NEW DISCOVERIES IN AZILIAN ART:

Rocher de l'Impe'ratrice,

Archaeology Magazine,

March/April 2019, p. 44.

As I wrote in RockArtBlog last week art historians have long considered the Azilian (ca. 14,000 BP) descendants of the great Magdalenian culture in Europe to be culturally deprived and impoverished. The main art form for which they were known were painted pebbles which, while decorative, are unimpressive compared to the beautiful Magdalenian cave paintings that preceded them. All in all they seemed to have lost a lot of ground when evaluated on cultural achievements. Cave art from the preceding periods in Europe left the magnificent animal panels of Lascaux, Chauvette, Altamira, and the other decorated caves. Azilian sites seemed to show no such art.

               Rocher de l'Impe'ratrice,

Archaeology Magazine,

March/April 2019, p. 49.

This picture has, however, changed considerably with the discovery of carved stone plaques in the Azilian layers at the rock shelter of Rocher de l'Impe'ratrice, Rock of the Empress, in France. "Rocher de l'Impe'ratrice" is a small rock-shelter approximately 10 m long, 3 m deep and 2 m high, located near Plougastel-Daoulas at the western extremity of Brittany (France). The shelter is at the foot of a 50 m high quartzite cliff dominating the Brest roadstead. The site sits about 50 m a.s.l on a southern steep slope overlying Brioverian shale bedrock. The steep topography is covered by silty-clayey solifluction deposits rich in shale flags." (Naudinot et al, 2017:3)

           Aurochs plaque (both sides),
            Rocher de l'Impe'ratrice,

www.lemonde.com

Public domain.

"Le Rocher de l'Imper'ratrice has provided 45 decorated stone pieces so far. With one exception, they all appear to be small, thin fragments of former larger slabs. Forty-three are less than 10 cm long, 29 of which are less than 5 cm. Three physical refittings have already been achieved. All the blanks are local shales." (Naudinot et al, 2017:11)

Some of the subjects portrayed on these engraved slabs are monumental animal forms, directly referencing the large painted panels on Magdalenian cave walls, suggesting a continuity of belief.

             Horse plaque (both sides),
              Rocher de l'Impe'ratrice,

decouvertes-archeologiques.blogspot.com

Public domain.

This new discovery "provides critical data to investigate the tempo of technological and symbolic change during the Azilian. The association of a lithic industry with a rich artistic assemblage of 45 engraved (and sometimes charcoaled) schist stones suggest a clear arrhythmia between symbolic production and technological adaptations. Here the possible techno-economic adaptations to climatic changes appear to have had no direct influence on the symbolic and perhaps spiritual universe of the first "Azilian" people who perpetuated an age-old tradition." (Naudinot et al, 2017:2)

                Rocher de l'Impe'ratrice,             archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com,

Public domain 

This should be a reminder to us to be very careful about underestimating so-called "primitive" peoples. Instead of the culturally impoverished people that the Azilians had been portrayed as, we find they were the inheritors of this magnificent tradition that we have long admired. The only lack was our lack of evidence, and now that we have that a whole re-evaluation would seem to be in order.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on this report I direct you to the original report at the site listed below.

REFERENCE:

Naudinot, N, Bourdier C, Laforge M, Paris C, Bellot-Gurlet L, Beyries S, et al.

2017 Divergence in the Evolution of Paleolithic Symbolic and Technological Systems: The Shining Bull and Engraved Tablets of Rocher de l'Impe'ratrice, PLoSONE 12(3):e0173037. doi:10.1371/journal. pone.0173037, March 3, 2017.