The Potential of Micromammals for the Stratigraphy and the Timing of Human Occupations at La Roche-à-Pierrot (Saint-Césaire, France)

Loïc Lebreton (1) , Eugène Morin (2, 3) , Brad Gravina (3) , Alexandre Michel (3) , François Bachellerie (3, 4) , Cédric Beauval (5) , Damien Flas (6, 7) , Véronique Laroulandie (3) , Josserand Marot (8) , Hélène Rougier (9) , Elise Tartar (7) , Dominique Todisco (10) , Isabelle Crevecoeur (3)

1 HNHP - Histoire naturelle de l'Homme préhistorique
2 Trent University
3 PACEA - De la Préhistoire à l'Actuel : Culture, Environnement et Anthropologie
4 Archéologie d'Alsace
5 Archéosphère
6 université de Liège - service de Préhistoire
7 TRACES - Travaux et recherches archéologiques sur les cultures, les espaces et les sociétés
8 Service Départemental de l’Archéologie, Conseil Départemental de Charente-Maritime
9 Department of Anthropology, California State University Northridge
10 IDEES - Identité et Différenciation de l’Espace, de l’Environnement et des Sociétés

As micromammals are highly sensitive to changes in their habitat, variations in species representation are often used to reconstruct local environmental conditions. However, taphonomic aspects of micromammals are often overlooked, despite the fact that they can provide important information for our understanding of archaeological sites. La Roche-à-Pierrot, Saint-Césaire, is a major archaeological site for our understanding of the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition in Western Europe. Clearly documenting site formation processes, the post-depositional reworking of deposits and the sequence of human occupations is fundamental for providing a secure archaeostratigraphic context of the site. The exceptionally large accumulation of micromammals from recently excavated stratigraphic units at the site makes it possible to track variations in the density of micromammals across the stratigraphic sequence. The taphonomic analysis of micromammals demonstrates these variations are not related to a change in the main accumulation agent or post-depositional phenomena. A negative correlation between small mammal remains and archaeological material suggests that peaks in micromammal densities can potentially be correlated with periods when the site was abandoned or when human occupation was less intense, and therefore provide new data for interpreting the Saint-Césaire stratigraphic sequence.

Mots clés: micromammals; taphonomy; density analysis; Late Pleistocene

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire

Loïc Lebreton, Eugène Morin, Brad Gravina, Alexandre Michel, François Bachellerie, et al.. The Potential of Micromammals for the Stratigraphy and the Timing of Human Occupations at La Roche-à-Pierrot (Saint-Césaire, France). Quaternary, 2021, 4 (4), pp.33. ⟨10.3390/quat4040033⟩. ⟨hal-03447683⟩