The Saint-Prest site: evidence of a human presence around a million years ago?
Résumé
Reported to the Geological Society of France by L.-G. Guérineau de Boisvillette in 1848, the site of Saint-Prest, corresponding to alluvial deposits trapped in a limestone doline, about ten kilometers north of Chartres (Eure-et-Loir), revealed numerous fossil remains of large mammals among which several types were identified in the 19th century. such as Alces carnutorum Laugel 1862, Trogontherium cuvieri boisvilletti Laugel 1862 and more recently: Mammuthus meridionalis depereti Coppens et Beden 1982. Quite quickly it is the potential presence of humans, contemporaries of these extinct faunas, that has been debated on the basis of indirect traces (cutting marks on bones, cut stones). The question, far from being settled, contributed to the site being forgotten. A study by C. Guérin, Y. Dewolf and J.-P. Lautridou, published in 2002, reviewed the geological and stratigraphic context and revised the faunal list which includes, in addition to the taxa already mentioned, Equus cf. stenonis, numerous deers, Bison shoetensacki, Dicerorhinus etruscus, Hippopotamus antiquus and two fragments of maxilla of Pachycrocuta brevirostris. Since 2017, we have been developing an archaeozoological analysis on all the fossils preserved in various public and private institutions. Out of about 800 pieces, half of which are mammoth remains, less than a dozen traces that could be considered as cut marks have been observed, as seems to be the case in sites, dated around one million years ago, in Eurasia
Domaines
Archéologie et Préhistoire
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Saint Prest Vialet et al. Colloque Saint Prest 2022.pdf (222.13 Ko)
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