Marianne Deschamps

Un ensemble d'opérations d'archéologie préventive, réalisées par les équipes de l'INRAP ces huit dernières années sur les hauteurs orientales de Bayonne (Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France), permet de renouveler notre connaissance du peuplement paléolithique sur le plateau de Saint-Pierre-d'Irube. Les sondages de dix parcelles depuis 2008 et la fouille de deux sites de plein air en trois opérations distinctes permettent de poser un cadre stratigraphique et chrono-logique fiable inédit, grâce à un ensemble de datations absolues. Cela permet aussi d'appréhender l'évolution des pay-sages depuis la fin du Pléistocène moyen. Plusieurs occupations du Paléolithique moyen récent mettent en évidence une bonne implantation dans ce secteur au cours du MIS 3. La proximité du gîte de silex d'Ibarbide, l'un des plus riches et de meilleure qualité de la région, pourrait en partie expliquer la forte présence humaine dans cette zone. Ce nouveau cadre chronologique et stratigraphique a permis la réévaluation de plusieurs collections anciennes et issues de ramassage de surface afin de tenter de caractériser plus finement l'utilisation du plateau de Saint-Pierre-d'Irube durant le Paléolithique moyen récent. Le site de plein air du Basté, fouillé par C. Chauchat et C. Thibault à la fin des années 1960, a principalement fait l'objet d'une nouvelle étude. L'établissement de corrélations stratigraphiques entre le niveau 4 du Basté et les occupations du Paléolithique moyen récent du Prissé et de Jupiter permettent de proposer une relative contemporanéité entre ces trois occupations. Au sein de chaque site, l'analyse des remontages et de la répartition spatiale des vestiges ont mis en évidence la bonne préservation post-dépositionnelle des niveaux et la présence d'une répartition non aléatoire des différentes catégories de vestiges qui est interprétée comme le résultat d'une dispersion d'origine anthropique, au moins dans le cas du Prissé. D'un point de vue technoéconomique et fonctionnel, il ressort que ces occupations sont économiquement différentes et complémentaires, ce qui implique une organisation spatiale complexe et structurée à l'échelle locale de ces sociétés néan-dertaliennes. Le faible potentiel archéologique restant est particulièrement menacé par la forte urbanisation du secteur : la synthèse que peuvent fournir ces nouvelles données et la révision de collections anciennes, complétée par de nouvelles prospections, s'inscrit donc dans une démarche de valorisation scientifique de ce patrimoine en voie de destruction. Abstract: Over the past eight years, excavations performed by INRAP teams outside of Bayonne (Pyrénées-Atlan-tiques, France) have updated our understanding of the Paleolithic occupation of the Saint-Pierre-d'Irube plateau. The excavation of two open air sites, Jupiter and Le Prissé, accompanied by test trenches and luminescence dating, have yielded a new understanding of the evolution of the landscape from the late Middle Paleolithic. Several occupations dating to MIS 3 indicate that the plateau was heavily utilized during that period. The proximity of an abundant and high quality flint, from the Ibarbide source, likely played a role in the area's attraction for Paleolithic peoples. Optically stimulated luminescence was used to date the late Middle Paleolithic occupations at Jupiter to between 50 ± 3 and 34 ± 3 ky BP. The dating at Le Prissé is still underway. Thus far, an artifact originating from the Upper Paleolithic layers was dated via thermoluminescence to 44.3 ± 3 ky BP. It is thought that this artifact could have moved up from the Middle Paleolithic layers but this conclusion awaits other TL samples currently being dated. However, these dates provide a preliminary time range for the late Middle Paleolithic occupation of the plateau between 45 and 50 ky BP. This new chronological and stratigraphic framework has allowed the reevaluation of several older collections and surface finds in an attempt to characterize more precisely the use of the plateau of Saint-Pierre d'Irube during the late Middle Paleolithic. This work has focused on the Basté, an open-air site excavated by C. Chauchat and C. Thibault in the late 1960s. Stratigraphic sequences from INRAP's recent excavations and test trenches were compiled to create a

