Prospections systématiques d’une vallée entre Rhône et Loire (France). Une cartographie de l’occupation à la fin de l’Acheuléen ?

Abstract

Systematic surveys on the Rhins Valley, a little tributary of the Loire River (South East France), have yielded lithic assemblages for more than 20 years. The number of open-air localities totals at that moment 28. The assemblages are composed for the most of bifaces, cores, including many Levallois cores, and flakes. Although the number of pieces varies in localities, data recorded for more than 20 years are enough to map a small size territory and compare assemblages attributed to the end of the “Acheulean”. Comparison of strategies, debitage and façonnage, provides hypotheses on the type of occupation of the valley, with living spots located on the flint outcrops and asking both a heavy-duty component and flaking products. Some main categories of bifacial tools are present, mainly on flint. The ratio of bifaces and intensity of shaping seems to distinguish the series. The Levallois core technology is used in large quantity associated to diverse other core technologies. These sites located on the plateaus bordering the valley offer the opportunity to describe human occupations on a micro-regional scale, occupations sharing technological common features. These occupations are located between the Saône-Rhône corridor and the isolated basins of the Massif Central. The rhodanian corridor has yielded at that moment few evidence of Acheulean open-air human occupations. These sites attest that systematic surveys have to continue on these areas to complete the knowledge on the occupations.