The Middle to Upper Paleolithic Site of Abri des Merveilles in Southwestern France: An Assessment of the Integrity and Research Potential of an Historically-Excavated Museum Collection

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

As museum shelves buckle under the weight of virtually forgotten boxes of artifacts, many institutions are questioning the future curation of these historically excavated materials. Much of this material is comprised of Paleolithic artifacts excavated during the infancy of American archaeology abroad. This project was undertaken to evaluate the integrity of a prehistoric lithic collection and to examine the efficacy of utilizing the resulting data for larger research questions. It begins with a detailed history of the site of Abri des Merveilles and the prehistoric environmental context within which the site was formed. Abri des Merveilles was one of the few sites in the Vézère Valley containing both Middle and Upper Paleolithic layers of deposition. Thus, a thorough description of this site contributes significantly to the understanding of the distinction between these two periods throughout the region. The most important aspect of this undertaking was the analysis of the Merveilles lithic collection currently in curation at three American museums. The lithic analysis tested the soundness of the site's historically designated cultural layers and elucidated the positive and negative effects of past excavation and curatorial methods. The analysis also provides a comparative data set for future research in the region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25576