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IV.—Châtelperron: a New Survey of its Palaeolithic Industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

A. D. Lacaille
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Some years ago the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, London, acquired the prehistoric collections resulting from the late Dr. Joseph Bailleau's excavations and researches in the Allier, that département which forms part of the old province of Bourbonnais, Central France (fig. I). The most important series is the classic one from a multiple cave, La Grotte des Fées, in the commune of Châtelperron. Stone and bone artifacts from here have long been held to typify the first stage of French Upper Palaeolithic culture. Assuch, the character of the most outstanding part of this industrial output is now familiar from innumerable references based on the writings of the Abbé H. Breuil, who in 1911 drew a number of inferences from the artifacts. These views have been fully supported since by evidence from elsewhere. However, credit is due in the first place to Bailleau for having attracted attention to thearchaeology of Châtelperron. Lecturing in 1866 he first mentioned his researches, and some years later he published a more detailed account of the discoveries, but in the state of knowledge then prevailing the full significance of the objects could not be appreciated. Now, having examined virtually all the known partof the Bailleau collection, and having classified quantities of other material from Châtelperron, added in different ways since Breuil referred to some of the relics, the present writer thinks that new features and certain aspects may usefully be brought to notice. That he can supplement previous communications is due to the opportunity he has had to study the remarkable collection handed over bythe executors of Dr. Bailleau's estate and also to information given him on the Palaeolithic lots by the Abbé G.-H. Pépin, Curé of Neuvy-lès-Moulins (Allier) and M. R. Sadourny, Moulins (Allier).

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 92 , 1947 , pp. 95 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1947

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References

page 95 note 1 The cave is known diversely in the locality as La Boîte aux Fées, La Cave aux Fées, and La Grotte des Fées. The last designation, being the best known from Dr. Bailleau's consistent reference to the main site as such, is adhered to in these pages.

page 95 note 2 Breuil, H., ‘Les subdivisions du Paléolithique Supérieur et leur signification’,Compte Rendu de la XIVe Session (2e édition, 1937), Congrés international d'anthropologie et d'archéologie préhistoriques, Geneva, 1912 (reprint), p. 17Google Scholar.

page 95 note 3 ‘Études De Morphologie Paléolithique. L'industrie de la grotte de Châtelperron (Allier)et d'autres gisements similaires’, in Revue anthropologique, xxi, Janvier 1911, pp. 29–37Google Scholar.

page 95 note 4 ‘De l'Âge de la Pierre dans le Bourbonnais’, Assises scientifiques du Bourbonnais, 1866; published at Moulins, 1867, p. 17Google Scholar.

page 95 note 5 L'Homme pendant la période quatemaire dans le Bourbonnais, Moulins, 1872, pp. 14–32Google Scholar.

page 95 note 6 G. de Mortillet, however, had already bracketed the Chatelperron output with other industries which he held to mark the earliest stage of the ‘cave period’. Matériaux, iii, 1867, p. 191Google Scholar.

page 96 note 1 MacCurdy, George Grant, Human Origins (1924), ii, 340Google Scholar.

page 97 note 1 Cit. supra, p. 95, and n. 5.

page 98 note 1 Bailleau, , 1872, loc.cit. supra.Google Scholar

page 98 note 2 The author has to thank the above-named scientists for having kindly examined series of mammalian bones from Châtelperron. Their suggestions, especially in regard to the larger bone implements (infra, pp. 114.15), have been most helpful.

page 100 note 1 The Sturge Collection in the British Museum includes ten specimens from Châtelperron. Seven of these are blades and flakes, and three bones. The Sturge Collection of Flints (Foreign), British Museum, 1937, p. 118Google Scholar.

page 101 note 1 ‘La Ferrassie …’, in Préhistoire, iii (1934), pp. 36–43.Google Scholar

page 101 note 2 Ibid., p. 38.

