Let’s talk about the Badegoulian and its relationship to the contemporaneous Iberian cultural traditions: reconsidering the issue of the LGM cultural mosaic in the light of new data from Pégourié cave (Lot, France) and les Harpons rockshelter (Haute-Garonne, France)

International audienceFrom a regionalized Solutrean substratum, the evolving trajectories of the contemporary Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) societies in southwestern Europe remains controversial. While in the Aquitaine Basin it is for a long time accepted that Badegoulian technical traditions succeeds the Upper Solutrean ones around 23 ky cal. BP, two coexisting and contradictory models are proposed in the Iberian Peninsula. Whereas ones suggested that Badegoulian industries develops at the same time as France, defining a kind of “globalization” phenomenon, the others defend the classical hypothesis of a maintaining of the Solutrean traditions until about 20 ky cal. BP, implying the existence of a cultural mosaic from the Parisian Basin to the Algarve.In any case, beyond the issue of typo-technological definition and cultural attribution of the LGM assemblages in the Iberian Peninsula, several elements classically indicate that southwestern France was related to Cantabrian Spain during this time frame, notably through (1) the typo-technological and chronological framework of the Pyrenean Upper Solutrean considered similar to the Vasco-Cantabrian one (i. e. same tool-kits and comparable young 14C ages up to 20 ky cal. BP) and (2) the large geographic spread of specific Badegoulian osseous objects as decorated antler pieces using “pseudo-excise” technique at least from Dordogne to Asturias around 21 ky cal. BP.Works led in southwestern France as part of the “SaM” project have recently focused on these two specific points since they were essentially based on arguable data from old excavations and/or problematic archaeostratigraphic contexts. The interdisciplinary reassessment of Les Harpons rockshelter well known for its concave base point-yielding Upper Solutrean level and the Badegoulian sequence of Pégourié cave characterized by the presence of “pseudo-excise” technique, allows us to reconsider the issue of the LGM cultural mosaic. By testing the homogeneity of this two assemblages through a critical assessment of the lithic and osseous equipments (including inter-layers refitting) and by renewing the radiometric framework by direct dating of several characteristic antler/bone waste products, these studies confirm: 1) a same age for the end of Upper Solutrean between Aquitaine Basin and Pyrenees; 2) the existence of raclette-yielding Badegoulian in the Pyrenees area since 23 ky cal. BP and 3) the Badegoulian age of “pseudo-excise” technique at Pégourié despite the strong cultural heterogeneity of the assemblage. Beyond a regional interest these results shed new light on the southwestern Europe cultural geography during the LGM, allowing us to indirectly discuss the Iberian Badegoulian hypothesis