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2020-11-17 09:46:54   •   ID: 2214

Who made the Aurignacian?: Aurignacian Blade from Chez les Rois (Charente)

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 1 and 2: This is a typical Aurignacian steeply retouched bilateral 9 cm long thick blade, a surface finding found during the 1950 at Chez les Rois.

The Aurignacian site of Chez les Rois is located in the town of Mouthiers-sur-Boëme, about fifteen kilometers south of Angoulême (Charente)).

It remains still a reference site of the Aurignacian in the Charente and one of the rare European Aurignacian sites that yielded human remains in place.

After first Excavated in 1930 by an Amateur, Mouton and Joffrey excavated the deposit outside the cave between 1948 and 1952 by at a remarkable high level for their time despite minimal resources in a country that was gradually pillaged by the Germans during WW II.

They described a finely made multilayered with rhree Archaeological strata and an Aurignacian succession very similar to that of La Ferrassie in the Perigord. The Aurignacian yielded numerous pierced teeth, mainly from arctic fox (around forty), wolf, bovid, and reindeer.

A page of the fine monographs of the site is shown in Figure 4. Their principal observations and results were confirmed during a sondage in 2005.

The site is important for several reasons:

  • It is a multilayered Aurignacian site with an Aurignacian Ancien (Aurignacien I) at the base and a more involved Aurignacian (Aurignacien II) at the top of the sequence, the latter with la lozenge-shaped spear points (Type Mladec).

    No older nor younger entities are present and therefore the problem of contamination is minimized. Human remains derive from two Aurignacian layers were dated to 28-30 k.a.
    • This age is certainly too recent and may be caused by contamination.

  • A juvenile mandible with cut-marks revealed some Neanderthal features, whereas another mandible is attributed to AHMs. It remains unclear if AHMs used Neanderthal remains for symbolic reasons or that both hominids lived side-by -side and probably both Species created the Aurignacian tools


  • Who made the Aurignacian in Continental Europe? This issue remains an important question. The Archeological evidence is still scare: Beside Les Rois, an association of an indisputable Aurignacian with skeletal remains of AHMs have been observed only from Mladec and dated to uncalibrated 31-30 k.a. as well as from some specimens from Isturitz.

    On the other hand other very early European AHMs ( Peştera cu Oase) lack any archaeological association while the oldest AHM of Europe found till now is associated with the Earliest Upper Paleolithic in Europe at Bacho-Kiro (the Bachokirian- dated to 45,820–43,650 cal BP )- see: 2180


Suggested Reading:

Figure 4
Mouton P. et Joffroy: Le gisement aurignacien des rois a Mouthiers (Charente). 9 me supplement a "Gallia". Paris, CNRS, 1958.

Debénath, André. Néandertaliens et Cro-Magnons - les temps glaciaires dans le bassin de la Charente; 2006: A wonderful compendium about the Charente during the ice Age with stations that are rarely known, even to Paleolithic specialists- and a low priced ebook!

Michel, A., d’Errico, F.et al. Nouvelles fouilles sur le site aurignacien chez les Rois (Mouthiers-sur-Boëme, Charentes). In: Jaubert, et al. Les sociétés du paléolithique dans un Grand Sud-Ouest de la France : nouveaux gisements, nouveaux résultats, nouvelles méthodes. Société préhistorique française: the Book is also free-see last external link!



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