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Azilian Pebbles in British Collections: a Re-examination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Claude Couraud  and
Paul G. Bahn
Claude Couraud
Affiliation:
Équipe de Recherche Associée No. 423 du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Musée des Antiquités Nationales, 78103 St-Germain-en-Laye, France
Paul G. Bahn
Affiliation:
Department of Prehistoric Archaeology, University of Liverpool
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Extract

The name ‘Azilian’ is firmly linked to that of Edward Piette, the principal excavator of the site on the left bank of the river Arize in the tunnel-cave of the Mas d'Azil (Ariège), in the French Pyrenees (see Bahn 1979). From 1887 onward this site yielded hundreds of painted and engraved pebbles (Piette 1896, 1903). Their decoration shows little variation, and consists largely of groups of dots and transverse marks; however, there are more complex signs such as longitudinal marks, lines of chevrons, grecques, crosses, perpendicular marks and ovals, while some pebble-faces are completely painted over. These little stones constitute almost the only evidence of artistic activity at the very end of the Upper Palaeolithic, and they span a period from c. 9000 to c. 7500 BC.

Twenty-eight sites in France, five in Spain, three in Italy and one in Switzerland have yielded a total of 1951 worked pebbles, but the Mas d'Azil accounts for no less than about 1427 of these. The figure is approximate because it is very difficult to reach an exact total: there have been losses, and infiltrations of fakes, and the ensemble is scattered in at least 16 museums and private collections.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , 1982 , pp. 45 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1982

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References

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