Take shelter! The contributions of rock-shelter archaeology to understanding the socio-economic organization of Final Paleolithic/Mesolithic societies in Western France

Summary

In some areas of France, the first archaeological investigations were conducted in rock-shelters, and allowed archaeologists to establish the Paleolithic chronology. Later, in other regions, and influenced by Leroi-Gourhan’s research, archaeologists focused on open-air sites, using spatial organization to create "paleoethnography." In Western France, even if the first excavation of a Palaeolithic site, in 1874, was that of a rockshelter, later, all the investigations focused on coastal open air sites. This is partly a consequence of the geology as the region’s crystalline massif lacks limestone formations. But there are rockshelters in the region; in fact, they are numerous though often small: marine erosion caves, rifts in sandstone cliffs, and granitic boulders. Our research program is investigating these small rockshelters, and first results of the excavation of two early Azilian sites and one Mesolithic shelter, shows that since these sites are usually short, task-oriented occupations, their study is essential to understanding the complexity of past land use strategies.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• The Frison Institute/Geoarchaeology Interest Group Symposium: Archaeology and Geoarchaeology of Rockshelters and Caves

Keywords

Spatial Coverage