Étiolles. Palaeolithic encampments

Remarkable evidence from the late Palaeolithic period

Seasonal settlements layered in the thick accumulated sediment at Étiolles (Essonne) have been dated using carbon-14 dating to around 13,000 BC, at the end of the Ice Ages. This period corresponds to another end, that of the Palaeolithic, the very long period of prehistoric hunter-gatherers that specialists believe began more than 3 million years ago in Africa, when species predating the first humans began to make carved stone tools.

It was not until around 40,000 BC that our own human species, Homo sapiens, which also appeared in Africa 300,000 years ago, took up permanent residence in Europe, displacing the Neanderthals under unknown circumstances. From then on, it was through networks of alliances between these small communities of Homo sapiens that vast cultural currents spread across the whole of the European continent. These affinities are reflected in widely shared choices concerning simple everyday techniques (making tools from stone and bone, hunting, use of the materials gained from this, particularly skins for making clothes or tent covers). In addition to these techniques, the details of which change with the major successive cultural movements of the Late Palaeolithic (Aurignacian, Gravettian, etc.), there is a profusion of symbols. These symbols were disseminated across vast geographical areas (from south-western France to Poland in some cases), and they also evolved, as demonstrated by the transformation of animal images drawn and engraved deep in caves or adorning instruments and objects with no utilitarian function.

Living on the steppe around 13,000 BC.

Étiolles has produced one of these works with a rich mythological content, and its style is typical of the Magdalenian cultural trend that emerged towards the end of the Late Palaeolithic (16,000–12,000 BC). Other features typical of the Magdalenian period include specific reindeer and horse hunting strategies and flint tool-making techniques, of which exceptionally skilful examples were found at Étiolles. By meticulously reconstructing these choices and deciphering the remains of lightweight, transportable homes, archaeologists are gaining a glimpse into the way of life of these Magdalenian communities who, 15,000 years ago, frequented the great cold steppes of the Paris region, which may still have been inhabited by a few mammoths. The researchers were even able to identify the composition of the groups in each camp: adults, generally accompanied by children, were identified on the basis of their distinct flint knapping skills. Such precision has been achieved due to the fact that Étiolles is one of just thirty or so of the best-preserved sites from the entire Late Palaeolithic period in Europe. This is why investigations have been underway at the site for more than 50 years, during which it has become a multidisciplinary and international scientific centre. New research methods are being developed here, and students from all over the world come here, generation after generation, to learn about them.

Chronological issues

Eurasian prehistory is divided into an oversized Palaeolithic and a proportionately very short Neolithic, with these 19^th-century terms reminding us that the distinction was initially based on aspects of stone working. This division was subsequently reinforced on the basis of far more distinctive criteria concerning subsistence methods (hunting and gathering for the Palaeolithic and its continuation into the so-called "Mesolithic"; agriculture and/or animal husbandry for the Neolithic) as well as very general aspects of social organisation (generally egalitarian communities for the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic; emergence of social hierarchies during the Neolithic).

The Palaeolithic itself has been subdivided into three periods of unequal duration: a "Lower" period (3 million years–300,000 years ago) during which the first hominids emerged in Africa, then spread to Eurasia; then a "Middle" period (300,000–42,000 years ago) during which Homo sapiens, which also first appeared in Africa, developed its original societies there, while Neanderthals and Denisovans displayed their cultural particularities in Eurasia; and finally an "Upper" period during which Homo sapiens spread to Australia, Asia, Europe and, later, the Americas, before adapting to natural climate warming during the Mesolithic period. Many researchers are now arguing that the gradation on which this tripartition is based (lower phase versus upper), which was inherited from an observation of superimposed geological layers, should give way to a more common principle of chronological succession (early phase versus late phase), in line with that used for the later phases of mankind’s very long history.  

The scientific team

The scientific team is made up of several university and CNRS researchers from the Technologie et Ethnologie des Mondes Préhistoriques (Technology and Ethnology of Prehistoric Worlds) team — UMR 8068 as well as regular collaborators from other institutions and other joint research units (UMRs) (INRAP, SRA Pays de Loire, ZBSA, Germany).

Find out more by visiting the website of the Musée départemental de préhistoire d'Île-de-France in Nemours:

• The Étiolles site
• The engraved stone at Étiolles
• The Étiolles core

Presentation of the excavation site as part of the web series "Devenir archéologue" (Becoming an Archaeologist) [in French]