Le Volgu: A North American Perspective on a Biface Cache from the French Upper Paleolithic

Summary

Le Volgu consists of at least 15 exquisitely manufactured bifacial stone tools (17 were originally reported in 1874) found in Saône-et-Loire near the confluence of the Arroux and Loire Rivers, about 60 km (37 miles) west of Le Solutre, the type site for the Solutrean culture. The assemblage is interpreted as an artifact cache or ritual deposit and the artifacts themselves are considered exemplary of Solutrean bifacial technology. This paper reports the results of applying methods developed for the comparative analysis of the relatively more abundant caches of Clovis materials in North America, to this apparently singular Solutrean cache. In addition to providing a window into Solutrean technology and perhaps into Upper Paleolithic ritual behavior, this comparison of Clovis and Solutrean assemblages serves to test one of the tangible archaeological implications of the “Solutrean Hypothesis” for the origins of some North American populations by evaluating the technological and behavioral equivalence of Solutrean and Clovis artifact caching.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Papers in Honor of Lawrence Guy Straus

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