Henri Breuil Research Articles

Taphonomic and technological analyses of Lower Palaeolithic bone tools from Clacton-on-Sea, UK

The exceptional survival of Middle Pleistocene wooden spears at Schöningen (Germany) and Clacton-on-Sea (UK) provides tantalizing evidence for the widespread use of organic raw materials by early humans. At Clacton, less well-known organic artefacts include modified bones that were identified by the Abbé Henri Breuil in the 1920s. Some of these pieces were described and figured by Hazzledine Warren in his classic 1951 paper on the flint industry from the Clacton Channel, but they have been either overlooked in subsequent studies or dismissed as the product of natural damage. We provide the first detailed analysis of two Clactonian bone tools found by Warren and a previously unrecognized example recovered in 1934 during excavations directed by Mary Leakey. Microscopic examination of percussion damage suggests the bones were used as knapping hammers to shape or resharpen flake tools. Early Palaeolithic bone tools are exceedingly rare, and the Clacton examples are the earliest known organic knapping hammers associated with a core-and-flake (Mode 1) lithic technology. The use of soft hammers for knapping challenges the consensus that Clactonian flintknapping was undertaken solely with hard hammerstones, thus removing a major technological and behavioural difference used to distinguish the Clactonian from late Acheulean handaxe (Mode 2) industries.

HF01-15 FIRST SEX - THE NATUFIAN STATUE

You have accessJournal of UrologyCME1 May 2022HF01-15 FIRST SEX - THE NATUFIAN STATUE Nikil Sairam, and Michael Moran Nikil SairamNikil Sairam More articles by this author , and Michael MoranMichael Moran More articles by this author View All Author Informationhttps://doi.org/10.1097/JU.0000000000002541.15AboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareFacebookLinked InTwitterEmail Abstract INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: The hunter-gatherer’s who eked out a tenuous survival strategy during the last phases of the Bolling-Allerod Epipaleolithic period certainly procreated. These pre-literate peoples are the first to demonstrate sexual practices in artwork millennia prior to written language. The British movie of 1966 starring Raquel Welch as Loana, One Million Years BC failed to capture the sexuality of the caveman and cavewoman as well as this actual sculpted piece. METHODS: Much of the published writings on or about the Natufian cultures were gathered and utilized to better understand the sexual practices of these peoples. Dorothy Garrod (1892-1968) famed daughter and only surviving child of Archibald Garrod was the discoverer of the Natufian culture and peoples in 1928. Her mentor, Abbé Henri Breuil discovered a rare calcite statue, known as the “Ain Sakhri’ figurine that dates roughly to 9,000 BCE and identified by him to be Garrod’s Natufian culture. RESULTS: The figurine has undergone extensive investigations and was created upon a calcite cobble. It was sculptured to show a couple in coitus as well as being a phallic illustration. The artist utilized a pointed, probable stone chisel to remove pieces and make the delicate, copulating figures. The two entwined figures are locked in a forever intimate coital scene, presumably a female and a male, arms and legs wrapped around one another in a sitting position. CONCLUSIONS: The origin of human sexuality is linked to the development of mankind itself, well documented by modern genetic paleoanthropological investigations into mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam. The hominin lineage has recently experienced a modern Renaissance with rapid expansion in our knowledge about the evolution within Africa, correctly hypothesized by Charles Darwin. …”the statuette…had never been above ground, where it would have faded and worn away; on the contrary it bore ash marks, evidence of an existing undisturbed level, but no of clay as it would have been the case if in a cave.” Eminent social anthropologists believe that sex cannot be understood except through its social and political setting may apply to primitive civilizations that have been studied in the modern era, but these rules have difficult applications to the paleolithic era. So little is known about the ancient Natufian culture that is pre-pottery, pre-literate, pre-metallurgy but obviously not pre-sexual or erotic. Source of Funding: None © 2022 by American Urological Association Education and Research, Inc.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 207Issue Supplement 5May 2022Page: e217 Advertisement Copyright & Permissions© 2022 by American Urological Association Education and Research, Inc.MetricsAuthor Information Nikil Sairam More articles by this author Michael Moran More articles by this author Expand All Advertisement PDF DownloadLoading ...

