, or muzzle shaped scraper.
Photo: http://che70.blog4ever.com/blog/lesphotos-13327-8270.html
This is an illustration, for reference and explanation, from Wikipedia, of a Lamelle Dufour, a characteristic bladelet (i.e. a small blade, in this case less than four centimetres long) of the Aurignacian.
Photo: Wikipedia
Dufour bladelets, (Lamelles Dufour) from Abri Pataud Level 8: Intermediate Aurignacian-a.
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
Les couches 6, 7, and 8 ont livré un outillage bien caractéristique de l'Aurignacien avec des grattoirs carénés et à museau, des burins busqués, des lamelles Dufour, des pièces esquillées et des sagaies en os de forme losangique.
Chacune de ces couches présente des particularités: la couche 8 comprend une forte proportion de grattoirs carénés et à museau (26%). La couche 7 comprend beaucoup de burins busqués (14%) et des sagaies en os de forme losangique; ces deux couches sont attribuées à l'Aurignacien moyen. La couche 6 est pauvre en grattoirs aurignaciens et en burins busqués; sa position stratigraphique pourrait permettre de l'attribuer à un Aurignacien évolué. Les couches 9 et 10, pauvres, se rapportent à l'Aurignacien moyen.
Un outil caractéristique de l'Aurignacien moyen - le burin busqué. C'est un outil robuste dont le biseau est formé par la rencontre d'un enlèvement lamellaire assez large et de plusieurs enlèvements contigus parfois incurvés et arrêtés par une encoche.
Layers 6, 7, and 8 contained typical tools of the Aurignacian with keeled (i.e. carinate, or ridged) scrapers as well as beaked burins, Dufour bladelets, pièces esquillées (splintered pieces, probably the remains of cores, sometimes called bipolar cores), and bone spears in an elongated diamond shape.
Each layer has some special features: layer 8 includes a high proportion of ridged scrapers and muzzle shaped scrapers (26%). Layer 7 includes many beaked chisels (14%) and bone spears in an elongated diamond shape. These two layers are attributed to the middle Aurignacian . Layer 6 is low in Aurignacian scrapers and beaked chisels; the stratigraphic position could allow us to assign an Aurignacian period (Aurignacien évolué) to these layers. Layers 9 and 10, which are poor in artefacts, may be assigned to the middle Aurignacian .
A characteristic Middle Aurignacian tool - the beaked chisel or burin.
It is a solid, heavily constructed tool whose bevel is formed by a large reduction of diameter from a large base to a relatively small point.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum. These appeared to be originals.
Burin busqué - the Beaked Burin
Figure 6 - Burin busqué, n°1 : Abri 2, couche 2, et burin busqué à tendance Vachons, n°2 : Abri 1, couche 2 (dessins D. Pesesse).
Figure 6 - Burin busqué, n°1 : shelter 2, layer 2 and burin busqué near of the Vachon’s type, n°2 : shelter 1, layer 2 (drawings D. Pesesse).
Photo and text: http://paleo.revues.org/index184.html
Burin busqué - the Beaked Burin
Three or more fairly regular spalls, often removed from a Spall Removal Surface (SRS) of dihedral type, approximate a semicircle. An edge of this shape is sometimes described as the "gouge" or "busqué" type.
(This is an excellent diagram of what I think of as a "classic" beaked burin, as described by Burkitt (1925) above. Note the front vertical spall, and the notch taken out of the rear of the burin to make sharpening easier, so that a spall comes off easily when retouching. - Don)
Photo and text: Movius et al (1968)
Dans la couche 5 de l'Abri Pataud, la plus riche en matériel archéologique, les outils à retouche abrupte sont les plus nombreux (35%) tandis que les grattoirs et les burins ont une importance à peu près égale. Ce niveau est attribué au Périgordien IV défini dans le site de la Gravette en Dordogne. Il se caractérise par des pointes de la Gravette et des microgravettes.
Un outil caractéristique du Périgordien IV - La pointe de la Gravette.
