Châtelperronien

The Châtelperronien (or Castelperronien ) is a cultural facies of transition between the end from the Paléolithique means and the beginning from the Paléolithique superior (approximately - 38 with - 32.000 years before the present).

History

Châtelperronien owes its name with the site of the Cave of the Fairies, with Châtelperron in the Allier. It was defined by the abbot Henri Breuil in 1906. It also corresponds to the old Périgordien defined by D. Peyrony in 1933. This last expression sometimes is still used, in particular by holding of a continuity between Châtelperronien and Gravettien (higher Périgordien).

Geographical distribution

It is primarily present in the south-west of France, in the Pyrenees (Brassempouy, Isturitz, Gargas), in the Dordogne (Ferrassie, Combe Capelle), in the Batch (Roc of Combe, Piage), in Charentes (Saint-Césaire, Quina), in Vienna (Quincay). One also finds it in the basin of the Loire (site éponyme) and the Seine (Arcy-sur-Cure) like in the north of Spain (Cueva Morin, El Pendo).

Characteristics

The lithic Industrie châtelperronienne is characterized by the development of the Débitage of blades, the lengthened glares produced in series and sometimes improved, modified to produce specialized tools (scrapers, gravers, etc). One of the tools on blade characteristic of this facies is the point of Châtelperron (or knife of Châtelperron), presenting a curved back shot down by abrupt final improvements. The shape of this “directing fossil” could be related to a method of hafting using perishable materials which did not reach us.

The other important components of the material culture châtelperronienne are the appearance of the ornament (pendentive in bones or ivory, bored or grooved, fossil teeth arranged for the suspension, etc) and the development of the animal hard matter tools (smoothing tools, pins, punches in bone, etc)

The author of Châtelperronien

It is allowed today in a very consensual way that industries châtelperroniennes were carried out by the last Néandertaliens, right before or contemporainement with the arrival in Europe of the modern first men carrying the Aurignacien. However, the attribution of Châtelperronien in Néandertaliens rests only on two discovered: the indisputable burial néandertalienne of Saint-Césaire, considered as associated with an industry châtelperronienne, and some human remainders of Arcy-sur-Cure, considered as néandertaliens.

Interpretation

Following work of F. Border, Châtelperronien and Aurignacien was regarded a long time as strictly contemporary. According to this author, the stratigraphic sequences of the layers of Rock-in-Combe and of Piage would have shown this contemporaneity by the interstratification of two industries (repeated alternation of the two facies during time).

Within this framework, Châtelperronien was interpreted by certain like a “imitation” by Néandertaliens of the behaviors of the modern men (use of ornament, cutting up of blades, etc) for example following contacts.

However the recent studies showed that supposed interstratifications resulted from rehandlings post-dépositionnels or of problems of reading of stratigraphy. Nothing makes it possible to say at present that the modern Néandertaliens and men côtoyés themselves or attended directly. A growing number of authors considers that the cultural identities of Châtelperronien are not related to the arrival of the carriers of Aurignacien in Western Europe, and that they more probably result from an independent invention by Néandertaliens.

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