page 102 note 1 Breuil, H., ‘Observations on the Pre-Neolithic Industries of Scotland’, in Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot. lvi (1921-1922), p. 263, and n.Google Scholar

page 102 note 2 Cf. Mr. W. J. Lewis Abbott's finds in a kitchen-midden at Hastings. Natural Science, xi (July and August, 1897), P. 45. and pl. VIGoogle Scholar.

page 103 note 1 Peyrony, D., op. cit. (1934), pp. 40–1, fig.40, no. 8, and fig. 41, nos. 1–4.Google Scholar

page 103 note 2 Op. cit. (1911), p. 31, fig. 2Google Scholar.

page 103 note 3 Evans, John, Ancient Stone Implements (1872), p. 272Google Scholar. Op. cit. (1911), p. 31Google Scholar.

page 104 note 1 Op. cit. (1911), pp. 36–7, and fig. 6, nos. 42–3.Google Scholar

page 104 note 2 Peyrony, D., op. cit. (1934), p. 38.Google Scholar

page 104 note 3 Ibid., pp. 43-52, and fig. 43, nos. 6, 10, and 11.

page 104 note 4 Breuil, H., op. cit. (1911), p. 37,Google Scholar and fig. 7, no. 8; also infra, p. 112.

page 104 note 5 Ibid., pp. 35-6, and fig. 6, nos. 39–41.

page 104 note 6 Ibid., p. 36, and fig. 6, no. 41.

page 105 note 1 Op. cit. (1912 and 1937), fig. 8, no. 1.Google Scholar

page 105 note 2 Peyrony, D., op. cit. (1930), p. 37,Google Scholar and fig. 16, nos. 2 and 3.

page 105 note 3 E.g. at Tabaterie, La Gonterie (Dordogne): Darpeix, A., ‘Quelques observations sur le Moustérien du gisement Sandougne, à Tabaterie, commune de La Gonterie (Dordogne)’, in Compte Rendu de la Onzième Session, Congrès Préhistorique de France, Périgueux, 1934, pp. 366–72 and four figsGoogle Scholar.

page 105 note 4 Op. cit. (1934)Google Scholar.

page 107 note 1 Op. cit. (1934), p. 9, and examples in fig. 6Google Scholar.

page 109 note 1 Op. cit. (1930), pp. 15Google Scholar and 24, and examples in figs. 6 and 11.

page 109 note 2 Op. cit. (1911), pp. 37–40Google Scholar.

page 109 note 3 Ibid.

page 109 note 4 Ibid., p. 37.

page 109 note 5 Peyrony, D., Éléments de Préhistoire, Ussel, 1933, p. 57Google Scholar.

page 109 note 6 Peyrony, D., ‘Le Moustier …’, in Revue Anthropologique, 1930, nos. 1–3Google Scholar and 4-6 (offprint), pp. 23-4, and figs. 10-11.

page 109 note 7 Peyrony, D., op. cit. (1933), p. 58Google Scholar.

page 109 note 8 The Sturge Collection (Foreign), p. 25. A bibliography is given.

page 109 note 9 Études De Morphologie Paléolithique. I. La transition du Moustérien vers l'Aurignacien àl'abri Audi et au Moustier’, in Revue de l'École d'Anthropologie, 1909, p. 320Google Scholar.

page 110 note 1 Lacaille, A. D., ‘Contribution à l'étude du Paléolithique Supérieur du Gâtinais’, in Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française, xxix (1932), pp. 272–3, and fig. ICrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 110 note 2 ‘La Madeleine …’, Publications de l'Institut International d'Anthropologie, no. 2 (Paris, 1928), pp. 27–9,Google Scholar and fig. 12, nos. 2 and 3.

page 110 note 3 Ibid., pp. 82, 85–6; and fig. 46, nos. 1–2.

page 110 note 4 Baron Louis Bégouen and Commandant E.Octobon brought up the subject at the Prehistoric Congress at Périgueux inSeptember 1934. ‘Outillage en os du Paléolithique Supérieur’, in Compte Rendu de la Onzième Session, Congrès Préhistorique de France, Périgueux, 1934, pp. 186–8.Google Scholar In a footnote (p. 186) these authors name a few prehistorians whose records of bones utilized and prepared for employment as tools seem to have been passed over.