L'extrémité pointue de cet objet élancé est formée par la rencontre d'un bord tranchant et d'un bord aménagé en dos rectiligne par des retouches abruptes régulières. Ces pointes étaient sans doute fixées à l'extrémité d'armes de jet.
In layer 5 of the Shelter Pataud, the richest in archaeological material at Abri Pataud, abruptly retouched tools are most numerous (35%) while scrapers and chisels are of roughly equal importance in numbers. This level is attributed to the Périgordien IV with the type site the La Gravette site of the Dordogne, dating from between 28 000 and 22 000 BP. It succeeded the Aurignacian.
It is characterized by Gravettian points and microgravettes.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum. These appeared to be originals.
A characteristic tool of the Perigordian IV - the Gravettian point. The pointed tip of this slender object is formed by the meeting of two edges with steep retouches on the back edge. It is a small pointed blade with a blunt but straight back. These points were probably set at the end of spears.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum.
C'est dans la couche 4, attribuée au Périgordien V, parfois appelé Noaillien, que les burins sont les plus nombreux (60%). Un tiers de ces burins environ sont des burins de Noailles et ils sont accompagnés de burins sur troncature à biseau très étroit appelés aussi burins-pointes. L'industrie osseuse est caracterisée par la présence de pointes de sagaies à extremité striée appelées sagaies d'Isturitz. Ces pointes de sagaies, nombreuses à l'Abri Pataud et à Isturitz, sont rares dans les autres sites du Périgordien V.
Un outil caractéristique du Périgordien V - Le burin de Noailles. C'est un très petit burin portant un ou plusieurs biseaux multiples formés par la rencontre d'une retouche (troncature) avec des enlèvements lamellaires très étroits. Il doit son nom à la grotte de Noailles en Corrèze.
It is in layer 4, attributed to the Périgordien V, sometimes called Noaillien, that chisels are the most numerous (60%). About one third of these chisels are chisels of the Noailles type and include chisels truncated on a very narrow bevel, also called spikes. The bone industry is characterised by the presence of spear points with grooved ends called Isturitz spears. These spear points, although numerous at l'Abri Pataud and at Isturitz are rare in other Périgordien V sites.
A characteristic and distinguishing tool of the Périgordien V - The chisel of Noailles. It is a very small chisel with one or more multiple bevels. It is a flake tool retouched to give several chisel-like edges. It owes its name to the Grotte de Noailles in the commune of Brive-la-Gaillarde, Corrèze, in southwestern France.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum. These appeared to be originals.
Close up of the example on display of a Sagaie d'Isturitz, or an Isturitz spear.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum. This appeared to be an original.
Figure 8. "Sagaies d’Isturitz" provenant de Gargas et d’Isturitz.
a, b et c: exemplaires entiers d’Isturitz (d’après SAINT-PÉRIERR. & S. 1952). -
d: probable extrémité distale n°261, assemblée “virtuellement” à la base n°1146 (e) (Gargas, coll.BREUIL-CARTAILHAC-IPH).
Original Source for the sketch:
SAINT-PÉRIER, R. & S. de 1952 La grotte d’Isturitz: les Solutréens, les Aurignaciens et les
Moustériens. Paris : Masson, 264 p., 135 fig., XI pl. h.-t.
(Archives de l’Institut de Paléontologie humaine: mémoire n°25)
Reprinted in: Gargas et l’Atlantique: les relations transpyrénéennes au cours du Gravettien, Munibe 57, 2005
by Pascal Foucher
(note: These objects, "Sagaies d’Isturitz", superficially similar to spear points, seem to me to be anything but spears. They are much too big and heavy to have fitted on a dart. They could only have been used on a thrusting spear, one which was not thrown but used in close up work with an animal which had been wounded.
I have no evidence for this personal opinion, but they are much more likely so far as I can see to be retouchers, or compresseurs. This interpretation is borne out by the examples which do not have even a symbolic point, such as the ribs from Gargas shown immediately below, from apparently a similar tradition, and which Breuil & Cheynier (1958) identified as retouchers.
