Grotte Des Fées (Châtelperron): History of Research, Stratigraphy, Dating, and Archaeology of the Châtelperronian Type-Site

Grotte des Fées (Châtelperron): History of Research, Stratigraphy, Dating, and Archaeology of the Châtelperronian Type-Site JOãO ZLHãO Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UU, UNITED KINGDOM; Joao.Zilhao@ bristol.ac.uk Francesco D’ERRCO PACEA/UMR 5199 du CNRS, Institut de Préhistoire et de Géologie du Quaternaire, UFR de Géologie, Bât. ��B18, Avenue des Facultés, 334��5 Tal� ence, FRANCE; and Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 2��52, USA; [email protected]�bordeaux1. fr Jean-Guillaume BORDE� PACEA/UMR 5199 du CNRS, Institut de Préhistoire et de Géologie du Quaternaire, UFR de Géologie, Bât. B18, Avenue des Facultés, 334�5 Talence, FRANCE; [email protected]�bordeaux1.fr ARnaud LEnOBLE PACEA/UMR 5199 du CNRS, Institut de Préhistoire et de Géologie du Quaternaire, UFR de Géologie, Bât. B18, Avenue des Facultés, 334�5 Talence, FRANCE; [email protected] Jean-Pierre TEXER PACEA/UMR 5199 du CNRS, Institut de Préhistoire et de Géologie du Quaternaire, UFR de Géologie, Bât. B18, Avenue des Facultés, 334�5 Talence, FRANCE; [email protected]�bordeaux1.fr Jean-Philippe RGAUD PACEA/UMR 5199 du CNRS, Institut de Préhistoire et de Géologie du Quaternaire, UFR de Géologie, Bât. B18, Avenue des Facultés, 334�5 Talence, FRANCE; [email protected]�bordeaux1.fr ABSTRACT After the demonstration that no Châtelperronian/Aurignacian interstratifications existed at Roc-de-Combe, Le Piage, and El Pendo, the Grotte des Fées remained the single instance conceivably documenting the putative long- term regional contemporaneity of the two technocomplexes which is required by the “acculturation” and “imitation” models of the innovations (ornaments, decorated bone tools) that characterize the Châtelperronian. Based on our own inspection and study of the lithic and faunal collections and of the site itself, on consideration of the published and unpublished literature, and on the available dating evidence, we show that the putative interstratified deposits reported by Henri Delporte, who last excavated at the Grotte des Fées in 1951–54 and 1962, are in fact 19th-century backfill. In situ remnants may have been found in 1962, but, in the part of the site excavated at that time, Delporte failed to recognize the previously described interstratification. The stratigraphic consistency of 10 (out of the 13) radiocarbon dates available relates to the fact that those 10 dates are on samples from the conceivably in situ remnants excavated in 1962. Three samples from Level B5 date the Châtelperronian occupation to ca 39–40,000 14C�� BP, while seven samples from Level B1–3 relate to carnivore denning at the site throughout the ca 36,500–34,500 14C�� BP interval. ��ubsequent sporadic incursions by bearers of an Aurignacian ��tool-kit are documented by diagnostic material scattered from top to bottom of the backfill deposits excavated by Delporte between 1951 and 1954. Originally, that Aurignacian material must have been contained in a surficial occupation lens capping the site’s Mousterian-to-Châtelperronian stratigraphic succession. INTRODUCTION context of which it is the significance of the different Borde- n the 1950s and 1960s, the notion that the taxonomic sian variants of the Mousterian that more often comes to units of the Paleolithic could represent long-lasting cul- mind (Binford 1973; Bordes 1973). But, the debate also had tural traditions that did not necessarily develop in time-or- Upper Paleolithic ramifications; namely, the proposition, dered fashion and that might even stand for coeval ethnic initially put forward by Peyrony (1933, 1948), that, in the entities became very popular. This notion eventually trig- classical region of southwestern France, the early part of gered the functional variability debate of the 1970s, in the the Upper Paleolithic had seen the parallel development PaleoAnthropology 2008: 1−42. © 2008 PaleoAnthropology Society. All rights reserved. ISSN 1545-0031 2 • PaleoAnthropology 2008 of two separate industrial phyla—the Aurignacian and the an improved understanding of taphonomy and site for- “Perigordian.” mation processes began to sow doubts on the validity of Eventually, it became clear that the Lower Perigordian the supporting interstratification evidence (d’Errico et al. (or Châtelperronian) was separated from the Upper Perig- 1998; Rigaud 2001). Eventually, those doubts led to inves- ordian (or Gravettian) by several millennia (Laville et al. tigations that generated proof. El Pendo was shown to be 1980), and that, at the other end of the putative 15,000 year- a redeposited sequence from top to bottom (Montes and long interval of coexistence, the “Aurignacian V” capping �anguino 2001; Montes et al. 2005); the small area of Le the Upper Perigordian sequence at the site of Laugerie- Piage with a Châtelperronian lens interstratified in the Au- Haute was not related to the true or “typical” Aurigna- rignacian was shown to be a slope deposit yielding a mix cian (�onneville-Bordes 1982). As a result, the concept of of Châtelperronian, Aurignacian, and surface-weathered the Perigordian as defined by Peyrony and Bordes gradu- Mousterian items throughout; and, finally, the Aurigna- ally disappeared from the literature, the word being used cian lens interstratified in the Châtelperronian of Roc-de- nowadays simply to designate a particular regional entity Combe was shown to be a post facto theoretical construct of the Gravettian in France. These developments, however, assembled from several true excavation units, all of which fell short of addressing the validity of one of the fundamen- featured a mix of Gravettian, Aurignacian, Châtelper- tal premises of that concept—the contemporaneity between ronian, and Mousterian pieces (Bordes 2002, 2003, 2006; Châtelperronian and Aurignacian inferred from the inter- Rigaud 2001). Coupled with the realization that significant stratifications reported by Bordes and Labrot (1967), Cham- problems of sample association and sample contamination pagne and Espitalié (1981), and Bernaldo de Quirós (1982) (especially when dealing with bone) affected radiocarbon for, respectively, Roc-de-Combe and Le Piage, in France, determinations in this time range (Higham et al. 2006; and El Pendo, in �pain. As a result, ethnicity (in addition Jöris et al. 2003; Zilhão and d’Errico 1999), these empiri- to site function or change through time) remained a viable cal developments established the chronological anteriority explanation for assemblage variability during the period of of the Châtelperronian (otherwise indicated by numerous emergence of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe. archeostratigraphic successions), and were instrumental in Until the discovery of the �aint-Césaire skeleton and the promotion of alternative views of this technocomplex attendant implications for the authorship of the Châtelp- that questioned central tenets of the Human Revolution erronian (Lévêque and Vandermeersch 1980), the Upper paradigm—because its emergence significantly predated Paleolithic was widely assumed to have been made by any evidence for the Aurignacian or modern humans in anatomically modern humans only. With the �aint-Césaire Europe, the Châtelperronian could only be interpreted as discovery, the paleoanthropological significance of inter- representing the neandertals’ independent transition to stratification changed dramatically—from being simply full cultural modernity (d’Errico 2003; d’Errico et al. 1998; related to the interpretation of patterns of cultural vari- Zilhão 2001, 2006, 2007). ability within Homo sapiens, it became crucial evidence in The publication by Gravina et al. (2005) of a series of the assessment of cultural contrasts between modern and radiocarbon dates for the Grotte des Fées (Châtelperron, non-modern humans (and, consequently, in the definition Allier, France)—the type-site of the Châtelperronian— of modernity itself). n fact, taking the Châtelperronian and added new evidence to this debate. Gravina et al. argued the Aurignacian as proxies for neandertals and early mod- that the consistency of their dates proved that there was a ern Europeans, respectively, and assuming normal rates of genuinely in situ lens of Aurignacian material (Dufour bl- sedimentation for Roc-de-Combe, Le Piage, and El Pendo, adelets and scrapers or scraper fragments bearing typical interstratification implied that, at the time of contact, and Aurignacian scalariform retouch) in the middle of the site’s despite close neighborhood, separate ethnical identities thick Châtelperronian sequence, implying Châtelperro- had been maintained for many millennia. Moreover, given nian reoccupation after a brief Aurignacian incursion and, such long periods of regional coexistence, interstratifica- hence, the long-term regional coexistence of neandertals tion also implied ample opportunities for occasional ex- and moderns predicted (and required) by the “accultura- changes to occur across what would otherwise have been tion” or “imitation” models. n contrast, our analysis of the rather stable and impermeable biological and cultural fron- collections and associated documentation, kept at the Mu- tiers. n the framework of the Human Revolution paradigm sée d’Archéologie nationale (MAn), �t.-Germain-en-Laye, (Mellars and �tringer 1989), which

Load more