Raymonden
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Raymonden is a prehistoric cave near
Chancelade Chancelade (; oc, Chancelada) is a Communes of France, commune in the Dordogne Departments of France, department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. The village is the site of Chancelade Abbey. The so-called "Chancelade man" was found i ...
in the
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
département Dordogne. The cave was inhabited during the Upper Paleolithic and contained, besides many artefacts, a human skeleton.


Geography, geology and site description

The Raymonden cave occurs about one kilometer north of Chancelade on the left bank of the Beauronne river, a right-hand tributary of the
Isle An isle is an island, land surrounded by water. The term is very common in British English. However, there is no clear agreement on what makes an island an isle or its difference, so they are considered synonyms. Isle may refer to: Geography * Is ...
river. Just north of the cave the Beauronne starts to meander forming a first loop which is accompanied on its left side by a steep, rocky ledge. The rocks are composed of flat-lying Angoumian limestones, a local formation of the Turonian. The Angoumian used to be extensively quarried for building stones, and an enclosed resistant layer was mined for mill stones. The entry to the cave is hemmed in between two quarries, not far from the borough of ''les Grèzes''. In front of the cave passes the D 939 from Périgueux to Brantôme, a major trunk road.


History

The prehistoric site was discovered in 1876 by
M. Hardy ( ; ; pl. ; ; 1512, from Middle French , literally "my lord") is an honorific title that was used to refer to or address the eldest living brother of the king in the French royal court. It has now become the customary French title of resp ...
, who also started the excavation work. He was followed in 1883 by two college teachers from Périgueux. During the construction of the railway line from Périgueux to Brantôme the deposits in front of the cave (including many stone and bone artefacts) were erroneously used as gravel for the track foundations and consequently spread out over nearly a kilometer ! After this vandalism with irreparable damage Hardy and M. Féaux started a systematic study of the site which lasted till 1888. Their endeavours were crowned by success because at the base of the
archeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscape ...
layer they found a tomb with human remains. In 1927 L. Didon excavated a section in front of Raymonden cave, which was subjected to occasional flooding. After his death the work was continued by J. B. Bouyssonie from 1928 till 1929.


Stratigraphy

The damage done to the cave deposits by the railway workers seriously disturbed the original succession. Despite this considerable drawback in 1891 Hardy was still able to distinguish four ash layers within the 1.35 meter thick archeological succession; the individual ash layers were separated by thin sandy and clayey levels. The recovered artefacts were then brought to the Musée du Périgord in Périgueux but regrettably their exact position within the succession was never recorded. Even so certain characteristic finds clearly indicate the cultural epochs Magdalenian IV to Magdalenian VI. The excavations in front of the cave by Didon and Bouyssonie also distinguished four layers, but they were older and had to be attributed to the Magdalenian I – III. Raymonden was thus the only archeological site in the Périgord that once contained the entire Magdalenian section.


Inventory

The Raymonden cave contained a multitude of stone and bone artefacts from the Magdalenian including numerous art works' such as the ''bison plate'' (in
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
''plaquette au bison''). The Magdalenian I was mainly composed of draw knives but showed hardly any real knife blades. The Magdalenian II was very rich in knife blades, followed by
scraper Scrape, scraper or scraping may refer to: Biology and medicine * Abrasion (medical), a type of injury * Scraper (biology), grazer-scraper, a water animal that feeds on stones and other substrates by grazing algae, microorganism and other matter ...
s and burins in equal proportion. The Magdalenian III is clearly dominated by burins. The bone artefacts mainly originated from reindeer. During the Magdalenian II the saiga antelope appeared. Remarkable is the discovery of seal bones within the Magdalenian VI !


Tomb

The tomb at the base of the succession contained a human skeleton, that of Chancelade man. This find has considerable morphological differences from the older (
Aurignacian The Aurignacian () is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with European early modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the Levant, where t ...
)
Cro-Magnon 1 Cro-Magnon (, ; french: Abri de Cro-Magnon )French ''abri'' means "rock shelter", ''crô'' means "hole" in Occitan (standard French ''creux''), and ''Magnon'' is the surname of the land owner at the time. is an Aurignacian (Upper Paleolithic) sit ...
skull. The skeleton was resting on its left side and the knees were drawn to the torso. The left hand was covered by the skull, and the right hand touched the chin. The corpse must have been sprinkled with red iron oxide powder (ochre), because the bones are stained red. The skeleton is now kept in the Musée du Périgord. The Chancelade Man was 55 to 60 years old and about only about 1.55 meters tall. His cranial volume was measured 1,530 cm3,Matt Cartmill, Fred H. Smith, ''The Human Lineage'', (2009)
p. 362
larger than the modern European average of c. 1,350 cm3 but somewhat smaller than the Aurignacian (Cro-Magnon) average of about 1,600 cm3. He must have suffered from chronic rheumatism. The right half of the skull had undergone several lesions that later had healed over again.


Raymonden-North

A bit farther north from Raymonden cave is another small cave, sometimes also designated as ''Chancelade cave''. In this cave remains dating back to the Mousterian (MTA-type), to the Lower Périgordian and to the
Aurignacian The Aurignacian () is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with European early modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the Levant, where t ...
were found.


Age

Raymonden-North is a much older prehistoric site already inhabited during the Mousterian. The main cave spans the entire Magdalenian which corresponds roughly to the interval 17.000 to 11.000 years BP. It possibly was also inhabited during the Azilian.


See also

* Rochereil *
Aurignacian The Aurignacian () is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with European early modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the Levant, where t ...
* Azilian *
Magdalenian The Magdalenian cultures (also Madelenian; French: ''Magdalénien'') are later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic in western Europe. They date from around 17,000 to 12,000 years ago. It is named after the type site of La Madele ...
* Mousterian * Perigordian


References


Literature

* Delluc, B. & G., Roussot, A. & Roussot-Larroque, J. (1990). Connaître la préhistoire en Périgord. Éditions SUD-OUEST. . * Platel, J.-P. et al. (1989). Périgueux (Ouest). In: Carte géologique de la France à 1/50 000. BRGM, Orléans. . {{Navbox prehistoric caves History of Dordogne Prehistoric sites in France Caves of Dordogne Azilian