Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T23:50:35.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The unique Solutrean laurel-leaf points of Volgu: heat-treated or not?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2018

Patrick Schmidt ,
Ludovic Bellot-Gurlet  and
Harald Floss
Patrick Schmidt*
Affiliation:
Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, Schloss Hohentübingen, 72070 Tübingen, Germany Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Department of Geosciences, Applied Mineralogy, Wilhelmstraße 56, 72074 Tübingen, Germany
Ludovic Bellot-Gurlet
Affiliation:
Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Université Paris 6, MONARIS ‘de la Molécule aux Nano-objets: Réactivité, Interactions et Spectroscopies’, UMR 8233, UPMC-CNRS, 4 place Jussieu, 75252Paris Cedex 5, France
Harald Floss
Affiliation:
Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, Schloss Hohentübingen, 72070 Tübingen, Germany
*
*Author for correspondence (Email: patrick.schmidt@uni-tuebingen.de)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The laurel-leaf points of the Volgu cache found in eastern France rank among the most remarkable examples of skilled craftsmanship known from the Solutrean period of the Upper Palaeolithic. In addition to pressure flaking, heat treatment may have helped in the making of the points, as both have been previously described in association with Solutrean assemblages. This study presents the results of an infrared spectroscopic analysis of seven artefacts from the Volgu cache conducted to test this assumption. The findings show that heat treatment was not universally applied to this particular tool type, meaning that we must rethink the reasons why such a technique was used.

