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THE ABRI CASSEROLE (DORDOGNE, FRANCE): REASSESSING THE 14C CHRONOLOGY OF A KEY UPPER PALEOLITHIC SEQUENCE IN SOUTHWESTERN FRANCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2020

Sylvain Ducasse*
Affiliation:
CNRS, UMR 5199 « PACEA », Université de Bordeaux, Bâtiment B2, Allée Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, CS 50023, 33615 Pessac Cedex, France
Jean-Marc Pétillon
Affiliation:
CNRS, UMR 5608 « TRACES », Maison de la Recherche, 5, allées Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse Cedex 9, France
Thierry Aubry
Affiliation:
Côa Parque - Fundação para a Salvaguarda e Valorização do Vale do Côa; UNIARQ, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, Alameda da Universidade 1600-214 Lisboa, Portugal
François-Xavier Chauvière
Affiliation:
Office du patrimoine et de l’archéologie, section Archéologie, Laténium, parc et musée d’archéologie, Espace Paul Vouga, 2068 Hauterive, Switzerland
Jean-Christophe Castel
Affiliation:
Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Genève, Département d’archéozoologie, CP 6434 – CH-1211, Genève 6, Switzerland; UMR 5199 « PACEA »
Luc Detrain
Affiliation:
INRAP Nouvelle Aquitaine et Outre-Mer, Centre archéologique de Campagne, 24620 Campagne, France; UMR 5199 « PACEA »
Mathieu Langlais
Affiliation:
CNRS, UMR 5199 « PACEA », Université de Bordeaux, Bâtiment B2, Allée Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, CS 50023, 33615 Pessac Cedex, France SERP, Universitat de Barcelona, Gran Via de Les Corts Catalanes, 585, 08007 Barcelona, Spain
André Morala
Affiliation:
La Peyrière, 24260 Le Bugue, France; UMR 5199 « PACEA »
William E Banks
Affiliation:
CNRS, UMR 5199 « PACEA », Université de Bordeaux, Bâtiment B2, Allée Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, CS 50023, 33615 Pessac Cedex, France Biodiversity Institute, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 66045-7562, USA
Arnaud Lenoble
Affiliation:
CNRS, UMR 5199 « PACEA », Université de Bordeaux, Bâtiment B2, Allée Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, CS 50023, 33615 Pessac Cedex, France
*
*Corresponding author. Email: sylvain.ducasse@u-bordeaux.fr.
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Abstract

Discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Abri Casserole (Dordogne, France) was the subject of salvage excavations in the early nineties. The fieldwork revealed a sequence of 13 archaeological levels that document human occupations from the Gravettian to the Magdalenian, including very rare and poorly known assemblages (e.g. Early Badegoulian, Protosolutrean) that afford a particular importance to this sequence. Results of a previous dating program that focused on the Badegoulian levels were obtained in 1994 but were neither extensively published nor discussed. Five AMS 14C ages obtained for the Gravettian and Solutrean assemblages in the early 2010s served to complement the site’s chronology. However, since the beta counting ages for the Badegoulian levels were in conflict with the accepted AMS chronology for the region’s late Pleniglacial archaeological record, a new AMS dating program was implemented to renew the radiometric framework of this specific portion of the sequence. Compared to the previous beta counting measurements, the seven newly obtained AMS ages are about 1000 years older (23.3–20.5 cal ka BP) and congruent with other AMS-dated Badegoulian sequences. These results thereby restore the inter-site chronological coherence of the Solutrean–Badegoulian and Badegoulian–Magdalenian transitions.

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Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - SA
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the same Creative Commons licence is included and the original work is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use.
Copyright
© 2020 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona
Figure 0

Figure 1 Location of the Casserole rockshelter (Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, Dordogne) and Upper Paleolithic sites mentioned in the text.

Figure 1

Table 1 The Casserole lithostratigraphic and archaeological sequence (according to Detrain et al. 1991; Detrain 1992a, 1994; Aubry et al. 1995; Aubry and Almeida 2013).

Figure 2

Table 2 Summary of the beta counting and AMS 14C ages obtained at Casserole from 1994 to 2012 (according to Detrain et al. 1994; Fontugne 1994; Fourloubey 1996; Fourloubey 1998; Djindjian 2003; Lenoble et al. 2013; Lenoble and Cosgrove 2014; MUL: Modane underground laboratory; BCM: Beta counting method). Calibration was carried out with OxCal (v4.3.2: Bronk Ramsey, 2017) using the IntCal13 calibration curve (Reimer et al. 2013).

Figure 3

Table 3 Comparison of the published Badegoulian beta counting ages of Casserole (NA6 to NA4), from the analysis report to the second-hand publications. Correct results are indicated in bold (see text for further details).

Figure 4

Table 4 Beta counting radiometric framework of the main Badegoulian sequences available in the 1990s. Calibration was carried out with OxCal (v4.3.2: Bronk Ramsey 2017) using the IntCal13 calibration curve (Reimer et al. 2013).

Figure 5

Figure 2 Antler elements selected for AMS dating; 1, 2 and 3: flakes evidencing the use of the knapping technique from levels NA4, NA3 and NA5, respectively; 4: splinter from level NA3 evidencing the use of the groove and splinter technique. White letters in a black circle indicate the level and grey letters the label of the piece (photos J.-M. Pétillon, infographics S. Ducasse).

Figure 6

Figure 3 Bone and antler elements selected for AMS dating; 1: “pseudo antler half-round rod” from level NA3; 2: base of single beveled bone point from the Western sector, layer 4 (NA9/10?); 3: groove and splinter manufacturing bone waste from the Central sector (NA1?). White letters in a black circle indicate the level and grey letters the label of the piece (photos J.-M. Pétillon, infographics S. Ducasse).

Figure 7

Table 5 New ultrafiltered AMS 14C ages for the Badegoulian (NA6–NA4) and the so-called “Magdalenian” assemblages (NA3) and details of the failed samples from NA9/10 and NA1. Note that ages from NA6 (“GrM” lab code) were measured at the Groningen laboratory using a MICADAS accelerator mass spectrometer. Calibration was carried out with OxCal (v4.3.2: Bronk Ramsey 2017) using the IntCal13 calibration curve (Reimer et al. 2013).

Figure 8

Figure 4 Compilation of the 12 calibrated AMS 14C ages obtained between 2012 and 2018. Note the incoherent results obtained with burned bone samples from NA9-10a to NA7b (see discussion in the text).

Figure 9

Table 6 AMS 14C dates used in Figure 5 and covering the entire time span of the French Badegoulian, including the Solutrean-to-Badegoulian transition (MSU: medium-sized ungulate). Calibration was carried out with OxCal (v4.3.2: Bronk Ramsey 2017) using the IntCal13 calibration curve (Reimer et al. 2013).

Figure 10

Figure 5 The NA4 to NA7 ages compared with a selection of AMS 14C dates covering the entire time span of the French Badegoulian, including the Solutrean-to-Badegoulian transition phase (CdV: Cuzoul de Vers; CV: Contrée-Viallet; TdC: Taillis-des-Coteaux). Note that the too-young Upper Solutrean age available for Le Cuzoul de Vers layer 30 corresponds to a burned bone sample (see Ducasse et al. 2014 for a detailed discussion).