Teyjat cave
The cave of Teyjat ( French Grotte de la Mairie ) is located in the center of Teyjat in the French Dordogne department . It contains over 40 incised drawings that were made in the late Magdalenian period around 12,000 years ago. Fifty meters away there is an abri , the so-called Abri Mège , which was also settled in the Magdalenian.
Research history
The cave had been visited several times since 1880 and Perrier du Carne had finds of five ornate bones as early as 1889 (including a pony carved on a reindeer basin ) and other utensils (toothed harpoons and an arrow bow - a very old, unfortunately no longer preserved bow find ) made. But it was Denis Peyrony who discovered the drawings between 1903 and 1905. These were then scientifically examined by the Abbé Henri Breuil . In 1904 P. Bourrinet took a detailed picture of the cave. He was able to prove two archaeological horizons, which are separated by a sterile layer of rubble. The bottom layer comes from Magdalenian V , characterized by single-row toothed harpoon finds, the upper layer, however, from Magdalenian VI with double-row toothed harpoons, bores or pricks and arrowheads resembling parrot's beaks .
Dating
The lower layer of the cave floor is assigned to the Magdalenian V and is therefore likely to be around 10,000 BC. Go back. It contains chipped, sintered wall pieces. This is one of the rare cases in which the drawings can be directly assigned to an archaeological stratum .
Structure of the cave
The scratch drawings are located immediately behind the entrance passage on the left. The decorated part of the cave is 15 meters long. The cave is longer, but no more finds have been made. At the end of the cave, a shaft leads to a lower floor and to an underground watercourse.
Description of the scratch drawings
The prehistoric incised drawings are in the front section of the cave. Over a distance of 10 meters, 48 incised drawings are made, which are spread over six sectors. The cave walls are heavily coated with thick, amber-colored calcareous sinter . This enabled the Upper Paleolithic artists to showcase their motifs. A stalagmite sintering section was also used for representations. Aurochs , bison , cattle , wild horses , reindeer , deer and bear served as motifs . The fine, realistic-expressive, almost photographic-looking style, comparable to the finds in Limeuil , was classified by André Leroi-Gourhan as Style IV of the late Magdalenian. The so-called cattle frieze in the last section has become famous - it marks, so to speak, the climax of Paleolithic cave art.
In total, the 48 animal representations can be broken down as follows:
- 5 deer-like
- 11 deer
- 13 reindeer
- 10 wild horses
- 3 aurochs
- 4 bisons
- 2 bears
The deer and deer-like as well as the reindeer are clearly overrepresented in comparison with other caves - for example, the horses dominate in Lascaux and Les Combarelles , the bison in Font-de-Gaume and the mammoths in Rouffignac and Bernifal . Overall, the groups of animals shown are a mixture of a distinct “cold fauna” (reindeer, wild horse, bison) with a more temperate fauna (deer and deer-like). This reflects the warming of the climate that began at that time.
Utensil finds
Scattered on the ground were tools from the same era, which are similar to those found in neighboring Angoumois . These included weapons like harpoons and bows. The stemmed arrowheads of Teyjat are characteristic of the outgoing Magdalenian era . The discovery of an eagle spoke bone on which a reindeer group of 18 animals was depicted is remarkable .
literature
- JL Aubarbier, M. Binet, JP Bouchard, G. Guichard: Aimer la préhistoire en Périgord . Éditions Ouest-France, 1991, ISBN 2-7373-0786-4 .
- B. & G. Delluc, A. Roussot, J. Roussot-Larroque: Connaître la préhistoire en Périgord . Sud Ouest, 1990, ISBN 2-87901-048-9 .
Web links
- Teyjat Cave in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
Coordinates: 45 ° 35 ′ 10 ″ N , 0 ° 34 ′ 17 ″ E