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2025-07-13 13:58:51   •   ID: 2393

Late Pleistocene Flint Point from Assevillers (Somme)

Plate 1
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure5
Plate 1 shows Paleolithic artefacts from Northern France, among them a complex scraper, a hand axe, a Levallois point and a 5,5 cm long upper Paleolithic arched and backed point with a regular oblique basal truncation and an old and probably accidental inverse basal notch from Assevilers (Figure 1-4).

Assevillers is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. While Neolithic axes are well know from the area, Paleolithic tools have not been reported up to now.

During WW 1, the town of Assevillers was twice occupied by the German Army and finally destroyed during the battle of the Somme in 1916.

There were many trenches to the west and to the east of Assevillers which in turn became first find spots for prehistoric material which fuelled local archaeological collections.

The slender Paleolithic point in Table 1 and Figures 1-4 raises the question of which technocomplex it could be from.

In principle, it could be a Châtelperronian, Gravettian, Magdalenian shouldered or angle-backed point (Example in Figure 5 right from Marolles-sur-Seine) or a Federmesser/ Azilian-point (an early Azilian Bi-Point is shown in Figure 5 left).

Châtelperronian points or knives are defined by Sonneville-Bordes and Perrot as tools made on blades that are either short and thick, or long and thin, with a steeply retouched, curved back and an asymmetrically retouched offset tip.

The Châtelperronian is absent in Northern France. In addition basal truncated points are not known from this technocomplex. The point of this Blog entry is certainly not a Châtelperronian point (Djakovic, Roussel and Soressi 2024).

The typical Gravette Point is a piece with straight or very slightly curved, back on a narrow slender blade modified by an abrupt retouch.

Often, the pointed distal end and the pointed or ogival proximal end are modified by a direct or reverse, marginal or covering retouch.

Such items are rare but not entirely absent in northern France and especially in the Somme Valley. At the Somme a stratified Gravettian is present at Amiens-Renancourt 1 (27,5 ka.BP). It is characterized by long blades, Microgravettes, rare Gravette points and the manufacturing of Femal chert figurines (Paris et al. 2017). The ensemble has some affinities to the Mainz-Linsenberg site, already excavated 100 years ago.

The typical basal and apical modifications of a Gravette point are missing in our example and basal truncations are not known from Gravettian points. The point of this post is therefore not a Gravette point.

In addition our point is obviously neither a shouldered or angle-backed point, artefacts well known from the Magdalenian near Paris (Schmieder 1996) and is certainly not an early Azilian Bi-Point (Example in Figure 5on the left).

The most common Paleolithic curved and backed points in Northern France are Mono-Points from the younger Federmesser / Azilian tradition. Basal truncations are known from these artefacts (sometimes called “Maulerie Points”). It is obvious that our point comes from this context.

In the Somme Valley, the Federmesser tradition as elsewhere in Europe appeared at the end of the Bølling oscillation, around 14,5 cal. BP in a still open environment, initially characterised by the recolonization vegetation dominated by birch and willow.

From the time of the Allerød oscillation (GI1c to GI1a), open forests of birch and then pine increasingly occupied the area. Within the same timeframe, the cold Magdalenian fauna gave way to a temperate forest biocenosis.

Most of the archaeological occupations of the Federmesser groups are associated with sol de Belloy-sur-Somme, attributed to the Allerød oscillation.

Only the industry of the lower level of the Hangest- sur-Somme lies immediately below this pedogenesis, which means that it can be assigned an age slightly older in the sequence, most likely at the end of the Bølling oscillation (GI1e). (Jacquier et al. 2022, Coudret and Fagnart 1997).

In contrast, the upper strata of Hangest contained a Federmesser industry with Mono-Points, comparable to our example (Coudret and Fagnart 1997). Our point is one well known Federmesser variant, described in the extensive work of Eva Maria Ikinger: Der endeiszeitliche Rückenspitzen-Kreis Mitteleuropas, LIT Verlag 1998.



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