In addition, we may note the similarity between the Périgordien V / Noaillien Sagaie d’Isturitz shown here and the Compresseur in the previous display case for the Périgordien IV / Gravettien. They are similar in shape and volume, and both are made of bone or ivory.
I have juxtaposed two images copied from the one photograph (of the Périgordien V / Noaillien display case above), of the Compresseur and the Sagaie d’Isturitz to show how similar they are.
- Don)
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum. These appeared to be originals.
The caption reads:
Fig. 2. Gargas, industrie osseuse gravettienne: côte gravée n°236-IPH, collection BREUIL-CARTAILHAC (dessin C. SANJUAN-FOUCHER).
Gargas bone industry, a decorated rib.
It was described by Breuil & Cheynier (1958) as "a large curved piece, rounded at the end, which had been used as a retoucher. It is the left rear rib of either Aurochs or Bison"
Photo: San Juan-Foucher (2005)
Périgordien VI - Couche 3
L'industrie de la couche 3, attribuée au Périgordien VI, est caracterisée par l'abondance de outils à retouches abruptes (31%): l'ensemble des pointes de la Gravette mais surtout de leur forme miniaturisée, les microgravettes, constitue 20% de l'outillage lithique. Les burins sont nombreux et dominés par les formes sur troncature. Parmi les grattoirs, les grattoirs circulaires sur éclat sont bien représentes. La présence de petites lamelles à dos tronquées caracterise également cette industrie.
Un outil caractéristique du Périgordien VI - La microgravette. C'est un modèle réduit de pointe de la Gravette avec une extrémité pointue et un dos rectiligne aménagé par petites retouches abruptes.
Périgordien VI - Layer 3
The industry of the layer 3, attributed to Périgordien VI, is characterised by an abundance of tools with abrupt retouches (31%): all the Gravettian points but especially their miniature form, the microgravettes, constitute 20% of the stone tools. Chisels or burins are finished off with many forms of truncation. Among scrapers, circular scrapers on flakes are well represented. The presence of small blades also characterise the industry.
A characteristic tool of the Périgordien VI - The microgravette. It is a reduced version of the Gravettian point with a pointed tip and a straight back made with small steep or abrupt retouches.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum. These appeared to be originals.
Plan of Layer 3 from the Perigordien VI
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum.
Display featuring, amongst other items,
Protomagdalénien (Périgordien VII)
l'affichage des:
Tête de fémur percée
Canine de cerf percée
Perles en os
Coquille percée
Solutréen Inferieur - Couche 1
Les Solutréens ont séjourne à l'Abri Pataud mais rares sont les traces de leur passage qui sont parvenues jusqu'à nous.
Cette période, caractérisée par une grande maîtrise du façonnage de la pierre, utilisant la retouche par pression, se manifeste par la présence de quelques outils dont une pointe à face plane caractéristique du Solutréen inférieur.
Un outil caractéristique du Solutréen inférieur - La pointe à face plane.
C'est une pièce appointée portant des retouches, envahissantes, sur une grande partie de la face supérieure. La face inférieure, rarement retouchée est, par contre, restée "plane".
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum. These appeared to be originals.
A characteristic of the lower Solutréen - The Flat Face Point.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum. This appeared to be an original.
Solutréen Moyen - Niveaux Supérieurs
Les niveaux supérieurs de l'Abri Pataud été détruits, la présence de Solutréen moyen n'est connue que par quelques pièces, recueillies aux abords du site et dans la cave troglodytique. Les pointes à retouches bifaciales appelées feuilles de laurier caractérisent le Solutréen moyen.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum. These appeared to be originals.
This is an excellent summary of the prehistoric cultures from Le Flageolet 1, La Ferrassie, Abri Pataud and Laugerie Haute.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Display at Abri Pataud Museum.