Reassessment of the ‘Abbevillien’ in the perspective of new discoveries from the Lower Palaeolithic and Quaternary sites of Abbeville (Somme, northern France)

ABSTRACTNorth‐West Europe yields few traces of early human occupation, in particular for the Acheulean. In this context, the Somme Valley in northern France offers a route to Britain during various Pleistocene low sea levels, and has provided numerous evidence of Lower Palaeolithic human occupation through fieldwork initiated during the 19th century. These localities are associated with the original definition in the 1930s by the French prehistorian Abbé Henri Breuil of the ‘Abbevillien’ (Abbevillian facies), based on lithic pieces including crudely made bifaces recovered in particular in some famous key localities of Abbeville, Carpentier, Léon and Moulin Quignon quarries. The history of the term and its definition subsequently gave rise to debates concerning the chronocultural framework of Palaeolithic assemblages among the scientific community of prehistorians over time, from Jacques Boucher de Perthes, Gabriel de Mortillet, Geoffroy d'Ault du Mesnil, Victor Commont, Henri Breuil and François Bordes. New investigations at these three localities, all associated with the High Terrace of the Somme system, pushed back the age of the expansion of the Acheulean both in northern France and in Western Europe to c. 670–650 000 years. They imply that early hominins were able to settle in North‐West Europe during both climatic temperate and cold phases. Our work, including new excavations and associated field observations of the three Abbeville localities involved at the onset of the controversy, allows a re‐examination of the Abbevillian and contributes to the discussion of the history of Prehistoric Science and the Earliest ‘Acheuleans’ in North‐West Europe.

Les terrasses fluviatiles quaternaires de la Somme à Abbeville : 150 ans de recherches mêlant géologie et archéologie, de Boucher de Perthes à aujourd’hui

Paleolithic localities associated with fossil fluvial formations of the Somme River at Abbeville have played a significant role in the recognition of human antiquity. From the end of the 18th century, the work carried out in particular by the “Société d’émulation d’Abbeville” led to the emergence of studies in the Somme valley on both Quaternary Geology and Prehistory. It was within this scholarly society that Jacques Boucher de Perthes initiated his research on the famous localities of Menchecourt, Hospital and Moulin Quignon in 1837. These observations were quickly confirmed by geologists such as Albert Gaudry, Charles-Joseph Buteux or Joseph Prestwich. It was the latter who introduced the Abbeville deposits into the United-Kingdom scientist community and his observations were used as early as 1859 by Charles Lyell to demonstrate the antiquity of the archaeological remains collected from these localities. However, the controversy surrounding by the discovery of the human jaw of Moulin Quignon (1863–1864), which undermined the credibility of this locality for a long time, led to the decrease of the archaeological researches in the Somme valley, and in particular in Abbeville, but it then resumed quite quickly. However, if the work carried out by Geoffroy d’Ault du Mesnil from 1875 to 1898 had the merit to reaffirm the archaeological importance of the Abbeville deposits and to reveal the complexity of their Quaternary records, the geographical and stratigraphic imprecision resulting from these rare publications, coupled with the gradual abandonment of the various gravel pits whose exploitation he followed, cast a significant discredit on these discoveries and on the stratigraphical observations he made there. The researches carried out then by Victor Commont at Carpentier Quarry between 1904 and 1918 were characterized by the excellence of the stratigraphic and iconographic data he produced for each of the studied sites. However the absence of archaeological discoveries in the fluvial deposits he studied lead the prehistorians who succeeded him increasingly doubted of the veracity of Ault's observations, despite the efforts made by Abbé Henri Breuil to reconcile these with Commont's observations. Between the two world wars, Breuil and Léon Aufrère resumed the study of the Abbeville deposits then still accessible, tried to ensure their preservation, through the purchase and protection of the Carpentier and Léon quarries, a decisive intervention in the archaeological rehabilitation of these deposits. These works were at the origin of the chronostratigraphic studies carried out on these major localities of the ancient European prehistory until today. Over the past ten years, some of these localities have been studied again, thus largely confirming the observations made by the elders (Boucher de Perthes, d’Ault du Mesnil, Commont) and validating the major place of Abbeville in the understanding of ancient prehistory settlement of northwestern Europe.

