Middle Palaeolithic raw material gathering territories and human mobility in the southern Massif Central, France: first results from a petro-archaeological study on flint

International audienceDuring the Middle Palaeolithic in the south-eastern Massif Central and the bordering Rhone Valley,<br />humans collected almost all their raw materials from various secondary outcrop which can be distinguished<br />by the inherent characteristics of the materials. Similar lithic facies are unlikely to be encountered<br />on two or more different natural outcrops and every artefact shows a surface that is well enough<br />preserved to be studied according to a morphoscopic analysis at various magnifications. For all sites,<br />some more remote sources were also exploited. However, most of the supposed exogenous materials,<br />such as some Cretaceous flints identified in the Velay assemblages of Sainte-Anne I and Baume-Valle´e for<br />example, come from the heart of the massif where they occur in secondary alluvial deposits. Nevertheless,<br />the extent of the foraging territories as revealed by raw materials sourcing covers a large band of<br />various relief between the western and southern Causses, the Rhoˆne corridor and the northern Limagne<br />and Forez plains and animal species hunted by these groups express an environmental mosaic which fits<br />with the image of landscape given by the raw materials