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The Rock Shelter of Kerbizien in Huelgoat Un Visage Original Du Tardiglaciaire En Bretagne : Les Occupations Aziliennes Dans L’Abri-Sous-Roche De Kerbizien À Huelgoat

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The Rock Shelter of Kerbizien in Huelgoat Un Visage Original Du Tardiglaciaire En Bretagne : Les Occupations Aziliennes Dans L’Abri-Sous-Roche De Kerbizien À Huelgoat PALEO Revue d'archéologie préhistorique 25 | 2014 Varia An original settlement during the Tardiglacial in Brittany: the rock shelter of Kerbizien in Huelgoat Un visage original du Tardiglaciaire en Bretagne : les occupations aziliennes dans l’abri-sous-roche de Kerbizien à Huelgoat Grégor Marchand, Jean-Laurent Monnier, François Pustoc’h and Laurent Quesnel Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/paleo/3012 DOI: 10.4000/paleo.3012 ISSN: 2101-0420 Publisher SAMRA Printed version Date of publication: 28 December 2014 Number of pages: 125-168 ISSN: 1145-3370 Electronic reference Grégor Marchand, Jean-Laurent Monnier, François Pustoc’h and Laurent Quesnel, « An original settlement during the Tardiglacial in Brittany: the rock shelter of Kerbizien in Huelgoat », PALEO [Online], 25 | 2014, Online since 02 June 2016, connection on 07 July 2020. URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/paleo/3012 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/paleo.3012 This text was automatically generated on 7 July 2020. PALEO est mis à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International. An original settlement during the Tardiglacial in Brittany: the rock shelter ... 1 An original settlement during the Tardiglacial in Brittany: the rock shelter of Kerbizien in Huelgoat Un visage original du Tardiglaciaire en Bretagne : les occupations aziliennes dans l’abri-sous-roche de Kerbizien à Huelgoat Grégor Marchand, Jean-Laurent Monnier, François Pustoc’h and Laurent Quesnel It is particularly gratifying to us to thank Mrs Anne-Marie Mazurier (owner of the land) and Jean-Michel Moullec for his valuable guidance on his work. We are grateful to the Regional Archaeological Service (Jean-Yves Tinevez and Emile Bernard) and the Conseil General of Finistère (Michel Le Goffic and Sophie Casadebaig) for financing the project. Our gratitude also goes to the excavators: Nicolas Audier, Bernard Bodinier, Alex de Brie, Jean-Marc Cardeilhac, Aude Chevallier, Laurence Dorvault, Annette Flageul, Sophie Hérisson, Nadège Jouanet Aldous, André Lenormand, George Leprince, Carole Vigouroux and Jean-Pierre Toularastel. 1 - The Late Glacial in north-western France 1 A cave excavated in the nineteenth century (Roc'h Toul), some Azilian points scattered over the territory: the final Palaeolithic of north-western France has long been largely immersed in shadow (Monnier 1980). In turn, little developed sedimentary contexts, therefore less favourable than elsewhere for preserving the late Pleistocene levels, a misunderstanding of the associated lithic industries by the actors of archaeology or again the lack of suitable research program could be invoked. In 1999, the rescue excavation of the late Azilian site of les Chaloignes (Mozé-sur-Louet, Maine-et-Loire), south of Angers, showed the potential of some small valleys, although the acid soils of the Armorican Massif did not allow the preservation of bones and thus limited the palaeo-economic interpretations (Marchand et al. 2008, 2009, 2011a). Around fifty sites inventoried later in North-western France contributed to further embed this cultural group in space (Marchand et al. 2004), but without any radiometric dating to organize PALEO, 25 | 2014 An original settlement during the Tardiglacial in Brittany: the rock shelter ... 2 the finds (fig. 1). By typological analogy, these Azilian sites could be placed without much risk in the Alleröd, in particular in a late phase with monopoints. Technological analysis of the later lithic industries, established on the reference sites of le Camp d’Auvours in the Sarthe region and la Fosse in the Mayenne region, showed other economics dynamics probably contemporary of the Younger Dryas or the early Preboreal (Naudinot 2010, 2013). The transition to the Mesolithic therefore includes new steps in a process well-integrated with those of the neighbouring regions, but the initial stages, marked in the rest of France by a bipoints phase, are yet to be documented. 