Mousterian (Neanderthal) SitesCombe-Capelle, a Neanderthal site in Southern France
Combe-Capelle is a Mousterian / Neanderthal site situated in the Couze valley in the Périgord region of Southern France. Henri-Marc Ami carried out excavations there from the late 1920s until his death in 1931.
Combe-Capelle
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Combe-Capelle location map and cover. Combe-Capelle is slightly out on the map, it is on the east, not to the west of the small side road shown on the map.
The topographical maps are fairly easy to get in the South of France (try tobaccanists and newsagents) and are very useful for navigating when trying to locate archeological sites.
Photo: Don Hitchcock, of the IGN map, Carte de Randonné Beaumont-du-Périgord.
It is easy to miss the gate to the site while driving past. I was very fortunate to be there at the time when an official from the Ministry for Culture was making a once yearly visit to check on the site. Thus I was given a conducted tour while the official made his inspections. I was very grateful for this opportunity.
It is possible that the stone house on the left is the original house shown on the Peyrony (1943) map below, and labelled as "Combe Capelle". The building shown on Peyrony's map may also be the ruins of an ancient chapel, whence the name Combe Capelle was derived.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
The site is surrounded by a fence. The small sign is in memory of Henri-Marc Ami, a French Canadian archeologist who carried out excavations there from the late 1920s until his death in 1931.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
These photographs document the huge trench dug by Henri-Marc Ami, recognisable as the sections protected by stone walls. The black plastic covers areas dug by scientists more recently.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Plan of Combe-Capelle Bas, showing locations of various excavation units in relation to the outlines of Ami's trench. The two datums and the horizontal angle between them define the global cooordinate system used during the excavation.
Photo and Text: Dibble et al (1995)
Plan de la colline de Combe-Capelle
Haut de Combe-Capelle is sometimes called Abri Peyrony.
Photo: Peyrony (1943)
Coupe AB Combe-Capelle
This is the stratigraphy along the line AB on the map above.
Photo: Peyrony (1943)
At its greatest steepness, the bedrock is inclined at 45° to the horizontal, but at 11 metres from the road the bedrock is at a much more gentle slope.
On the bedrock is:
1. A layer of reddish clay-limestone 10 cm in average thickness, which appears to be have been deposited by a stream, after completion of the carving of the valley. On its surface are embedded fragments of worked flint (Va.)
2. Limestone gravel with a thickness of 30 cm, with a few rounded siliceous cobbles, directly superimposed (Vb).
3. Then comes a reddish clay level of 15 cm, appearing to be another deposit from a flooding creek, which on the surface, and penetrating sometimes, we find an industry the same as that found at the base (Vc).
4. Spreading above this, an important archeological deposit which varies between 200 and 250 cm in thickness, depending on the exact locations considered.
5. On the surface, following the inclination of the slope, we find many flint pieces with crushed edges, similar to those reported in le Moustier and la Micoque.
6. Everything is covered in part by the last archeological level which underlies and mixes with the topsoil.
Text above from: Peyrony (1943)
English translation from the French: Don Hitchcock
Layer I Industry
Couche I
Nos 1, 2, and 5 cordiformes, or heart shaped all purpose tools, the Swiss Army Knife of the Mousterian industry.
No 3 blade knife.
No 4 and 9 knife-scrapers.
No 6 burin, used for making holes in leather, for example.
Nos 7 and 8 Mousterian points.
Photo: Peyrony (1943)
Text: translated and adapted from Peyrony (1943)
Layer II Industry
Couche II
Nos. 1, 4, 7 triangular points with thin bases.
Nos. 2 and 3 knife-scrapers.
No. 5 scraper.
No. 6 knife with worn-out curved edge.
No. 8 flake with truncated, worn ends.
No. 9 scraper.
Photo: Peyrony (1943)
Text: translated and adapted from Peyrony (1943)
Note that the point 1 in the diagram above, shown again at the far left, is a classic Levallois point. You can clearly see the remains of the striking platform and the three flakes taken off in preparation before the final blow severing the flake from the core.