A multivariate approach was applied to test the existence of microscopic differences in the morphology of cut-marks produced by simple, unretouched, flakes and three types of Mousterian stone tools (denticulates, cleavers and Mousterian points). Cut-marks on red deer (Cervus elaphus) long bones defleshed using different lithic implements during experimental butchery of whole carcasses were analysed using low magnification microscopy. Following existing studies (i.e. Domínguez-Rodrigo et al., 2009; de Juana et al., 2010), sixteen variables were recorded and the resulting dataset was statistically tested for significant differences between tool types. The same microscopic analysis was then applied to an archaeological sample of red deer long bone fragments from the Middle Palaeolithic site of Noisetier Cave. While this approach is relatively costless, allows for the analysis of large bone samples and is easily reproducible by different analysts, our results show that microscopic differences between cut-marks produced by simple flakes and those made by tools are not statistically significant and that important overlap exists between the cut-marks produced by the three types of tools. The application of the experimental results to the archaeological sample thus proved difficult. This study underlines the need for a cautious use of this type of method when analysing archaeological material.

While Late Middle Palaeolithic industries are characterized by a well-documented diversity of stone tool types and blank production methods, the latter of which can at times be exclusively represented in certain assemblages, the bifacial tool component sometimes portrays clear similarities in use and manufacture method. Beyond sharing both comparable volumetric structures and arrangement of active and or prehensile areas, the recurrence in several assemblages of specific groups of bifacial tools used mostly for butchery is particularly striking. Here we address several techno-economic and cognitive aspects of biface production and use combined with a consideration of their context. Is the same degree of variability in function and manufacture method equally visible in the retouched tool component? What scales of mobility or technical use-lives do these different bifacial tools portray? Do certain highly elaborate flake tools also reflect equally complex behaviors? How to interpret the presence of carefully manufactured pieces in non-local raw materials alongside others made in local varieties that are hardly reduced but nevertheless equally functional? Finally, which components may have carried a symbolic value or shed light on technical abilities or functional objectives evident in the conception, elaboration, use, and ultimate fate of these bifacial pieces. Several recently analyzed assemblages with a relatively significant bifacial component from the Charente, Dordogne and the Pyrénées-Atlantiques departements show certain similarities or important differences. In characterizing the coexistence of flake production and bifacial-shaping, we attempt to reveal to what extent and in which ways certain bifacial tools stand out. When combined with technological and cognitive considerations, this approach provides new insights on an important behavioral facet of Neanderthal groups who occupied the Aquitaine Basin after the Last Interglacial.

While Late Middle Palaeolithic industries are characterized by a well-documented diversity of stone tool types and blank production methods, the latter of which can at times be exclusively represented in certain assemblages, the bifacial tool component sometimes portrays clear similarities in use and manufacture method. Beyond sharing both comparable volumetric structures and arrangement of active and or prehensile areas, the recurrence in several assemblages of specific groups of bifacial tools used mostly for butchery is particularly striking.

Here we address several techno-economic and cognitive aspects of biface production and use combined with a consideration of their context. Is the same degree of variability in function and manufacture method equally visible in the retouched tool component? What scales of mobility or technical use-lives do these different bifacial tools portray? Do certain highly elaborate flake tools also reflect equally complex behaviors? How to interpret the presence of carefully manufactured pieces in non-local raw materials alongside others made in local varieties that are hardly reduced but nevertheless equally functional? Finally, which components may have carried a symbolic value or shed light on technical abilities or functional objectives evident in the conception, elaboration, use, and ultimate fate of these bifacial pieces.

Several recently analyzed assemblages with a relatively significant bifacial component from the Charente, Dordogne and the Pyrénées-Atlantiques departements show certain similarities or important differences. In characterizing the coexistence of flake production and bifacial-shaping, we attempt to reveal to what extent and in which ways certain bifacial tools stand out. When combined with technological and cognitive considerations, this approach provides new insights on an important behavioral facet of Neanderthal groups who occupied the Aquitaine Basin after the Last Interglacial.

The presence of flake cleavers at the end of the Middle Paleolithic in the Vasco-Cantabria region (southwestern France and northern Spain) is one element of the variability in Mousterian lithic industries in southwestern Europe. Because the function of these tools has rarely been studied, we undertook a use-wear analysis of them in order to gain a better understanding of the technological characteristics of late Middle Paleolithic industries in this geographic zone. We conducted a series of experiments using these tools for activities associated with the processing of animal and vegetal materials. The experimental reference collection thus constituted was subject to a low-power use-wear analysis and served as the basis of our interpretation of the use-wear traces present on the archaeological flake cleavers of several assemblages (Olha I and II, Gatzarria, El Castillo). These flake cleavers revealed similarities with the experimental pieces that were hafted and used for percussion to fell trees and divide carcasses. These data allow us to discuss the role of functional and cultural factors in the development of this tool type.