Keywords

FranceSolutreanlaurel-leaf pointsheat treatmentflintinfrared
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 92 , Issue 363 , June 2018 , pp. 587 - 602
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Armand-Calliat, L. 1950. Catalogue des collections archéologiques: 19. Chalon-sur-Saône: Editions du Musée de Chalon-sur-Saône.Google Scholar
Aubry, T., Walter, B., Robin, E., Plisson, H. & Ben-Habdelhadi, M.. 1998. Le site solutréen de plein-air des Maitreaux (Bossay-sur-Claise, Indre-et- Loire): un faciès original de production lithique. Paléo: 163–84.Google Scholar
Aubry, T., Peyrouse, J.-B. & Walter, B.. 2003. Les feuilles de laurier de Volgu (Saône-et-Loire): une énigme en partie résolue? Paléo 15: 251–54.Google Scholar
Aubry, T., Bradley, B., Almeida, M., Walter, B., Joao Neves, M., Pelegrin, J.M.L. & Tiffagom, M.. 2008. Solutrean laurel leaf production at Maîtreaux: an experimental approach guided by techno-economic analysis. World Archaeology 40: 48–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438240701843538Google Scholar
Blake, E.C. 2010. Stone ‘tools’ as portable sound-producing objects in Upper Palaeolithic contexts: the application of an experimental study: 332. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Bonnet, G. 1904. Étude sur le Charollais préhistorique. Annales de l'Académie de Mâcon IX: 336–419.Google Scholar
Bordes, F. 1967. Considérations sur la typologie et les techniques dans le Paléolithique. Quartär 18: 25–55.Google Scholar
Bordes, F. 1968. The old Stone Age. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Bordes, F. 1969. Traitement thermique du silex au Solutréen. Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française 66: 197.Google Scholar
Breuil, A.H. 1908. La cachette de La Goulaine. Bulletin Diana 15: 268.Google Scholar
Brown, K.S., Marean, C.W., Herries, A.I.R., Jacobs, Z., Tribolo, C. Braun, D., Roberts, D.L., Meyer, M.C. & Bernatchez, J.. 2009. Fire as an engineering tool of early modern humans. Science 325: 859–62. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1175028Google Scholar
Cabrol, M.A. 1940. À propos de la découverte des pointes solutréennes de Volgu (Saône-et-Loire). Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française 37: 186–89.Google Scholar
Chabas, F. 1874. Les silex de Volgu. Découverte d'armes de silex à Volgu près Digoin (Saône-et-Loire). Rapport à la société d'histoire et d'archéologie de Chalon-sur-Saône: 24.Google Scholar
Crabtree, D.E. & Butler, B.R.. 1964. Notes on experiment in flint knapping: 1 heat treatment of silica materials. Tebiwa 7: 1–6.Google Scholar
Darmark, K. 2011. Surface pressure flaking in Eurasia: mapping the innovation, diffusion and evolution of a technological element in the production of projectile points, in Desrosiers, P.M. (ed.) The emergence of pressure blade making, from origin to modern experimentation: 261–83. New York & Dordrecht & Heidelberg & London: Springer.Google Scholar
Fernandes, P., Morala, A., Schmidt, P., Séronie-Vivien, M.R. & Turq, A.. 2012. Le silex du Bergeracois: état de la question. Paper presented at the Quaternaire continental d'Aquitaine: un point sur les travaux récents. Excursion AFEQ—ASF en Aquitaine du 30 mai au 1 juin 2012.Google Scholar
Flenniken, J. 1987. The Paleolithic Dyuktai pressure blade technique of Siberia. Journal of Arctic Anthropology 24: 117–32.Google Scholar
Inada, T. 2014. Restitution et caractéristiques des processus de faconnage des ‘feuilles de laurier’ solutréennes de Volgu (Saône-et-Loire). Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française 111: 433–52.Google Scholar
Inizan, M.L. & Tixier, J.. 2001. L’émergence des arts du feu: le traitement thermique des roches siliceuses. Paléorient 26: 23–36. https://doi.org/10.3406/paleo.2000.4707Google Scholar
Jost, J.-B. 1927. La préhistoire dans la région digoinaise. Digioin: Galimard.Google Scholar
Kilby, J.D. 2014a. Direction and distance in Clovis caching: the movement of people and lithic raw materials on the Clovis-age landscape, in Huckell, B.B. & Kilby, J.D. (ed.) Clovis caches: recent discoveries and new research: 201–16. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico.Google Scholar
Kilby, J.D. 2014b. A regional perspective on Clovis blades and blade caching, in Smallwood, A. & Jennings, T. (ed.) Clovis: on the edge of a new understanding: 145–59. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.Google Scholar
Masson, A. 1984. Pétrographie et muséologie: un ‘faux Volgu’. Nouvelles archives du Muséum d'histoire naturelle de Lyon, 22ème supplément: 55–57.Google Scholar
Pelegrin, J. 1981. Experiments in bifacial work. About ‘laurel leaves’. Flintknappers Exchange 4: 5–7.Google Scholar
Peyrouse, L.-B. & Desbrosse, R.. 2007. De nouvelles pièces solutréennes à Volgu (Saône-et-Loire). Bulletin de la Société d'Histoire Naturelle et des amis du Muséum d'Autun 195: 13–18.Google Scholar
Peyrouse, J.-B., Aubry, T., Pelegrin, J., Desbrosse, R., Mangado Llach, X. & Walter, B.. 2013. Volgu revisité!: de nouveaux indices sur les déplacements solutréens dans le Bassin ligérien. Actes du colloque le Solutréen, 40 ans après Smith ‘66, Preuilly-sur-Claise, 26 octobre–1 novembre 2007: 225–31.Google Scholar
Roqué-Rosell, J., Torchy, L., Roucau, C., Lea, V., Colomban, P., Regert, M., Binder, D., Pelegrin, J. & Sciau, P.. 2010. Influence of heat treatment on the physical transformations of flint used by Neolithic societies in the Western Mediterranean. International conference, Materials Research Society, November 2010, Boston.Google Scholar
Rutot, A. 1905. À propos de la découverte des pointes de Volgu. Bulletin de la Société Anthropologique de Bruxelles 24: 84–88.Google Scholar
Schmidt, P. & Morala, A.. 2018. First insights into the technique used for heat treatment of chert at the Solutrean site of Laugerie-Haute, France. Archaeometry, first published online 4 February 2018. https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.12358Google Scholar
Schmidt, P., Badou, A. & Fröhlich, F.. 2011. Detailed FT near-infrared study of the behaviour of water and hydroxyl in sedimentary length-fast chalcedony, SiO2, upon heat treatment. Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy 81: 552–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.saa.2011.06.050Google Scholar
Schmidt, P., Masse, S., Laurent, G., Slodczyk, A., Le Bourhis, E., Perrenoud, C., Livage, J. & Fröhlich, F.. 2012. Crystallographic and structural transformations of sedimentary chalcedony in flint upon heat treatment. Journal of Archaeological Science 39: 135–44.Google Scholar
Schmidt, P., Léa, V., Sciau, P. & Fröhlich, F.. 2013. Detecting and quantifying heat treatment of flint and other silica rocks: a new non-destructive method applied to heat-treated flint from the Neolithic Chassey culture, southern France. Archaeometry 55: 794–805. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4754.2012.00712.xGoogle Scholar
Smith, P. 1966. Le Solutréen en France. Bordeaux: Delmas. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2011.09.012Google Scholar
Tiffagom, M. 1998. Témoignages d'un traitement thermique des feuilles de laurier dans le Solutréen supérieur de la grotte du Parpalló (Gandia, Espagne). Paléo 10: 147–61. https://doi.org/10.3406/pal.1998.1134Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Schmidt et al. supplementary material 1

Schmidt et al. supplementary material

Download Schmidt et al. supplementary material 1(PDF)
PDF 398.6 KB