Entanglements: the Role of Finger Flutings in the Study of the Lived Lives of Upper Paleolithic Peoples

During the Upper Paleolithic, Ice Age peoples in Europe and Australia used their fingers to trace figurative and non-figurative images in soft sediments that lined the walls and ceilings of the limestone caves they encountered. The resulting images, while fragile, are preserved in at least 70 caves with the oldest dating to approximately 36,000 years ago. During the first 100 years of the study of Paleolithic cave imagery, these finger flutings were largely ignored. Though they make up a larger percentage of cave art than any other form, they are enigmatic and not always visually appealing. In 1912, Henri Breuil famously referred to them as “traits parasites” (parasite lines) and deleted them from his re-drawings of cave images, believing they detracted from the figurative art. Flutings have been interpreted alternately as doodling, serpent or water images, the residue of surface preparation for making, and evidence of the moment when a shaman touches the “skin” of the otherworld. In this paper, we argue that there are three reasons why finger flutings have taken on greater significance in the study of Pleistocene visual cultures. First, theories concerning the meaning and relevance of finger flutings were developed without supporting evidence as no methodology existed by which to study flutings until the beginning of the twenty-first century. Second, there has been a broadening of the definition of “art” in a Paleolithic context to include categories of materials, including finger flutings, which would traditionally have been excluded from consideration. Third, there has been a concomitant shift from a focus on the final product—“the artwork” to an exploration of the embodied process of manufacturing the imagery—the “work” of art. Finger flutings carry with them physical evidence of this process. Finally, by presenting a detailed study of finger flutings at Gargas Cave (France), we consider what is gained by including finger flutings in the study of Paleolithic art and what this “archaeology of intimacy” can tell us about the lived lives of Ice Age peoples.

Malligheden. Een Noord-Franse gietmal in een Nederlands museum

Saved for Science? (Summary, already written in 2008 by Jay Butler). Especially in northern France, much has been lost in the course of the wars that devastated the area, but much has been saved too. Particularly intriguing among the saved Bronze Age objects are the bronze casting moulds, which in prehistoric times must have been common objects, but which are now scarce because most examples would have been sacrificed to the smith’s ever-ready melting pot. One such object, a finely preserved half-mould for a socketed axe (of the Plainseau family, with slight plastic imitation wings) is in the possession of the Noordbrabants Museum in ’s-Hertogenbosch. It was purchased by the museum in 1962, for the sum of 50 Dutch guilders, from a reputable Eindhoven antique dealer, Dirven, in that city. The museum records state only that it was found in the north of France or in Belgium. A not uninteresting part of the work of a researcher working on the Bronze Age is the tracking down of missing finds: for example, a half-mould for a socketed axe, said to have been found in the surroundings of Amiens, which was seen, described and (well) drawn by Henri Breuil before 1902. This half-mould was said to be part of a hoard of bronze implements, which included spearheads, pins and socketed axes. Also belonging to the hoard was a core (also of bronze) for casting socketed axes.

Polyschematic prehistory at the dusk of colonialism: Internationalism, racism, and science in Henri Breuil and Jan Smuts

Previous articleNext article No AccessPolyschematic prehistory at the dusk of colonialism: Internationalism, racism, and science in Henri Breuil and Jan SmutsStefanos GeroulanosStefanos Geroulanos Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Res Volume 69-70Spring-Autumn 2018 Published in association with the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/701218 Views: 218Total views on this site Copyright © 2018 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. No part of this issue may be reproduced without permission of the publisher.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The training period of Henri Breuil and his first works: a new way to approach prehistory and palaeontology?

Lorsqu’Henri Breuil (1877-1961) commence ses travaux de paléontologie, le contexte est relativement favorable à la contribution des catholiques aux études de préhistoire. Ayant suivi les cours de l’abbé Guibert, Breuil se passionne pour la préhistoire et, jeune prêtre, il obtient de se consacrer entièrement à cette science. Cet article se propose d’analyser les premiers travaux d’Henri Breuil sur l’art rupestre et de souligner le lien avec sa personnalité et le renouveau qu’il apporta à ce moment dans la professionnalisation, la manière d’envisager et d’exercer la paléontologie. De plus, l’abbé Breuil est emblématique de la professionnalisation et de la spécialisation des intellectuels chrétiens. Vers 1860, les abbés paléontologues s’intéressaient un peu à tout en paléontologie, anthropologie physique et préhistoire, voire en archéologie ; entre 1900 et 1910, Breuil finit par se spécialiser dans l’art des cavernes même s’il s’intéresse aussi aux outils et ossements préhistoriques.

El Mito de Atapuerca: Orígenes, Ciencia, Divulgación. Oliver Hochadel. Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. 2013, 383 pp. 24€, paper. ISBN 978-84-939695-4-7.

<i>El Mito de Atapuerca: Orígenes, Ciencia, Divulgación</i>. Oliver Hochadel. Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. 2013, 383 pp. 24€, paper. ISBN 978-84-939695-4-7.

