Le site de Millon (Malay-le-Petit, Yonne, France). Du Gravettien récent dans la vallée de la Vanne ?

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The site from Millon (Malay-le-Petit, Yonne, France). Late Gravettian occupation in the Vanne valley ? In areas from France where caves and rockshelters are missing, as in the Bassin of Paris, each rocky chaos was early investigated by prehistorians seeking for natural living places of prehistoric human groups. From 1911 to 1915, an excavation was performed on such a site by Augusta Hure, a famous local researcher, at a place called Millon (Malay-le-Petit, Yonne, France) in the Northern Burgondy at the south-eastern margin of the Basin of Paris. A large amount of lithic industry from “ Reindeer age period” was recovered and attributed to the Upper Aurignacian with respect to the cultural framework in use in the early 20th century. Test pits from Olivier Bernardini in 1982 failed to find a preserved archaeological layer. After a reappraisal of the Hure lithic collection in 2000, L. Klaric has considered that the industry was a Gravettian one. He also hypothesised that a correlation with a late phase of this culture, frequently observed in this region, was highly possible. Here we are dealing with a study of a lithic assemblage (more than 1000 of pieces) from this site recovered through an extensive survey. Typological and technological features of the industry from Millon are in agreement with an attribution to the Late Gravettian. The debitage is orientated toward the production of small blades and bladelets. Theses last are coming from both independent reduction of bladelet cores and final reduction stage of blade cores. Retouched tools are dominated by burins and some may have been designed as bladelet cores. Backed pieces (microgravette type) were abundantly described within Hure collection but they are infrequent in our surface finds. A taphonomic bias is responsible for depletion of smallest tools and even most of the bladelets. The Gravettian industry from Millon is ultimately compared with the one coming from La Pente-des-Brosses (Montigny-sur-Loing), dated to the Late Gravettian.