UN ATELIER DE PRODUCTION ET DE CONSOMMATIOND'OUTILS BIFACIAUX DE LA FIN DU PALEOLITHIQUE MOYENA SAINT-BRICE-SOUS-RANES (ORNE - FRANCE) DANS SON CONTEXTE ENVIRONNEMENTAL

摘要

A BIFACIAL TOOL WORKSHOP AT THE END OF THE MIDDLE PALAEOLITHIC AT SAINT-BRICE-SOUS-RANES (ORNE – FRANCE)IN ITS ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT The discovery, through fieldwalking during the seventies, of the Saint-Brice-sous-Wanes sites led to a series of test pits in order to define the sitepotential. This was followed by the partial excavation of an artifact layer. The assemblage, composed almost exclusively of flint artifacts, consists mainlyof numerous bifaces and bifacial tools. A second lithic series constituted solely of knapping flakes, has been identified. The Levallois method is therewell represented, contrary to the other series. The weak sedimentary record which characterizes sites of the western regions: Britanny, Loire region,Upper and Lower Normandy, rarely allow a chronostratigraphic interpretation of these sites. However, several heated flints at Saint-Brice allow, for thefirst time in the western regions, the dating through radiometric methods of a biface workshop. The ages obtained (MIS 6 and 3) show that this is a siteof the last Neanderthalians of northern Europe and confirm the emergence of bifacial tool cultures in western France at the end of the Middle Palae-olithic. In fact the bifaces workshops in the western France have some similarities with the central and middle Europe sites.