2017-08-31 05:42:08 • ID: 1649
Quina scrapers from the Rhodanian at Carrière Chaumette
We notice several single and one double scraper with a „Limace“ aspect and a high degree of standardisation. The raw materials are mostly flat Flint pebbles.
This site is located in the eastern Massif Central, at Notre-Dame-de-Boisset near the Loire river valley and some kilometers apart from the famous open-air Palaeolithic sites in the Villerest district such as Vigne Brun (early Gravettian), Le Roche de la Caille and la Goutte-Roffat (a Magdalenian with 182 engraved schist plaquettes) and the Champ- Grand site (Quina Mousterian).
The core reduction is recurrent and unidirectional. The blanks of this strategy are often thick, short and cortical with a triangular cross section.
Discoidal core techniques also occur, especially in the Quina ensembles of the Rhone valley (Carrière Chaumette and Champ Grand).
In most Quina assemblages the blanks were used for the production of lateral or transversal side scrapers with heavy invasive retouches. Resharpening of these artifacts is common. Even flakes of already broken Quina scrapers are recycled into smaller scrapers.
In France the Quina technocomplex has been dated to OIS4 and 3. It is often connected with harsh and cold environments. Some researchers suggested that Quina tools may be the part of a “risk-reducing” strategy, oriented toward the production of “reliable” tools, which would "never fail when they were needed" (Bringmans et al. 2003).
Provenance: P. Vabre (FR)
Resources and images in full resolution:
- Image: 2019-12-01_chaumette_villerest__aggsbach.jpg
- Image: 2020-02-14_chaumette.jpg
- Extern Link: www.persee.fr…pal_1145-3370_2000_num_12_1_1607