The earliest European carvings, made of mammoth ivory, depict animals, humans, and anthropomorphs... more The earliest European carvings, made of mammoth ivory, depict animals, humans, and anthropomorphs. They are found at Early Aurignacian sites of the Swabian Jura in Germany. Despite the wide geographical spread of the Aurignacian across Europe, these carvings have no contemporaneous counterparts. Here, we document a small, intriguing object, that sheds light on this uniqueness. Found at the Grotte des Gorges (Jura, France), in a layer sandwiched between Aurignacian contexts and dated to c. 36.2 ka, the object bears traces of anthropogenic modifications indicating intentional carving. Microtomographic, microscopic, three-dimensional roughness and residues analyses reveal the carving is a fragment of a large ammonite, which was modified to represent a caniformia head decorated with notches and probably transported for long time in a container stained with ochre. While achieving Swabian Jura-like miniaturization, the Grotte des Gorges specimen displays original features, indicating the craftsman emulated ivory carvings while introducing significant technical, thematic, and stylistic innovations. This finding suggests a low degree of cultural connectivity between Early Aurignacian hunter-gatherer groups in the production of their symbolic material culture. The pattern conforms to the existence of cultural boundaries limiting the transmission of symbolic practices while leaving space for the emergence of original regional expressions. The discoveries made in the last two decades have made clear that artistic expressions reflecting symbolic behaviours have not emerged in Europe 40,000 years ago as a result of a cognitive revolution 1,2 , but appeared over a long time span in different regions of the world and expressed themselves in various and gradually more complex forms 3. Early, isolated instances of abstract engravings are found at sites dating between 500 and 350 ka 4-6 and they are more numerous and regionally circumscribed after 150 ka 7-19. The creation of monumental structures in deep caves, possibly used for symbolic purposes, dates to 170 ka 20. The use of the human body to convey symbolic meaning with personal ornaments is attested after 140 ka in North and South Africa 21 , as well as in the Levant 22,23. Although mineral pigments are considered an ambiguous proxy for symbolic practices owing to their ethnographically attested use for functional purposes 24 , many authors consider that after their initial occurrence from 500 ka in Africa and 400 ka in Europe, their systematic use at Southern African sites after 160 ka supports their implications in symbolically mediated activities 24,25 , as demonstrated by the coating of personal ornaments
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives| 4.0 International License " Un rempart sinon rien " : la question de la fortification de l'oppidum de Vieille-Toulouse (Haute-Garonne)
Gouffre de la Sambuy is an alpine cave, located in the French northern Western Alps, in the Bauge... more Gouffre de la Sambuy is an alpine cave, located in the French northern Western Alps, in the Bauges massif. This subalpine massif is included in the "delphinohelvetic" domain of the external Alps, drifted over the foreland (jurassian and molassic domains). Bauges massif presents with these folded structures a medium altitude (< 2 500 m asl) and mountainous relief built with only sedimentary rocks. To the east of the massif, the Sambuy summit is 2198 m asl, the main entrance of the cave (SB9) is open at 1 820 m asl. The average of temperature in this area is 1.6°C. The precipitations are over 2 100 mm/year. The cave is approximately 900 m development and 120m depth. The final part of the cave is on the top of the Hauterivian marls. During speleogenesis studies on 2012, speleologists have founded bacterial mats and gypsum in the marly parts of the cave. Upper, in the middle part, the Barremian limestone wall of a 25 m shaft was covered by unusual fine and white deposits looking like lichen. To understand these ecosystems, climate aerologic measurements like air temperature, pressure, and wind speed were realized during each visit in winter, spring and summer. Due to the difficulties to access to the cave with no possibilities to get electrical power, no monitoring was realized for the climate parameters. In spring, the wall deposits have been sampled with swab and store in sterile tube for laboratory molecular analysis. DNA was extracted, PCR amplifications and cloning-sequencing were performed targeting bacterial 16SrRNA and eukaryotic 18SrRNA genes. For the bacterial community, we identified 29 different OTUs and the richness estimator (Schao) showed a global richness of 65 OTUs. The bacterial community was mainly composed by Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Nitrospirae and an important part of uncultured bacteria. Some of these bacterial taxa are known to be involved in nitrogen cycling. For the eukaryotic community, 32 OTUs were identified from our clones library, and the Schao index showed a global richness of 86 OTUs. Rhizaria (with mostly Cercozoa, genus Cermononas) was a dominant group, followed by Fungi (mostly Dikaria). Some Alveolata belonging to Ciliophora were also detected, as well as an important part of uncultured fungi and others. Additional sequencing analyses should be performed to depict in depth the taxonomic composition in these microbial mats. Our preliminary results showed that these microbial mats comprised a rather high diversity of prokaryotic and eukaryotic taxa, which physiological/biochemical characteristics and biotic interactions have still to be described.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jul 25, 2022
