Abri Pataud is a karst cave, located at the base of a limestone bluff overlooking the Vézère River in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, in the Dordogne valley of France. The site has important Upper Paleolithic occupations dated between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago. Open to visitors since 1990, Abri Pataud has a museum which displays many of the objects discovered during the excavations.
Discovered in the late 1800s, Pataud was scientifically excavated between 1958 and 1964, under the direction of Hallam L. Movius, then at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. The site contains nine meters (30 feet) of Upper Paleolithic occupations, including 14 separate levels dated between the Aurignacian and the Solutrean. Many of the occupation levels are segregated by sterile layers laid down when the cave was unoccupied, allowing researchers to identify discrete occupations.
Movius' excavations at Abri Pataud are considered to have been innovative and systematic for his time, and because of his detailed maps and manuscripts, researchers have been able to reconstruct and restudy his work, even if the documents are not all published as of yet.
Chronology for Abri Pataud
A tight chronology for the Aurignacian period at Abri Pataud, consisting of conventional radiocarbon dates on animal bone from the various levels, was published in 2011 (Higham et al), along with calibrated dates (calendar years before the present, abbreviated cal BP). See that reference for date suites. The Aurignacian dates on the following table are taken from Higham et al.; Marquer 2010 provided dates for the later sequences.
- Level 1, 24,300 cal BP, Lower Solutrean
- Level 2, 26,300 cal BP, Final Gravettian (or ProtoMagdalenian) with large blades and backed bladelets
- Level 3, 29,325 cal BP, Recent Gravettian with Microgravette points
- Level 4, 30,000-32,000 cal BP, Middle Gravettian, with Noailles burins and Raysse burins facies
- Level 5, 31,960-34,110 cal BP, Early Gravettian (Perigordian), with Gravette points and flechettes de Bayac
- Level 6, 36,200-36,730 cal BP, Aurignacian, between II and IV technocomplexes
- Level 7, 36,640-37,320 cal BP, Aurignacian II, burins and burins busqués
- Level 8, 36,700-37,880 cal BP, Aurignacian II, dominated by scrapers including nose-ended scrapers and Dufour bladelets
- Levels 9-14, 37,000-42,000 cal BP, Early Aurignacian, predominant scrapers, especially carinate scrapers and retouched blades, including Aurignacian blades.
Abri Pataud's archaeological assemblages include a wide diversity of art objects, including paintings, mobile art, rock engravings and beads. Faunal remains are mainly reindeer, but other species including bovines, mammoth, red and roe deer, bear, boar, and chamois have been noted. Hearths were noted in all the occupation levels.
Most hearths at the site consisted of high concentrations of dispersed ash, in circular or oval bowl-shaped depressions. They ranged from small (ca 450 square centimeters or 70 square inches) to large (18,000 sq cm or 2,790 sq in), and had depths between 5-20 cm (2-8 in). The older hearths (from levels 11-14) contained a high abundance of burnt bone, suggesting that bone was used as a fuel (see Marquer for additional information on hearths).
Gravettian at Abri Pataud
Among the important findings at the cave is the Gravettian in evidence at Level 5. Movius' excavations identified a main occupation zone hidden behind a rock fall at the back of the cave, and a refuse midden at the front, where animals were butchered and animal skins were processed. More than 300 pieces of human bone were recovered from the Gravettian layer, all of which belong to Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH). Among these are a complete skull and mandible.
This level included a rich variety of stone and bone tools, animal bone refuse and three human teeth. Level 5's assemblage included 54 personal ornaments, made of animal bones and teeth, mammoth ivory and sea shells, in a variety of shapes and sizes. The majority of the ornaments were made from animal teeth, from fox, red deer, reindeer, cattle, ibex, wolf and bear.
One perforated human tooth was also recovered and is believed to represent a personal ornament; it is a canine which came from the mandible of an adult AMH. Two other human teeth were recovered, one a deciduous upper left molar from a nine-year old, and an upper left incisor of a 10-month old. Neither was perforated.
The Gravettian Level 3 also contained a block on which a venus figurine was carved. This figurine was a low relief carving of a pregnant woman: other engraved rocks in this level were drawings of horse, bison and deer, and various abstract representations.
Other Recent Research
Animal bone from Level 2 were included in a successful attempt to identify ivory and marine mammal bone from other animal bone and antlers using trace elements of chemical markers (reported in Müller and Reiche 2011).
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the guide to Upper Paleolithic, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Chiotti L, and Nespoulet R. 2004. L’apport méthodologique des fouilles de Hallam L. Movius à l’abri Pataud (Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, Dordogne). XXVIe congrès préhistorique de France. Avignon. p 185-195.
Higham T, Jacobi R, Basell L, Ramsey CB, Chiotti L, and Nespoulet R. 2011. Precision dating of the Palaeolithic: A new radiocarbon chronology for the Abri Pataud (France), a key Aurignacian sequence. Journal of Human Evolution 61(5):549-563.
Klaric L. 2007. Regional groups in the European Middle Gravettian: a reconsideration of the Rayssian technology. Antiquity 81(311):176â€"190.
Marquer L, Otto T, Nespoulet R, and Chiotti L. 2010. A new approach to study the fuel used in hearths by hunter-gatherers at the Upper Palaeolithic site of Abri Pataud (Dordogne, France). Journal of Archaeological Science 37(11):2735-2746.
Müller K, and Reiche I. 2011. Differentiation of archaeological ivory and bone materials by micro-PIXE/PIGE with emphasis on two Upper Palaeolithic key sites: Abri Pataud and Isturitz, France. Journal of Archaeological Science 38(12):3234-3243.
Vercoutère C, Giacobini G, and Patou-Mathis M. 2008. Une dent humaine perforée découverte en contexte Gravettien ancien à l’abri Pataud (Dordogne, France). L'Anthropologie 112(2):273-283.
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