Commandant Octobon returned to the question two years later. His masterly communication ‘Outillage paléolithique banal en os’ (by a printer's error entitled ‘neolithique’ in the Compte Rendu) treats the matter fully from the angles of typology and technology. Compte Rendu de la Douzieme Session, Congrès Préhistorique de France, Toulouse and Foix, 1936, pp. 303–30.Google Scholar On the same occasion Count Bégouen and Baron Bégouen contributedvery useful observations on Magdalenian rude tools of bone from Pyrenean sites, flaked in the same way as flints. ‘Quelques esquilles d'os, du Magdalénien, travaillés comme des silex’, in ibid., pp. 685-8. How rarely authoritative opinions have been voiced in this connexion since1907 appears from the fact that they could cite only seven papers (pp. 685-6).

page 112 note 1 Op.cit. (1911), p. 37Google Scholar.

page 112 note 2 ‘The Use of Bone Implements in theOld Palaeolithic’, in Antiquity, 1938, pp. 56–67Google Scholar.

page 112 note 3 Breuil, H., op. cit. (1911), p. 37,Google Scholar and fig. 7, no. 8.

page 112 note 4 Op. cit. (1934)Google Scholar.

page 112 note 5 ‘Les industries “aurignaciennes” dans le bassin de la Vézère’, in Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française, xxvii (1930), pp. 543–59Google Scholar. M. Peyrony's argument is summed up by Professor D. A. E. Garrod, F.S.A., in her ‘The Upper Palaeolithic in the Light of Recent Discovery’, in Proc. Prehist. Soc., N.S., vol. iv, pt. i (1938), p.4Google Scholar.

page 112 note 6 Op. cit. (1911), p. 37,Google Scholar and fig. 7, no. 6.

page 112 note 7 Bailleau, , op. cit. (1872), p. 29,Google Scholar and pl. I, no. 6.

page 112 note 8 Ibid., p. 29, and li. I, no. 5.

page 113 note 1 Op. cit. (1911), p. 37,Google Scholar and fig. 7, no. 1.

page 114 note 1 Op. cit. (1911), p. 37,Google Scholar and fig. 7, nos. I and 9.

page 114 note 2 Ibid., p. 37 n.

page 114 note 3 Dr. Stephen and Professor Janikowski consider that this belongs to one of the cervidae, probably Giant Deer, the so-called Irish Elk. Dr. Stephen, A. C., in litt., Edinburgh, Ist July 1941Google Scholar.

page 115 note 1 The various methods of converting the jaw-bones of beavers into tools described by A. de Mortillet involve examples treated in much the same way as the subject of the paragraph above. ‘Emploi des dents de Castor aux temps néolithiques’, in Revue Anthropologique, xxvi (1916), pp. 409–18Google Scholar.

page 115 note 2 Bailleau, , op. cit. (1872), pp. 30–1,Google Scholar and pl. 1, nos. 22–3.

page 116 note 1 Op. cit. (1872), p. 30, and pl. I, nos. 22 and 23Google Scholar.

page 116 note 2 Ibid., and pl. I, no. 16.

page 116 note 3 Ibid., and pl. I, no. 21. Buisson, E. M., ‘La Grotte des Fées à Châtelperron’, in Compte Rendu de la Onzième Session,Congrès Préhistorique de France, Périgueux, 1934, pp. 184–5.Google Scholar This paper was an appeal by M. Buisson and the Marquis Henri de Pardieu (ibid., p. 185) for action to be taken against the present proprietor's refusal to allow a new excavation to be made at the classic cave-station, M. Buisson referred to the unpublished notes of Dr. Bailleau in the keeping of M. Sadougny, Moulins.

page 117 note 1 Op. cit. (1938)Google Scholar.

page 117 note 2 Director until his retirement at the end of 1945.