Hallam L. Movius Jr, born in Newton, Massachusetts, on November 28, 1907, was a Palaeolithic archaeologist, a specialist in the interpretation of human behaviour and its environmental context during the latter part of the Old Stone Age, toward the end of the Pleistocene Epoch. With broad training and varied field experience in Europe, the Near East, and Southeast Asia, he became in the years after World War II the pre-eminent spokesman for Palaeolithic archaeology in the United States.
In his classes at Harvard and on his excavations in France, he was instrumental in training a generation of American and European archaeologists. His decades-long investigation of the Abri Pataud, a large Upper Palaeolithic rock shelter in southwestern France, formed the basis for what is today a French government museum and research centre at the site.
In the summer of 1949, already a respected archaeologist, Movius spent several months in France, mostly in the Dordogne region of the southwest, talking with local prehistorians and looking for a good Upper Palaeolithic site at which to start a major new excavation. The site he chose was a large collapsed rockshelter overlooking the Vézère Valley in the town of Les Eyzies. It was this site, the Abri Pataud, that would be Movius’s primary professional concern from then until the end of his career.
He did a test excavation in 1953 on the part of the site then accessible to him. The property was, however, part of a working farm, and a barn stood on the main portion of the site. In 1957 Harvard purchased the property and immediately transferred ownership to the French government, which in turn granted what became known as the Harvard Dordogne Project the excavation rights for a 20-year period. Six seasons of excavation were conducted at the Abri Pataud between 1958 and 1964. The old farmhouse and its ancillary structures (located, in fact, in a second walled-up rockshelter) were converted into laboratory and storage areas so that on-site analysis of the excavated materials could continue throughout the year.
Early in the project, Hallam and his wife Nancy acquired a property, Roque Veyral, just a few kilometers distant from the Abri Pataud and renovated it into a combination residence and laboratory. At the site or at Roque Veyral, or both, research and writing about the Abri Pataud continued for at least part of every year for nearly two decades. Hallam Movius’s Abri Pataud project made several kinds of contributions to Palaeolithic archaeology and European prehistory. First, and most obviously, it answered substantive technical questions about the sequence and radiocarbon dating of Upper Palaeolithic archaeological cultures in southwestern France, a classic region for the understanding of human behaviour at the end of the Ice Age. The site was, in fact, occupied repeatedly between about 34 000 and 20 000 radiocarbon years ago, by people representing the Aurignacian, Gravettian, Noaillian, and Solutrean archaeological cultures.
Second, it provided for U.S. archaeologists a model of the sort of broadly interdisciplinary approach to an archaeological site that was becoming standard operating procedure for Old World prehistory after World War II. The breadth of Movius’s research plan can be seen from the contributors to the introductory volume of the multivolume site report (1975): these included two archaeologists, two geologists, a vertebrate paleontologist, a malacologist, two human paleontologists, a palynologist, and two ecological biologists.
In 1970, still in his early sixties and at the height of his career, Movius suffered a stroke while working at the Abri Pataud. He recovered almost fully, with only a lingering weakness on one side that required him to walk with a cane. For several years he continued to teach and to spend part of every year in Dordogne pursuing his research and writing. The site report on the Abri Pataud was planned as a multivolume monograph series to be published by Harvard’s Peabody Museum as bulletins of the American School of Prehistoric Research. Movius saw the first two volumes through to publication, in 1975 and 1977, but a series of increasingly debilitating health problems made it more and more difficult for him to take an active part in the publication program. He retired from teaching in 1974 and from his curatorship at the Peabody Museum in 1976.
Two more site report monographs were published in 1984 and 1985, but the Peabody Museum had already confirmed its inability to proceed with the final three volumes planned for the series. In view of the great importance of the site to the profession, the director of antiquities for southwestern France proposed that a one-volume, French-language summary report on the entire Abri Pataud operation be compiled and published at French government expense. Movius enthusiastically endorsed this plan, and the volume in question was published in Paris in 1995, some years after Movius’s death. Movius's Avant propos to this volume, dated December 1985, was the last thing he wrote about the great site that was the capstone of his career.