2 Despite these chronological and sedimentary limitations, this gradual emergence of knowledge of the late Pleistocene in the Armorican Massif accompanies an awareness of two geographical constraints that had a decisive influence on the prehistoric economic organization and behaviours. Firstly, the lack of flint in the geological formations has always resulted in regional prehistory in the use of flint pebbles found on the beach or in importation from afar, with a growing cost as one moved west of the peninsula. At all times, this requirement influenced the size of the resulting products and the productivity of the blocks, while the adoption of certain rocks from the substrate prompted adaptations of the debitage methods. The choices of the people involved had direct impacts on the technical systems and reveal much about their values, the organization of work or again their social networks (Marchand 2012, 2014). What then were the options adopted in the Late Glacial? And what do they tell us about the societies of the time? 3 Secondly, the oceanic dimension weighs on these regions, although it is difficult to take into account in the Upper Palaeolithic because of the flooding of the coastal strip during the marine transgression. With sea levels more than sixty meters lower than presently during the Alleröd, the Late Glacial shorelines were removed by 10 to 15 km from the current coastline. The Armorican peninsula was already emerging, closing at the south a huge estuary that drained the Rhine, the Seine, the Somme and the Thames Rivers, and that is known as the "Palaeo-Channel". We are entitled to assume that its shores were coveted spaces because ethnography rightly showed all the prodigality of some maritime predations economies (Yesner 1980; Kelly 2007). For Brittany, the preferential acquisition of coastal pebbles to manufacture stone tools shows in negative this presently submerged area as a permanent reminder of its importance. Another consequence of the implantation on a peninsula, the interactions with neighbouring communities were necessarily more reduced than in a continental zone, thus causing possible stylistic specificities. 4 The excavation of an early Azilian level at the bottom of the rock-shelter of Kerbizien, by the town of Huelgoat (Finistère), west of the Breton peninsula, is part of this renewal of knowledge. It brings a very original functional signature that echoes in the palaeo- economic considerations being developed in the region. 2 – The Kerbizien rock shelter 2.1 - A cave in the granitic chaos of Huelgoat 5 The Kerbizien rock-shelter is located in the eastern part of the granite massive of Huelgoat (Finistère) well known for the chaos caused by its erosion when the arenas PALEO, 25 | 2014 An original settlement during the Tardiglacial in Brittany: the rock shelter ... 3 were eroded. They represented an obstacle to human movement on slopes and especially in the valleys, where the rivers run under the huge pile of granite balls. They certainly were favourable shelters, unfortunately much degraded by the action of quarrymen of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The eastern part of the Arrée Mounts is high (between 200 and 380 m) and the oceanic climate today makes it highly humid; the annual rainfall is 1,400 mm against 700 mm on the northern coast. The -50 m depth contour on the marine charts is 45 miles away to the north, 75 km at the south and 80 km on the west: the northern coast is the closest, although the rock-shelter of Kerbizien is found upstream in the watershed of the Aulne, principal river of Central Brittany flowing westward. Hunters of the Late Prehistory therefore invested a hilly area with very original characteristics, high, wet and littered with huge granite boulders. Evaluated in terms of the geography of Brittany, it is far from the ocean, but also from sources of knappable rocks such as flint pebbles or local rocks (Eocene sandstone, cataclasites, ultramylonites, phtanites, chalcedony, microquartzites). 6 The Kerbizien site is located 1,850 m northwest of the church of Huelgoat (Finistère), on the southwest side of a hill, 231 meters above sea level, up to the 190 m asl curve (fig. 2). The site borders a small trough, little marked, that starts there and does not appear clearly on the maps or on aerial photographs. On a north-south axis, it is too steep and too short (180 m) to collect a perennial stream, but it offers a very natural circulation corridor towards le Ruisseau des carrières that runs below (altitude 180 m asl). Opened to the west with a smaller overhang on the southwest, the Kerbizien shelter offers a particularly impressive monolithic appearance (fig. 3, 4 and 5). The cave is dug at the expense of a huge granite block, 6.77 m high above the current ground level. This block is 19.40 m long (north-south axis) and 18.20 m wide (east-west axis); it is used nowadays as a plot limit, inserted in a large stone embankment. The rock- shelter measures 9.50 m at the opening by about 5.50 m deep (fig. 6, 7 and 8). This is obviously not a karst cave subjected to subsiding phenomena of and the top of the shelter filling is flat, as well as the bedrock, without marked gradient between the inside and the outside. At the entrance, the ceiling height is now 2.80 m from the bedrock. The wall only reclines at the back, which ensures a good habitability: one meter from the back, the ceiling is still 1.40 m high. In the Azilian it was roughly the same, the circulation level being only 20 cm above the bedrock. Four large blocks about two meters long each occupy the north of the cave (blocks 1, 2, 3 and 6); they block off about 11 m2 of the total surface. Only a small space remains between them and the ceiling (for example 12 cm above block 2 or 35 cm above block 6).
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