Ciencia y creencia en la construcción del concepto de religión paleolítica

The study of prehistory established itself as a scientific discipline during the second half of the nineteenth century. The main issues discussed by this new science centered on the origins of humankind, society, technology, art and religion; this intellectual process of the creation of ideas, concepts and categories was projected on the archaeological finds. When archaeological evidence was found that could be interpreted as proof of the existence of religious beliefs in Paleolithic times, there were various reactions and interpretations among prehistorians. The clash between evolutionism and the Judeo-Christian religious tradition was a key element in the development of these different discourses; these two viewpoints implied opposite ways of thinking about human nature. This paper discusses this diversity of narratives, specifically in the context of France, through the contributions of four authors, each with different ideologies and sociopolitical circumstances: Gabriel de Mortillet, Emile Cartailhac, Salomon Reinach and Henri Breuil.

¿Peligrosos intrusos o influencia benéfica? El papel del Institut de Paléontologie Humaine en el desarrollo de la arqueología prehistórica en España (1900-1936)

In this paper I examine the role of international scholars in the making of prehistoric research in Spain. I focus on the activities of the Institut de Paléontologie Humaine (IPH), created in Paris in 1910. In the years immediately preceding the First World War, two IPH professors, the French Henri Breuil and the German Hugo Obermaier, did extensive research in the prehistoric archaeological sites and the decorated caves of the Iberian Peninsula. Specialists from all over Europe and the USA travelled to Spain to collaborate with them, and the results of the their work were presented internationally. Nevertheless, the professional exchange with their Spanish counterparts soon became fraught with scientific disputes and personal quarrels, when some Spanish scholars accused them of seizing the relics of Spain’s national past, describing them as agents of scientific colonialism. Taking this case as reference, I set out to overcome the (false) dichotomy between nationalism and internationalism in the writing of history of archaeology and I seek to explore the influence of the nationalist paradigm on the historiography of prehistoric archaeology in Spain.

Las raíces de los primeros libros de texto de Cambridge sobre la prehistoria europea: un análisis de los viajes formativos de Miles Burkitt a España y Francia

This article examines the roots of the first textbooks produced in Cambridge on European prehistory. The first dedicated lecturer in prehistoric archaeology in Britain, Miles Burkitt, authored these textbooks. Two types of information, archival and printed sources, will be used as the basis for the analysis. A description will be given of the events that made Burkitt´s presence in Spain possible, as a companion of the French archaeologist Henri Breuil, and the program and itinerary they followed in 1913 and 1914 will be detailed. The last section of the article will explore the ways in which Burkitt subsequently translated the knowledge he acquired in his fieldwork into the textbooks that would be used by many generations of Cambridge students.

Œuvres d’art méconnues de Laugerie-Basse (Dordogne). Collection Capitaine Maurice Bourlon – Institut de paléontologie humaine, Paris

During the realization of an inventory and a study of portable art and jewelry collections, kept in the Institut de paléontologie humaine in Paris (France), we have found objects coming from excavations in Laugerie-Basse realized by the Capitaine Maurice Bourlon between 1910 and 1913. This collection includes lithic and bone industry as well as portable art and jewelry. It was published after Bourlon's death in 1916. Henri Breuil was in charge of the study of the engraved pieces of art (on stone, bone and reindeer antlers). Of the 17 objects he drawn and studied in that publication, only six were found so far, including four remarkable objects presented in the following pages.

Samuel Hazzledine Warren and the construction of a chronological framework for the British Quaternary in the early twentieth century

Samuel Hazzledine Warren (1872–1958), a geologist from Essex, made a critical contribution to British Quaternary research in the first half of the twentieth century. His role has been overshadowed by the more prestigious schemes of his peers and is largely forgotten today. However, Warren's archaeological and geological observations, particularly his work at Clacton-on-Sea, assisted the efforts made by his more celebrated contemporaries to construct a reliable chronological framework for the British Quaternary. His research on the Clacton Channel and his discovery of the Clactonian industry complemented the archaeological scheme developed by Henri Breuil in the 1930s and the geological stages created by King and Oakley for the Lower Thames Valley in 1936. Warren worked at a particularly interesting time in the history of geology. He observed the rise in prominence of early palaeolithic industries as chronological markers, witnessed their influence on geological interpretations in the 1930s, and experienced the troubles which ensued when this chronological aid fell from grace in the 1940s and 1950s.

