Les vestiges néanderthaliens provenant des niveaux moustériens I et J de la Grotte du Bison à Arcy-sur-Cure (Yonne) : bilan actuel

Abstract

The caves at Arcy-sur-Cure (Grottes du Renne, de l'Hyène, du Loup et du Bison), in the Yonne Department are key Palaeolithic sites in North-Eastern France, not only for documenting the transition from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic, but also for the human remains they have yielded. The Grotte du Bison was first excavated by a team led by A. Leroi-Gourhan until 1963; investigations were taken up again from 1995 by a multidisciplinary team. The geological sequence includes seven levels of human occupation from the Mousterian (Middle Palaeolithic) to the Châtelperronian (Early Upper Palaeolithic). The Grotte du Bison was also occupied by large carnivores, such as hyenas in layer I. Two human teeth (one deciduous and one permanent) were found during the earlier excavations in layer J. Ten further fossil human specimens, including a fragment of an adult maxilla bearing 6 teeth and 9 isolated teeth (deciduous and permanent), were recovered more recently from layers J and I, during the 2008, 2010 and 2011 seasons. These anthropological finds from the Grotte du Bison at Arcysur- Cure, together with the previous finds from other caves at Arcy-sur-Cure, have brought new knowledge about the last artisans of Mousterian industry in Europe. © 2012 Société d'anthropologie de Paris et Springer-Verlag France.