Hallam Movius died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 30, 1987.
Text and Photo: http://books.nap.edu/html/biomems/hmovius.pdf
General view of the Abri Pataud, Les Eyzies (Dordogne). Photograph taken in July 1958 from near the railway bridge over the Vézère River.
Photo: Movius (1977)
General view of the Abri Pataud, Les Eyzies (Dordogne). Photograph taken in August 2008 from near the railway bridge over the Vézère River, a little more to the right than the previous photograph.
It is interesting to compare the two photographs to note the changes in both houses and vegetation during the passage of fifty years.
In particular, we can see the wall and roof which now protects the gisement of l'abri Pataud from the weather.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Abri Pataud at a time intermediate between the first excavations and my photo from 2008. The wall and roof protecting the site are clearly visible in this shot, as is the Abri Pataud museum at the top of the small road leading to the right. Vegetation has grown significantly in the meantime, and now obscures this view.
Photo: 'Discovering Perigord Prehistory' by B & G Delluc, A Roussot & J Roussot-Larroque.
Cleaning the site prior to excavation. The area in the foreground is where the barn originally stood.
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
General view of the site with awning fully installed.
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
A series of huge fallen blocks (the collapsed former vault of the rock shelter) was encountered in the first metre of the excavation.
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
1958, general view of the excavation showing the grid system.
Photo: H.L. Movius in Chiotti & Nespoulet (2004)
1959, excavation view of éboulis 3/4 showing the walls along
the boundaries of each square.
Photo: H.L. Movius in Chiotti & Nespoulet (2004)
Skulls of large deer (Cervus elaphasus) placed facing each other against the rear wall of the site in Trench III, Square G.
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
Skull and mandible of adolescent female in situ and in close up. These remains were found directly below a large fallen limestone block on 2nd July 1958. No traces of any of the vertebrae came to light.
The female skull and mandible had apparently been positioned and protected by three medium sized rocks arranged in a roughly triangular manner, near the front of the abri and the Eboulis-a stratum immediately above the main Level 2 deposits. Therefore, this find should not be considered as contained within the actual cultural layer itself, but as immediately subsequent to it, representing one of the last cultural acts at the site prior to the collapse of the immediately overlying blocks.
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
View showing emplacement of skull with surrounding rocks in situ.
The skull was found with its lower mandible only slightly dislocated. Although immediately covered over by a considerable rockfall, it had been protected by a series of medium sized rocks around it. It is apparent that it was covered over soon after its deposition,and this fact, rather than its displacement, has preserved it. Therefore, the Proto-Magdalenian occupation of the site may have been terminated by the collapse of the roof, during or shortly after the final occupation. In any case, there is absolutely no direct evidence to suggest that the death of any of the individuals was traumatically caused.
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
The female skull shortly after discovery being shown to MM. René Sordes and Séverin Blanc by Professor Movius.
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
Left portion of the pelvis in situ in Trench V.
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
Detail of right arm/child's skull complex after cleaning.
(note that the caption to this photo says it is a right arm, but the text calls it a left arm. I am unable to sort this out, but I would presume that the text is the correct version - Don)
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
Diagram showing the position of the human skull, found in Eboulis 1-2.
Photo and text: Movius (1977)
Graph of l'abri Pataud radiocarbon dates. Not all the dates shown here were kept by the authors (Movius 1977, Bricker 1995)
The non kept dates appear in clear lines. The great number of aberrant dates in level 2 is due to the samples' contamination by proximity to the surface.
Photo: Chiotti & Nespoulet (2004)
Pataud property plan.
Photo: Movius (1977)
Extract from a field notebook showing a level 5 layer.
Photo: Chiotti & Nespoulet (2004)
A 1964 drawing on graph paper, a plan and two sections, of a surface feature - Hearth R of level 12.
Photo: Chiotti & Nespoulet (2004)
Detailed plan of the excavated area, after Movius (1977)
Photo: Chiotti & Nespoulet (2004)