Rescue archeology operations conducted by INRAP (Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Préventives) over the past five years on the eastern plateaus of Bayonne (south-western France) have contributed significant new elements to our knowledge of the Paleolithic occupations of Basque Country. New stratigraphic data, combined with numerical dating techniques, have enabled us to develop a new and reliable chronology for the region, enabling a better understanding of the evolution of the landscape since the end of the Middle Pleistocene. A brief Gravettian occupation, unusual in the classic Pyrenean context, provides evidence for complex economic and territorial strategies. Several late Mousterian occupations show an intensive and complementary exploitation during MIS 3, while the Patinated Mousterian lithic assemblages from MIS 5 may correspond to the oft-argued “classic” low mobility strategies of Neandertal groups. Despite their disturbed conditions, the Acheulean assemblages, predating the Eemian, are mostly composed of flint and raise new questions regarding their Cantabrian–Pyrenean context, where coarse stones usually dominate.

Rescue archeology operations conducted by INRAP (Institut National de Recherches Arch!eologiques
Pr!eventives) over the past five years on the eastern plateaus of Bayonne (south-western France) have
contributed significant new elements to our knowledge of the Paleolithic occupations of Basque Country.
New stratigraphic data, combined with numerical dating techniques, have enabled us to develop a new
and reliable chronology for the region, enabling a better understanding of the evolution of the landscape
since the end of the Middle Pleistocene. A brief Gravettian occupation, unusual in the classic Pyrenean
context, provides evidence for complex economic and territorial strategies. Several late Mousterian occupations
show an intensive and complementary exploitation during MIS 3, while the Patinated
Mousterian lithic assemblages from MIS 5 may correspond to the oft-argued “classic” low mobility
strategies of Neandertal groups. Despite their disturbed conditions, the Acheulean assemblages, predating
the Eemian, are mostly composed of flint and raise new questions regarding their Cantabrian
ePyrenean context, where coarse stones usually dominate.

Depuis une décennie, les industries lithiques du Paléolithique moyen récent du versant nord des Pyrénées ont connu un regain d’intérêt auquel a contribué la reprise des fouilles dans la grotte du Noisetier (Fréchet-Aure, Hautes-Pyrénées). Cette cavité s’ouvre à 850 m d’altitude dans la vallée d’Aure et a livré une industrie essentiellement réalisée aux dépens de matériaux locaux d’origine métamorphique et sédimentaire (quartzites, schistes, lydiennes, cinérites, etc.), complétés par des importations ponctuelles de silex. Une étude archéopétrographique des silex permet de dessiner un vaste territoire connu, parcouru et/ou lieu d’échange. Des échantillonnages de ces matériaux locaux ont été réalisés en différents points des formations alluviales actuelles de la Neste et de ses affluents. La comparaison de ce référentiel avec les matières premières de l’ensemble archéologique met en évidence un haut degré de sélection au sein des matériaux disponibles localement, témoignant d’une connaissance fine du milieu environnant. Des travaux similaires sont en cours à la grotte de Gatzarria (Ossas-Suhare, Pyrénées- Atlantiques) afin de caractériser et de comparer les modalités de gestion des différentes ressources lithiques dans ce contexte montagnard particulier.

Dans le piémont nord-occidental des Pyrénées, peu de sites documentent les phases récentes du Paléolithique moyen et le Paléolithique supérieur initial au sein d’une même séquence stratigraphique. La grotte de Gatzarria (Ossas-Suhare, Pyrénées-Atlantiques), fouillée principalement par Georges Laplace de 1951 à 1976, a révélé une stratigraphie complexe dont les industries documentent ce passage du Paléolithique moyen au Paléolithique supérieur. Des études récentes ont remis en question l’homogénéité des niveaux dans le secteur du fond de la cavité et de nouvelles interprétations stratigraphiques sont proposées pour le Paléolithique moyen sur la base de l’analyse technologique et de la projection spatiale des vestiges. Les niveaux du Paléolithique supérieur sont également particulièrement intéressants, Gatzarria offrant une séquence de plusieurs niveaux attribués au Protoaurignacien et à l’Aurignacien permettant ainsi d’aborder la question très débattue du rapport entre ces deux techno-complexes.