New Light on the Earliest Hominid Occupation in East Asia

New Light on the Earliest Hominid Occupation in East Asia

La formation des élites scientifiques chinoises en Europe dans la première moitié du XX e siècle : l'exemple du préhistorien Pei Wen Chung

At the beginning of the XXth century a new intellectual elite appears in China. Geology, mineralogy, geography and medicine are the first profitable domains of this movement. In time of the creation of Geological Survey of China and the support of the western countries, the prehistoric archaeology is going to take advantage in this scientific revival. Having followed the educations of the big western universities, young particularly promising Chinese scholars prospect and make important discoveries. One of them, Pei Wen Chung, is so going to come to take the lessons of Abbé Henri Breuil in France, during more than two years (1935-1937) at the Institute of human palaeontology.

Un prêtre, un savant dans la marche vers l’institutionnalisation de la préhistoire. L’abbé Henri Breuil (1877-1961)

A Priest, a Scholar in the March toward the Institutionalization of Prehistory: Abbe Henri Breuil (1877-1961) Although prehistory as a scientific discipline was born in France, it would have to wait until the end of the first half of the 20th century to receive complete acceptance by French universities. Numerous prestigious scholars had a determining role in this movement of studies of the origins of mankind toward institutionalization. One of the leaders of this movement, abbe Breuil (1877-1961), by reason of the magnitude of his scientific activity and his personality, occupies a considerable and singular place. Very early animated by a double vocation, the priesthood and science, he positioned himself to pursue both throughout his life. He was able to accomplish his scientific work while freed of parish obligations. Attached to his faith and his religious calling, he wanted to bring together prehistoric studies and the Church. He was a determined man who knew how to position himself and militate for scholars becoming real professionals, men who had the time and the means necessary to consecrate themselves to their research, to do fieldwork, explore and publish. Thanks to Prince Albert I of Monaco, who in 1910 offered abbe Breuil the chair of prehistoric ethnography at his Institute of Human Paleontology, he was able to become the first professional prehistorian and devoted himself entirely to his research. In 1928 the College de France created for abbe Breuil the first chair dedicated to this science, and in 1938, with his election to the Academie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, this discipline finally received official and institutional recognition in France.

Dorothy Garrod, first woman Professor at Cambridge

In May 1939, the accomplished Palaeolithic archaeologist, Dorothy Garrod, was elected Cambridge's Professor of Archaeology — the first woman to hold a Chair at either Cambridge or Oxford. Garrod was well qualified for the position in several ways. Trained by R.R. Marett at Oxford and the Abbé Henri Breuil in France, she was renowned for her excavations in Gibraltar, Palestine, Southern Kurdistan and Bulgaria. By 1939, Garrod was one of Britain's finest archaeologists. She had discovered the wellpreserved skull fragments of ‘Abel’, a Neanderthal child, in Gibraltar, identified the Natufianculture while excavating Shukbah near Jerusalem, directed the large, long-term excavations at Mt Carmel, established the Palaeolithic succession for that crucial region and then travelled, in 1938, to explore the important Palaeolithic cave of Bacho Kiro in Bulgaria. Published reports of her excavations had appeared promptly and were very favourably reviewed. The prehistorian, Grahame Clark, who was to succeed her to the Disney Chair in 1952, described Garrod's The Stone Age of Mount Carmel (1937) as ‘pure gold’ (Clark 1937: 488).

El Abate Henri Breuil (1877-1961). Eduardo Ripoll Perelló

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsEl Abate Henri Breuil (1877-1961). Eduardo Ripoll Perelló Lawrence Guy StrausLawrence Guy Straus Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Anthropological Research Volume 51, Number 4Winter, 1995 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/jar.51.4.3630147 Views: 2Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1995 The University of New MexicoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:David Morris Telling impressions: Breuil's 1929 visit to rock art and Stone Age sites near Kimberley, South Africa, Quaternary International 614 (Mar 2022): 164–174.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2021.06.020

L'Abbe Henri Breuil: Archaeologist

In his otherwise excellent book, A History of Archaeological Thought, Trigger (1989: 156) makes only one passing reference in a half-sentence to the central figure in the development of Paleolithic prehistory in the first half of the 20th century -- and manages to get his name wrong, confusing Henri Breuil with his long-time, close colleague, Hugo Obenrnaie . Thirty years after his death, Breuil's role in the history of Old World prehistory required more serious consideration. He was a seminal figure not only in rock art studies, but also in the archaeology of at least France, Spain, England, Portugal, South Africa, and China. Before I had read Trigger's work or Sackett's (1991) critique of my supposed misinterpretation of Breuil's theoretical stance (e.g., Straus 1986, 1987), I had presented a review of Breuil's contributions in the 1991 Annual Snead-Wertheim Lecture in Anthropology and History at the University of New Mexico (Straus n.d.). The following is a brief summary of some of my conclusions.