L'industrie osseuse du Solutréen au Magdalénien moyen dans le Bassin parisien

National audienceIn the northern half of France, and specifically in the Paris Basin, the definition of Upper Paleolithic cultures relies mostly on lithic industries. Osseous industries are poorly documented, except perhaps for the Last Glacial (i.e., Upper Magdalenian). To try to solve this problem, a complete survey of the worked osseous remains in the Paris Basin was carried out for the period between the end of the Early Upper Paleolithic and the beginning of the Last Glacial (i.e., the Solutrean, Badegoulian, Lower Magdalenian and Middle Magdalenian cultures, contemporary with the LGM and the Heinrich 1 Event). Most of the osseous industries from this period come from ancient excavations in the central and southern parts of the Basin (fig. 1, 1 to 5). The only osseous tools that might pertain to the Solutrean culture are several fragmentary awls from layer 4 in the Grotte du Trilobite at Arcy-sur-Cure [excavations by Parat (1902) in the years 1890]. All other worked bone remains from Trilobite described by Breuil (1918) as Solutrean contradict Parat's notes and are probably post-excavation reattributions. Two sites yielded putative Badegoulian osseous industries: le Grand-Surplomb in Le Bois des Beauregards (Nemours) and Le Mont-Saint-Aubin at Oisy. At Grand-Surplomb, several objects published as bone tools were identified as pseudo-artifacts (i.e., unmodified faunal remains). The actual osseous tools are four (fig. 2 and table 1). They are not diagnostic types, do not show a clear similarity with other Badegoulian assemblages and come from a disturbed context (Paleolithic material mixed with Neolithic levels: Bouex, 1917; Schmider, 1971); they cannot be accepted as undoubtedly belonging to the Badegoulian. At Mont-Saint-Aubin however - the only site in our sample with recent excavations - the Badegoulian attribution is beyond question (Bodu et al., 2007). Except for a possible antler wedge, the ca. 50 worked osseous remains discovered at this open-air site are mostly manufacturing waste from shed and unshed reindeer antlers. They attest to the sectioning of antlers in segments by chopping (fig. 3). Finally, the most abundant evidence of osseous industry is from the Middle Magdalenian. An antler single-beveled point, possibly from the Middle Magdalenian but without stratigraphic information, was discovered by Parat (1904) at La Roche-aux-Loups (fig. 4, 1 and table 2). At Trilobite, Ficatier (1886) found what could be a fragment of antler shuttle, a typical tool for the Middle Magdalenian of northern France (fig. 4, 2); but this artifact has been lost and is deprived of stratigraphic context, so its identification remains very uncertain. The only two diagnostic artifacts from Trilobite are a Lussac-Angles point (fig. 4, 4 and table 2) and a curved bipoint with a triangular cross-section (fig. 4, 5 and table 2). The Lussac-Angles point is a particular sub-type of single-beveled point, found in the French southwest and in northern Spain (fig. 5) and dated to the beginning of the Middle Magdalenian (Dujardin and Pinçon, 2000, table 1; Langlais, 2007, table 82; Szmidt et al., 2009). The curved bipoint has been less documented but seems frequently associated with the Lussac-Angles point. These two artifacts attest to an early Middle Magdalenian occupation at Trilobite, with direct or indirect relations with the Southwest. La Grande-Baume (Joffroy et al., 1952) yielded two antler beveled objects (fig. 6 and table 3), interpreted here as wedges; these objects are clearly of Magdalenian design but their belonging to the Middle phase cannot be ascertained. The three Farincourt caves yielded worked bone and antler objects, most of which are from Farincourt II (fig. 7). A Middle Magdalenian attribution for this assemblage has been suggested (Mouton and Joffroy, 1956; Allain et al., 1985; David and Pernot, 1994) but this hypothesis, although likely, cannot be confirmed without a thorough re-examination of the site including radiocarbon dating (no dates are currently available). In sum, this survey confirms that possible evidence of osseous industry is very scarce in the Paris Basin for the Solutrean, Badegoulian and Lower Magdalenian. The Middle Magdalenian yielded more abundant material; this material is, however, often difficult to characterize and remains confined to a few cave sites in the southeastern part of the region. Still, the rare discoveries of osseous industries in open-air sites (Mont-Saint-Aubin at Oisy) and the few assemblages preserved in cave and rockshelter sites show that the working of bone and antler was among the activities practiced by human groups in the Paris Basin during the LGM and the Heinrich 1 Event. The underrepresentation of this technical domain in our vision of these groups is due to taphonomic reasons and the history of research (early excavations).Nous présentons ici une synthèse des données sur les industries osseuses contemporaines du Dernier Maximum glaciaire et de l'événement d'Heinrich 1 dans le Bassin parisien. La révision critique de l'ensemble du matériel disponible - issu pour l'essentiel de fouilles anciennes - montre que les indices possibles d'industrie osseuse demeurent extrêmement rares pour le Solutréen, le Badegoulien et le Magdalénien inférieur. Ces indices sont plus abondants au Magdalénien moyen, tout en restant cantonnés à quelques cavités du sud-est de la région et souvent difficiles à caractériser