The Middle/Upper Magdalenian transition at Bourrouilla cave in Arancou (Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France): Portable art and context-induced considerations

Abstract

Bourrouilla cave in Arancou (Pyrénées-Atlantiques region, France) is a Paleolithic dwelling site with occupations mostly assigned to the Upper Magdalenian with harpoons. The archeological richness of the levels, the good preservation state and diversity of the remains, which include portable art, make it a major site of the western Pyrenees. It has been excavated meticulously with a fine recording of data for about twenty years. So far, available data for occupations older than the Upper Magdalenian are rare. However, the discovery at the back of the cave of a rib fragment decorated with a particularly detailed horse head feeds our considerations. By its style, this figuration differs much from art works assigned to the Upper Magdalenian; it has obvious connections with the Middle Magdalenian Pyrenean art. This discovery is consistent with the presence in the spoil of a clandestine excavation of half-round rods fragments decorated with spiral patterns of the Isturitz type, and of fork-based spearheads also found in stratigraphy together with truncated microliths. Based on these elements, we formulate the hypothesis that occupation level(s) documenting the middle phase of the Magdalenian and/or the transition between the Late Middle Magdalenian and the Upper Magdalenian with harpoons exist in stratigraphy inside the cave.