Social context of Mesolithic rock engravings in the Fontainebleau sandstone region (Paris Basin, France): Contribution of the experimental study

Alexandre Cantin (1) , Boris Valentin (1) , Médard Thiry (2) , Colas Guéret (1)

1 TEMPS - Technologie et Ethnologie des Mondes Préhistoriques
2 Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris)

Anthropogenic engravings were made within more than 2000 small natural cavities found in the sandstone boulder fields of the central Paris Basin, in an area of 1800 km2 to west of the town of Fontainebleau. These engravings consist mainly of clustered rectilinear grooves arranged in vertical parallel series or organized in grids. These dominant classes of motifs form a unique type of rock art attributed to Early Mesolithic hunter-gatherers (∼9500–6300 BCE in northern France) on a growing body of evidences. Here, we approach the social context in which these abundant symbolic manifestations were produced by developing an experimental study guided by two main questions: what efforts (i.e difficulty of work and working time) and know-how were required for these engravings? On what occasions were they made? After quantifying the highly variable hardness of the Fontainebleau sandstone with a Schmidt Hammer, we selected natural blocks and blank cavities in recent quarries to conduct our experiments. These show that the engravable part of the sandstone corresponds to a friable cortex often less than 1 cm thick, which covers a core of hard sandstone that cannot be engraved. In the sandstone boulder fields, this friable cortex is only preserved on surfaces protected from weathering. Our experiments also reveal that curved grooves can be made without difficulty and that the omnipresence of rectilinear grooves is a cultural choice. Finally, our experiments show that these rectilinear grooves are very easy to engrave and make it possible to propose equations for estimating the time required to make archaeological motifs. The average engraving time of a groove has been estimated at less than one minute and less than 15 min for the most common grids. These results, placed in their archaeological context, allow us to formulate the following proposals: (1) the engravings attributed to the Early Mesolithic period were technically easy and could be made in rather short periods of time; (2) the cramped configuration of the engraved places and the absence of apparent distribution pattern of motifs on the walls points to the hypothesis of an accumulation of individual engraving episodes, possibly by several engravers; (3) the engraved cavities are abundant, easily accessible and connected to daily-life territories. We can deduce that the Fontainebleau rock engraving phenomenon is the result of numerous small, ordinary and stereotyped engraving rites, likely carried out by a large number of engravers.

Mots clés: Rock art; Mesolithic; Experimental Archaeology; Engraving; Sandstone

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire

Alexandre Cantin, Boris Valentin, Médard Thiry, Colas Guéret. Social context of Mesolithic rock engravings in the Fontainebleau sandstone region (Paris Basin, France): Contribution of the experimental study. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2022, 45, pp.103554. ⟨10.1016/j.jasrep.2022.103554⟩. ⟨hal-03741150⟩