Mas d'Azil cave
| Mas d'Azil cave
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 Inside the Mas d'Azil cave |
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| Location: | Ariège department , France | |
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Geographic location: |
43 ° 4 '10 " N , 1 ° 21' 17" E | |
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| Type: | Karst cave | |
| Overall length: | 460 m | |
The cave of Mas d'Azil is a tunnel cave located in southwest France in the Ariège department , which is particularly famous as a prehistoric site of the Magdalenian . Based on the finds made in the cave, the French prehistorian Edouard Piette defined the term Azilien at the end of the 19th century . In the Aurignacien and Solutréen , the cave only served as a short-term storage place, while in later times it was more permanent.
Location and geology
The Mas d'Azil cave is located in an area of France known for its cave sites; in Ariège, for example, are the caves of Niaux , La Vache and Bédeilhac. The Arize River flows through the cave . In the Tertiary, he caused the chalk cliffs to be washed out and thus created the cave's interior appearance today: The cave is divided by the river, so that there are two banks on the one hand, and several floors (one speaks of galleries) on the other. People settled in these galleries in prehistoric times.
The width of the cave is between 30 and 50 meters, the length is between 450 and 470 meters. Today the former national road D 119 runs through part of the cave to the village of Mas d'Azil.
Research history
The systematic development of the site was first made in 1887 by Edouard Piette. He later coined the name Azilien . Henri Breuil (1902/1903) and Marthe and Saint-Just Péquart (in the 1940s) dug after him .
Most important finds
Significant discoveries have been made in the Mas d'Azil cave.
Artifacts and weapons
In the first place of the artifacts is the extensive inventory of tools of the Magdalenian. Above all, the preponderance of types that belong to the fourth level of this culture (according to H. Breuil) stands out (today the level of Magdalenian is called moyen ). The main characteristic of Magdalenian are harpoons . Even spear throwers , and spear thrower hook ends were discovered. Some of them were decorated with elaborate depictions of animals. These hunting weapons, which are characteristic of the Magdalenian, represent the defining long-range weapon from the Solutréen onwards .
Cabaret
It is mainly about small art depictions of animals made of ivory. Bone artifacts with incised drawings and engravings were also discovered. Several animal head representations found in a half-finished state provide information about their production: They were found together with the shoulder blades of reindeer from which they had been cut. Two human-like statuettes from the Magdalenian period were also found, including the Venus of Mas d'Azil .
Cave paintings and scratch drawings
The Mas d'Azil grotto also belongs to the category of partially painted caves. However, the representations discovered cannot be compared qualitatively and quantitatively with those from other French or Spanish sites such as Lascaux .
The depictions in Mas d'Azil are primarily animal depictions of extinct animal species, such as mammoth , primeval and woolly rhinoceros. There are also images of bison, horses, deer and stag as well as wild boar. A single human-like representation has become known as the "face in the rock". Existing rock formations were used to create plastic effects.
Cranial burial
The burial, which took place in the time of Magdalenian IV , is one of the peculiarities that prompted Edouard Piette to introduce a new cultural name (Azilien). It is about the burial of a skull that was placed in or on a narrow ledge. The head was obviously forcibly severed; it cannot be said whether the person was still alive while this was happening. However, any kind of execution is unlikely, since an execution would not have carried out such a complex burial. Small bone plates were inserted into the eye sockets of the dead person (they were inserted so that their sides roughly follow the curve of the eye sockets; this prevents the plates from falling out of the eye sockets); the skull had been placed on a small raised platform made of rock material. An over-modeling of the skull with plaster of paris (as was known from the stone tower of Jericho ) has not been carried out.
Painted pebbles
Pebbles painted in red are typical of the Mas d'Azil site . The decoration here consists of red, mostly circular colored dots, the meaning of which is still unclear. Similar stones painted with red lines, dots or rows of dots have also been found in other European sites, for example in the Abri Dufaure , in Espelugues , La Tourasse , Marsoulas and other caves in the Ariège region. In addition, there are painted pebbles or limestone slabs in sites of the late Magdalenian period in Central Europe, for example in Birseck , more precisely: Hermitage Arlesheim (Switzerland), in the Hohlen Fels ( Swabian Alb ) and in the Klausenhöhle (Lower Altmühltal , Bavaria). The French archaeologist Claude Couraud differentiates between four types of painted stones from the Azilia and the late Magdalenian.
literature
- Henry Breuil: Report on the foilles dans la grotte du Mas-d'Azil (Ariége). In: Bulletin archéologique du Comité des Travaux historiques et scientifiques, 1903, pp. 421–436
- Henry Breuil: Report on the fouilles dans le grotte du Mas-d'Azil (Ariége). In: Bulletin archéologique du Comité des Travaux historiques et scientifiques, 1902, pp. 3–23
- Marthe and Saint-Just Pequart: De l'authenticité des galets coloriés du Mas-d'Azil (Ariége). In: Congress prehistorique de France, XII, Toulouse-Foix, 1936–1937. Paris. Societé prehistorique francaise, 1937, pp. 548-558
- Edouard Piette: Sur un buste de femme taillé dans la racine d'une dent d'equidé et trouve dans la galerie magdalénienne du Mas d'Azil. In: Materiaux pour l'histoire de l'homme , Volume 22, 1888, pp. 378-379
- Edouard Piette: Une sépulture dans l'assix a galets coloriés du Mas d'Azil. In: Bulletin et Memoires de la Societé d'Anthropologie de Paris , Volume 6, 1895, pp. 485-486
- Edouard Piette: Phases successives de la civilization pendant l'Age du Renee dans le Midi de la France et notamment sur la rive gauche de l'Arize (grotte du Mas d'Azil). In: Association francaise pour l'Avancement de Sciences . 21st Congress 1892, Pau, pp. 649-654.
- J. Ozols: The Spear Throwers of Mas d'Azil and Bedeilhac et Aynat. In: Bonner Hefte zur Prehistory 3, 1972, pp. 119–123
- HV Vallois: La Crane humaine magdalénien du Mas d'Azil. In: L'Anthropologie , Volume 65, 1961, pp. 21-45
- Christian Züchner: A Upper Palaeolithic hunting depiction in Mas-d'Azil (Ariége, France). In: Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 3, 1973, pp. 378–379
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Denis Vialou et al .: L'Art des Cavernes. Atlas des Grottes ornées paleolithiques francaises. Paris 1984, p. 391
- ↑ Denis Vialou: The early days of man. Munich 1992, p. 117
- ↑ Vialou 1984, p. 389
- ↑ Vialou 1984, p. 391
- ↑ Vialou 1992, p. 34, 79
- ↑ Svend Hansen: Images of the Stone Age man. Investigations into the anthropomorphic plastic of the Neolithic and Copper Age in Southeast Europe. Part I, text. Mainz 2007, p. 12
- ↑ Vialou 1992, p. 176
- ↑ HV Vallois: Le crâne humain Magdalénien du Mas d'Azil. In: L'Anthropologie, Volume 65, 1961, pp. 21-45
- ↑ Hansen 2007, p. 55
- ^ Claude Couraud: L'art Azilien. Origine - survivance. Paris 1985