The geographic and temporal diversity of Middle Paleolithic technological systems remains poorly understood, due to the limited number of sites with long stratigraphic sequences associated with a reliable chronometric framework. Gruta da Oliveira [1-3] is exceptional in this regard, particularly where the early parts of the Upper Pleistocene (MIS 5 and MIS 4) are concerned. Discovered in 1989, the site was excavated until 2012 by J. Zilhão. Its 9 m-thick archeo-stratigraphic sequence is sealed by a thick colmatation breccia and the stone tool assemblages found therein are of Middle Palaeolithic technology from top to bottom. Made on flint, quartz and quartzite, these assemblages are associated with abundant faunal and microfaunal remains. Fragmentary Neandertal fossils were also found in a number of stratigraphic units.

Combined with the results of radiocarbon, TL and U-series dating, stratigraphic constraints suggest that the upper part of the sequence (layers 7-12) is of MIS-3 age, its middle part (layers 13-14) of MIS-4 age, and its lower part (layers 15-27) of MIS-5 age [4-5]. In the interest of documenting diachronic techno-economic change across these phases, we present preliminary results of our ongoing work on the unpublished lithic artefacts from the sequence (>29,000 items catalogued so far, and counting). We will place special emphasis on the lower part of the sequence, for which the TL date obtained on burnt flints recovered in overlying layer 14 (77±8 ka) provides a reliable terminus ante quem. Our conclusions are based on a taphonomical critique of the archaeo-stratigraphy, based on the systematic intra-level and inter-level refitting of all quartzite artefacts (preferred over flint due their higher “phenotypic” diversity, which makes for a higher rate of success in the identification of the original nodule of provenience). The spatial distribution of the refit units (148 so far for layers 15-27, 213 so far for layers 8-13) is then used to (a) evaluate the degree of post-depositional integrity of the stratigraphic units recognized in the field and (b) define layer groupings that are meaningful for the purposes of assessing change through time.

As is common in the Middle Paleolithic of Portugal, the percentage of retouched tools, mostly notches and denticulates, is very low throughout; typological analysis is therefore of little utility for the characterization of the Gruta da Oliveira assemblages. This scarcity remains to be fully understood but can be related to raw-material procurement and the economy of the débitage, ultimately determined by settlement-subsistence systems quite distinct from those documented in the Middle Paleolithic elsewhere in Western Europe. The Levallois method is well represented. Macro-tools — cleavers made on flakes, and hand-axes — are found in low numbers in layers 19-17, but they are entirely missing above and below. This pattern suggests that their production is a temporally discrete phenomenon and, hence, a distinctive feature of the late MIS 5 stone tool assemblages of the region, begging the question of their relationship with the cleaver-yielding assemblages from Northern Spain and Southwestern France, which we will discuss.

Le 142e congrès du CTHS aura lieu à l'université de Pau fin avril prochain. La section de Pré-et Protohistoire du CTHS est à l'initiative de deux sessions thématiques : "La conquête de la montagne : des premières occupations humaines à l'anthropisation du milieu" et "Les montagnes : frontières naturelles, frontières culturelles". Les communications peuvent concerner toutes les périodes de la Préhistoire et de la Protohistoire et tous les massifs montagneux européens. Nous vous invitons à vous inscrire avant le 1er novembre.

Bifaces dominate the Acheulean stone tools recovered during the archaeological excavationof layer X of Gruta da Aroeira, dated to 389–436 ka. Faunal remains and a human craniumwere found in association with this lithic assemblage. The raw materials used are mostly quartz and quartzite cobbles available in the vicinity of the site. Technological and system-atic analysis shows that there are no Levallois elements and suggests that on-site knappingconsisted of the reduction of centripetal cores. Flake cleavers are absent. Use-wear analysisindicates the processing of hard materials, mainly wood. Gruta da Aroeira represents one of the few Middle Pleistocene sites that provide securely dated diagnostic human remains andassociated Acheulean lithics, thus representing a major step forward in our understanding of the variability of westernmost Europe’s Acheulean and of the human populations that made it.