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

Résumé En

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