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), May 14, 2022
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jul 25, 2022
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jul 25, 2022
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2022
Jeanne à Haïti, le plafond est constellé de coupoles biogéniques « creusées » par les chauves-sou... more Jeanne à Haïti, le plafond est constellé de coupoles biogéniques « creusées » par les chauves-souris. Photo Serge Caillault Chauves-souris, guanos et grottes, la biocorrosion ou la corrosion biogénique, un nouveau paramètre à prendre en compte dans l'évolution des cavités, des archives environnementales inédites, de nouveau regards sur le karst Chauves-souris, guanos et grottes, la biocorrosion ou la corrosion biogénique, un nouveau paramètre à prendre en compte dans l'évolution des cavités, des archives environnementales inédites, de nouveau regards sur le karst
The Camou springs (Arbailles Massif, French Western Pyrenees) display an unusual close associatio... more The Camou springs (Arbailles Massif, French Western Pyrenees) display an unusual close association of a typically cold karstic spring that drains the Urgonian western limb of the Arbailles, and a thermo-mineral spring (33.5°C; salinity 17.7 g/L). The latter gains its mineralization at the contact of Triassic evaporites mainly through a deep loop in the Apanicé syncline. The fast upflow of this deep water occurs at the cross of large active lines (the North-Pyrenean thrust located at depth, and the Saison transverse fault). Cave diving in the nearby Maddalen Cave allowed reaching the phreatic passage at the origin of the cold spring, which however also crosses the thermal body in the third sump (S3). Both water bodies are separated by a sharp thermocline. 6 pressure-temperature dataloggers were placed in both water bodies along the thermocline for 6 months. The dataloggers located downstream on either side of the thermocline show at the beginning of flood first a rise of the thermal ...
The earliest European carvings, made of mammoth ivory, depict animals, humans, and anthropomorphs... more The earliest European carvings, made of mammoth ivory, depict animals, humans, and anthropomorphs. They are found at Early Aurignacian sites of the Swabian Jura in Germany. Despite the wide geographical spread of the Aurignacian across Europe, these carvings have no contemporaneous counterparts. Here, we document a small, intriguing object, that sheds light on this uniqueness. Found at the Grotte des Gorges (Jura, France), in a layer sandwiched between Aurignacian contexts and dated to c. 36.2 ka, the object bears traces of anthropogenic modifications indicating intentional carving. Microtomographic, microscopic, three-dimensional roughness and residues analyses reveal the carving is a fragment of a large ammonite, which was modified to represent a caniformia head decorated with notches and probably transported for long time in a container stained with ochre. While achieving Swabian Jura-like miniaturization, the Grotte des Gorges specimen displays original features, indicating the craftsman emulated ivory carvings while introducing significant technical, thematic, and stylistic innovations. This finding suggests a low degree of cultural connectivity between Early Aurignacian hunter-gatherer groups in the production of their symbolic material culture. The pattern conforms to the existence of cultural boundaries limiting the transmission of symbolic practices while leaving space for the emergence of original regional expressions. The discoveries made in the last two decades have made clear that artistic expressions reflecting symbolic behaviours have not emerged in Europe 40,000 years ago as a result of a cognitive revolution 1,2 , but appeared over a long time span in different regions of the world and expressed themselves in various and gradually more complex forms 3. Early, isolated instances of abstract engravings are found at sites dating between 500 and 350 ka 4-6 and they are more numerous and regionally circumscribed after 150 ka 7-19. The creation of monumental structures in deep caves, possibly used for symbolic purposes, dates to 170 ka 20. The use of the human body to convey symbolic meaning with personal ornaments is attested after 140 ka in North and South Africa 21 , as well as in the Levant 22,23. Although mineral pigments are considered an ambiguous proxy for symbolic practices owing to their ethnographically attested use for functional purposes 24 , many authors consider that after their initial occurrence from 500 ka in Africa and 400 ka in Europe, their systematic use at Southern African sites after 160 ka supports their implications in symbolically mediated activities 24,25 , as demonstrated by the coating of personal ornaments
