L’art mézinien en Europe orientale dans son contexte chronologique, culturel et spirituel

Abstract

The Mezinian peopling of Eastern Europe (also called Eastern Epigravettian) is known through a set of open air sites owning to the same techno-complex, well defined in a short time period between 15 000 and 14 000 BP. The palaeoeconomy of Mezinian is based on an intensive and systematic exploitation of mammoths, completed by other animal species of the regional zoocenose. Tree main types of sites have been identified: sites of natural mammoth bone beds, some of them having been exploited by human groups; residential mammoth bone dwelling sites located near mammoth bone beds and seasonal travelling sites. Numerous circulations have been identified for procurement of various raw materials, specialised hunting or exchanges necessary for human group purposes (planed logistic strategy). The residential dwelling sites, with multiple occupations during several years, are central sites, in charge of the cultural, social and spiritual identification of the group and intergroup relationships inside the regional territory. The symbolic, aesthetic and spiritual manifestation of the Mezinian peopling are produced through the architecture of mammoth bone huts, and also by mobile art, mainly schematic art, by ornaments made in ivory, amber, animal teeth and molluscs with origins from seacoast, fossil and river outcrops: several types of tools and non tools artefacts have been also enriched by a geometrical decoration.