Contribution des cervidés à la chronologie des débuts de l'occupation humaine en Europe occidentale.

Résumé En Fr

Cervids may contribute to the chronology of the early west european archaeological sites. I have used them exclusively, so as to allow testing by other independent methods (biostratigraphy based upon other groups, physical methods), which, therefore, I have not taken into account. If we follow this guiding principle, and in the present state of our knowledge, Chilhac remains the earliest archaeological site in Europe. A few other localities in central France might prove older, but the nearby locality of Blassac (which has yielded one of the best collections of lower Pleistocene Cervids) is more recent. Upper Villafranchian Cervid faunas are still poorly known. One may equate Peyrolles with the Weybourn Crag, but too few data are available for the important locality of Ceyssaguet to allow its precise setting in the chronological frame. The italian endemic "Dama" nestii, possibly descended from C. perrieri, might survive till the latest villafranchian at Pirro Nord and Le Vallonet, but more material would be welcome. These sites seem to predate the great post-villafranchian turnover (replacement of Eucladoceros and Cervids with three-tined antlers by "Praemegaceros", Cervus s. str. and Capreolus), but this event, however, might be more gradual than what appears from the fossil record.

En l'état actuel de nos connaissances, d'après les Cervidés exclusivement, le plus ancien gisement européen témoignant d'une activité humaine est celui de Chilhac, mais il se pourrait que d'autres sites du Massif Central soient un peu plus anciens. Le site de Blassac-la-Gironde est en revanche assurément plus récent. Les Cervidés n'apportent que peu de précisions sur l'âge des sites de la fin du Villafranchien. Le Vallonnet, qui pourrait être contemporain du Villafranchien terminal de Pirro Nord en Italie, semble antérieur au renouvellement faunique attesté à Soleilhac et dans les gisements allemands, mais le synchronisme de cet événement de part et d'autre des Alpes reste à démontrer.