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives| 4.0 International License " Un rempart sinon rien " : la question de la fortification de l'oppidum de Vieille-Toulouse (Haute-Garonne)
Gouffre de la Sambuy is an alpine cave, located in the French northern Western Alps, in the Bauge... more Gouffre de la Sambuy is an alpine cave, located in the French northern Western Alps, in the Bauges massif. This subalpine massif is included in the "delphinohelvetic" domain of the external Alps, drifted over the foreland (jurassian and molassic domains). Bauges massif presents with these folded structures a medium altitude (< 2 500 m asl) and mountainous relief built with only sedimentary rocks. To the east of the massif, the Sambuy summit is 2198 m asl, the main entrance of the cave (SB9) is open at 1 820 m asl. The average of temperature in this area is 1.6°C. The precipitations are over 2 100 mm/year. The cave is approximately 900 m development and 120m depth. The final part of the cave is on the top of the Hauterivian marls. During speleogenesis studies on 2012, speleologists have founded bacterial mats and gypsum in the marly parts of the cave. Upper, in the middle part, the Barremian limestone wall of a 25 m shaft was covered by unusual fine and white deposits looking like lichen. To understand these ecosystems, climate aerologic measurements like air temperature, pressure, and wind speed were realized during each visit in winter, spring and summer. Due to the difficulties to access to the cave with no possibilities to get electrical power, no monitoring was realized for the climate parameters. In spring, the wall deposits have been sampled with swab and store in sterile tube for laboratory molecular analysis. DNA was extracted, PCR amplifications and cloning-sequencing were performed targeting bacterial 16SrRNA and eukaryotic 18SrRNA genes. For the bacterial community, we identified 29 different OTUs and the richness estimator (Schao) showed a global richness of 65 OTUs. The bacterial community was mainly composed by Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Nitrospirae and an important part of uncultured bacteria. Some of these bacterial taxa are known to be involved in nitrogen cycling. For the eukaryotic community, 32 OTUs were identified from our clones library, and the Schao index showed a global richness of 86 OTUs. Rhizaria (with mostly Cercozoa, genus Cermononas) was a dominant group, followed by Fungi (mostly Dikaria). Some Alveolata belonging to Ciliophora were also detected, as well as an important part of uncultured fungi and others. Additional sequencing analyses should be performed to depict in depth the taxonomic composition in these microbial mats. Our preliminary results showed that these microbial mats comprised a rather high diversity of prokaryotic and eukaryotic taxa, which physiological/biochemical characteristics and biotic interactions have still to be described.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jul 25, 2022
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), May 14, 2022
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jul 25, 2022
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jul 25, 2022
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2022
Jeanne à Haïti, le plafond est constellé de coupoles biogéniques « creusées » par les chauves-sou... more Jeanne à Haïti, le plafond est constellé de coupoles biogéniques « creusées » par les chauves-souris. Photo Serge Caillault Chauves-souris, guanos et grottes, la biocorrosion ou la corrosion biogénique, un nouveau paramètre à prendre en compte dans l'évolution des cavités, des archives environnementales inédites, de nouveau regards sur le karst Chauves-souris, guanos et grottes, la biocorrosion ou la corrosion biogénique, un nouveau paramètre à prendre en compte dans l'évolution des cavités, des archives environnementales inédites, de nouveau regards sur le karst
The Camou springs (Arbailles Massif, French Western Pyrenees) display an unusual close associatio... more The Camou springs (Arbailles Massif, French Western Pyrenees) display an unusual close association of a typically cold karstic spring that drains the Urgonian western limb of the Arbailles, and a thermo-mineral spring (33.5°C; salinity 17.7 g/L). The latter gains its mineralization at the contact of Triassic evaporites mainly through a deep loop in the Apanicé syncline. The fast upflow of this deep water occurs at the cross of large active lines (the North-Pyrenean thrust located at depth, and the Saison transverse fault). Cave diving in the nearby Maddalen Cave allowed reaching the phreatic passage at the origin of the cold spring, which however also crosses the thermal body in the third sump (S3). Both water bodies are separated by a sharp thermocline. 6 pressure-temperature dataloggers were placed in both water bodies along the thermocline for 6 months. The dataloggers located downstream on either side of the thermocline show at the beginning of flood first a rise of the thermal ...
