Le bassin méditerranéen du Rhône : Un carrefour de traditions culturelles au Tardiglaciaire ? – TARDMED

The geographical framework of the Research project proposed is localised in the Mediterranean part of France, Languedoc and Provence, and centered on the Rhone delta. The whole of the research undertaken since nearly 30 years suggest indeed, that during Tardiglacial, this space can be regarded as a zone of contact between two cultural entities: In the West, the "Free-Cantabric" world, characterized by Magdalenian culture,In the East, the groups of epigravettian culture belong to an "Eastern". The Rhone constitutes matérialisation of this partition. This river also functions like a physical barrier for large mammalan fauna, in particular reindeer, absent in Provence whereas well represented in Languedoc. This "cultural partition" rests on already old syntheses and undoubtedly masks a less diagrammatic reality. The chronological framework selected goes from the beginning of Tardiglacial with the end of Boreal, approximately from 15000 to 9000 B.P. This framework corresponds to the cutting identifying inside the upper paleolithic caesura around 15 000 B.P. (installation of traditional Magdalénien and Epigravettien) and also from a climatic point of view (beginning of Tardiglacial, event of Heinrich I). We propose a collective research whose objective is the re-examination of the lithic series of references and their insertion within a precise and chronological frameworkThe object of this program thus remains above all in the field of Prehistory in its broadest acceptance: stopwatch cultural, but also behavioral, even adaptive. However, of the projections are essential in the field of Archéozoology and the strategies of the man from fauna. The objective of this project is to try to nderstand the dynamics of operation of this zone of contact of Tardiglaciaire to old Holocene. The current scientific data place the Rhone like a natural border between two cultures. Which is the actual value of this report? Was it this river used by the Prehistorians like an arbitrary border to delimit these worlds? Does the Rhone have you it really be an impermeable barrier in Tardiglacial for men and animals? (problems of the Reindeer and Saïga, for example). Or does it have acts in the form of interface between two prehistoric cultures? It will thus be a question of identifying the common characters technical for each of the two cultures, in order to evaluate as well as possible what differentiate them, in particular in term of specific technical behaviors. A particular interest will have to be related to the value of these natures shared by these human groups. The analysis of the lithic documents will authorize an approach of the various concepts of cutting up implemented and, in that, will make it possible to release the behaviors which define the various cultural traditions. The study of the origin of raw materials will be a data element determining in the reconstitution of the territory traversed by the fossil men, and in the argumentation of possible exchanges between the groups. An attentive glance will be related on the type of raw materials diffused on both sides of the Rhone, but also to the form of the transported supports. The animal hard matter tools, rare, but often culturally discriminant, will not be neglected (présence/absence – matter – technology). Animal hard matter industry, never was really described from a technical approach. More discrete characters of the cultural expression will be also taken into account like the dyes and the ornament. Art, finally also will be considered. We regard here hunting fauna as an archaeological object with whole share, even if the paleontological and environmental aspect could not be left for account like certain marking events, like the disappearance of the reindeer or the obliteration of the horse. The period considered shows deep upheavals in animal associations and the huntings relations of the hunters gatherers groups, in relation to the climatic changes. The osseous assemblies resulting from archaeological contexts are rich varied information, thus authorizing infer the choices and strategies of hunting and in the long term to determine the functions of the sites and their durations occupations. The datings (14 C AMS) constitute a fundamental point without which work completed could not be fully exploited ; the regional sequences suffer from a great deficit in this field. A direct dating of worked objects (assagai, harpoons…) is considered. This project proposes to revise, and to possibly amend, the cultural stopwatch-cultural framework of Mediterranean France elaborate on the basis of lithic industry, but also on other witnesses of the material culture (animal hard matter tools,ornament and the artistic expression). It proposes moreover to study the behavior of the men from natural environment within the framework of a survey of subsistence (mineral, animal and vegetal world).