Caune of Arago

The Caune of Arago is a prehistoric site which is on the commune of Tautavel, in the the Eastern Pyrenees, in a vast cavity overhanging a perennial river, the Verdouble. It delivered human remainders allotted to the Homme of Tautavel and lithic vestiges of the Paléolithique inferior.

History of research

Known since the middle of the 19th century for its remainders of fauna, Caune of Arago started to deliver prehistoric industries to J. Abelanet in 1948. Since 1964, it is the subject of systematic excavations directed by Henry de Lumley.

Stratigraphy and chronology

Its powerful filling, thick with ten meters, covers the major part of the average Pléistocène and was the attempt object many at radiometric datings sometimes contradictory ^,^,. Limiting ages from approximately 700 and 350.000 years were obtained by the Datation with uranium-thorium for stalagmitic floors located respectively at the base (floor 0) and the top (floor α) of the stratigraphic sequence.

Unit III

The principal archaeological levels are as a whole III (levels of “grounds” D with G) and would have an age ranging between 300 and 450.000 years. This unit also delivered a certain number of fossil human remainders, of which an incomplete cranium (face, frontal and parietal right) (Arago XXI, ground G) and two mandibles (Arago II, ground G and Arago XIII, ground F) allotted to the Homme of Tautavel.

See also: Man of Tautavel

Industries of the oldest layers of unit III were described as old Tayacien, even of “Tautavélien”. They are carried out primarily in quartz, more rarely in Silex and Quartzite, and comprise Racloir S, many tools with notches (dentils, notches, points of Tayac, nozzles, etc), cut rollers and rare Biface S (less than one per 1000 tools). At the top of unit III (layer E), the double-side ones are proportionally more numerous, which led Henry de Lumley to attach industry to the average Acheuléen.

However these differences are to be moderated insofar as manpower of double-side are very weak in the levels G with D, and where the proportions between technological big classes vary little, whether one considers the whole of industry or only the tools.

The materials used are mainly local (80%) and were taken in the alluvia of Verdouble, but some come from distant zones of about thirty kilometers in the North-East and the south-west of the site, translating a good knowledge of the regional resources and a certain anticipation of the needs.

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