La question du caractère fortifié ou non de l’agglomération des Volques Tectosages de Vieille-Tou... more La question du caractère fortifié ou non de l’agglomération des Volques Tectosages de Vieille-Toulouse est posée depuis le XIXe siècle. Depuis les années 2000, grâce à la multiplication des diagnostics archéologiques, les données disponibles permettent d’affirmer que le site possédait bien un système de défense, utilisant au mieux les potentialités du terrain. Celui-ci correspond à une enceinte de contour, à plusieurs lignes de défense, dispositif présentant une indéniable parenté avec les systèmes fortifiés d’autres oppida du monde celtique.
19th International Karstological School ZRC SAZU Postojna, 2022
In the last decade, the importance of condensation corrosion phenomena in the evolution of cave g... more In the last decade, the importance of condensation corrosion phenomena in the evolution of cave gallery morphologies is increasingly taken into account in cave studies. This is particularly the case in archaeological contexts, either for questions related to the taphonomy of cave art or for the understanding and the conservation of the paleo-environmental contexts that the caves could have recorded. These aspects become even more important with current or past presences of chiropteran colonies that will amplify, sometimes in an exponential way, the effects of the condensation corrosion on the morphologies of the cave. The bat colonies modify the local climatology of gallery by increasing the CO2 rate in the atmosphere and trigger the variations of the temperature due to their important presence, concentered in certain parts of the cavity, or by the productions of leachates and acid aerosols but also bacterial developments resulting from the guano and its decomposition Mas-d'Azil cave which engulfs the Arize river, is located in the SW of France, in the northern part of the Pyrenean mountains. The cave is more particularly known for many archaeological records from the Paleolithic period, studied from the end of the 19th century to present. The current strong presence of chiropteran colonies raises questions about the evolution of morphologies in some parts of the cave and the presence/absence of cave art in certain parts of the cave. An inventory of parietal morphologies is being carried out as part of the archaeological studies and is being continued with the high-definition description and study of remarkable points. In parallel, the monitoring of areological flows is undertaken to improve the understanding of the climatology of the different parts of the cave. For this, the continuous monitoring of temperatures provides essential observations of the phenomena implied and allows analyses and modeling of flows to establish thermodynamic profiles of the different parts of the cave. After the analyses of the data recording during a year, different modes of the cave aerology can be distinguished according the geometry of the cave network and the distance from the river. It is also possible to highlight phases of evolution of the cave with regard to processes such as condensation corrosion and its amplification by biocorrosion, which have been or are being carried out in the different parts of the galleries.
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These aspects become even more important with current or past presences of chiropteran colonies that will amplify, sometimes in an exponential way, the effects of the condensation corrosion on the morphologies of the cave. The bat colonies modify the local climatology of gallery by increasing the CO2 rate in the atmosphere and trigger the variations of the temperature due to their important presence, concentered in certain parts of the cavity, or by the productions of leachates and acid aerosols but also bacterial developments resulting from the guano and its decomposition
Mas-d'Azil cave which engulfs the Arize river, is located in the SW of France, in the northern part of the Pyrenean mountains. The cave is more particularly known for many archaeological records from the Paleolithic period, studied from the end of the 19th century to present. The current strong presence of chiropteran colonies raises questions about the evolution of morphologies in some parts of the cave and the presence/absence of cave art in certain parts of the cave. An inventory of parietal morphologies is being carried out as part of the archaeological studies and is being continued with the high-definition description and study of remarkable points. In parallel, the monitoring of areological flows is undertaken to improve the understanding of the climatology of the different parts of the cave. For this, the continuous monitoring of temperatures provides essential observations of the phenomena implied and allows analyses and modeling of flows to establish thermodynamic profiles of the different parts of the cave.
After the analyses of the data recording during a year, different modes of the cave aerology can be distinguished according the geometry of the cave network and the distance from the river. It is also possible to highlight phases of evolution of the cave with regard to processes such as condensation corrosion and its amplification by biocorrosion, which have been or are being carried out in the different parts of the galleries.