Rock shelter

A rock shelter (or rock shelter ) is a not very deep cavity being inserted in a rock face, often at the base of this one. Such shelters are particularly frequent in the solid masses Calcaire S, in ic context Karst, where they are dug during the millenia by the gélifraction (erosion by freezing and the thaw) and/or chemical erosion (dissolution). One meets some also but more rarely in other types of rocks, in particular the volvanic rocks (Basalte S for example).
This type of cavity largely open and protected by an overhang was very often occupied by the man Préhistorique in search of ventilated and easy shelters of access, in a permanent way (habitat, burial) or occasional (seasonal camping, halt of hunting, workshop…).

The occupation of a rock shelter can last several thousands of years during which follow one another it of the different tribes using the shelter different ends. The deposits which result from these successive occupations superimpose by filling the shelter little by little, and it is by excavating these sediments layer by layer, ground after ground, which the archeologists put at the day the traces past, establish a Stratigraphie, and interprêtent it while trying to reconstitute the history of the shelter.

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