Middle Palaeolithic raw material gathering territories and human mobility in the southern Massif Central, France: first results from a petro-archaeological study on flint
Résumé
During the Middle Palaeolithic in the south-eastern Massif Central and the bordering Rhone Valley,
humans collected almost all their raw materials from various secondary outcrop which can be distinguished
by the inherent characteristics of the materials. Similar lithic facies are unlikely to be encountered
on two or more different natural outcrops and every artefact shows a surface that is well enough
preserved to be studied according to a morphoscopic analysis at various magnifications. For all sites,
some more remote sources were also exploited. However, most of the supposed exogenous materials,
such as some Cretaceous flints identified in the Velay assemblages of Sainte-Anne I and Baume-Valle´e for
example, come from the heart of the massif where they occur in secondary alluvial deposits. Nevertheless,
the extent of the foraging territories as revealed by raw materials sourcing covers a large band of
various relief between the western and southern Causses, the Rhoˆne corridor and the northern Limagne
and Forez plains and animal species hunted by these groups express an environmental mosaic which fits
with the image of landscape given by the raw materials.
humans collected almost all their raw materials from various secondary outcrop which can be distinguished
by the inherent characteristics of the materials. Similar lithic facies are unlikely to be encountered
on two or more different natural outcrops and every artefact shows a surface that is well enough
preserved to be studied according to a morphoscopic analysis at various magnifications. For all sites,
some more remote sources were also exploited. However, most of the supposed exogenous materials,
such as some Cretaceous flints identified in the Velay assemblages of Sainte-Anne I and Baume-Valle´e for
example, come from the heart of the massif where they occur in secondary alluvial deposits. Nevertheless,
the extent of the foraging territories as revealed by raw materials sourcing covers a large band of
various relief between the western and southern Causses, the Rhoˆne corridor and the northern Limagne
and Forez plains and animal species hunted by these groups express an environmental mosaic which fits
with the image of landscape given by the raw materials.
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