← To see an excellent animation of the sequence of making such a point, click on the image on the near left.
The point 1 has been later modified by retouch along the right hand edge, presumably after it had become dull through use, or possibly to modify its shape. Not all flakes come off exactly as one would wish, as seen in the idealised sequence of the animation.
Photo: (left) Peyrony (1943)
Photo: Eshleman (2003) Photo: (right) Wikimedia commons, José-Manuel Benito Álvarez
Date: 3 January 2007
Permission: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.
Layer III Industry
Couche III - Mousterian points
No. 1 point with a thin base.
No. 4 point with two bases.
No. 5, 5a point with a broad (striking platform) base on the Clactonian plan, usually associated with much older flints. The Clactonian industry involved striking thick, irregular flakes from a core of flint.
No. 6 point showing the striking platform.
No. 2, 3, 3a, 7, 9 and 11 different types of knives.
No. 10 tranchet. A tranchet flake is a characteristic type of flake removed by a flintknapper during lithic reduction. It involves removing a flake parallel to the final intended cutting edge of the tool which creates a single straight edge as wide as the tool itself. It is found in some Acheulean assemblages, and handaxes created using the method are called tranchet axes.
Photo: Peyrony (1943)
Text: translated and adapted from Peyrony (1943) with additional information from Wikipedia.
Layer IV and V Industry
Couche IV and V
No. 1 tranchet. A tranchet flake is a characteristic type of flake removed by a flintknapper during lithic reduction. It involves removing a flake parallel to the final intended cutting edge of the tool which creates a single straight edge as wide as the tool itself. It is found in some Acheulean assemblages, and handaxes created using the method are called tranchet axes.
Nos. 2 and 6 knives with the oblique edge worn out.
Nos. 3 and 7 knife-scrapers.
No. 4 knife-point.
No. 5 blade-knife.
No. 8 disc.
Photo: Peyrony (1943)
Text: translated and adapted from Peyrony (1943) with additional information from Wikipedia.
Animals
In the whole of the layers II to V, there were found just three skeletons of Marmots, dead in their own burrows, but which were not part of the archeological remains, two fragments of jaws of bovids, as well as some other bovid bones, and two horse teeth.
Text above: Peyrony (1943)
Text below from:
http://www.oldstoneage.com/cc/AmiExc.htm
At the suggestion of Peyrony, Ami excavated a trench in this area that began just above the road and continued upslope in the direction of Abri Peyrony. The size of this trench, which appears to have been quite irregular, is enormous: it is about 35 m in length and varies in width between a little over 2.5 m at the top (i.e. furthest upslope) to a maximum width of about 10 m in its central portion and it is approximately 8 m wide at its base. The average thickness of the archaeological deposits is about 3 m. This represents approximately 700 m3 of deposit, most of which was excavated between 1926 and 1931.
Looking downhill towards the road, from the Henri-Marc Ami trench.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Valladas et al (2003)
Abstract:
The Middle Paleolithic site of Combe-Capelle Bas, France, is known primarily from the excavations of Ami in the early part of the last century and more recently from the excavations of Dibble and Lenoir. Up to now, the only dates available for the site were based on geologic and paleoclimatic data. Most recently, Texier and Bertran suggest that the formation of the principal Mousterian deposits date to prior to OIS 6 and likely represent OIS 8 or even 10. The results of TL dating of burnt flints from these same deposits (Levels I-1D, I-1E, and I-2B), reported here, contradict this finding. They indicate an age of between 37 to 60 ka with six of the seven flints falling between 50–60 ka. This date fits well with Mousterian sites previously dated in this region of France.
Plan view of Combe-Capelle showing Ami's trench and
Dibble/Lenoir units. The inset shows a south–north profile of the
hillside from the base of the slope to the Abri Peyrony at the base of
the plateau.
The flints collected for TL dating were from the A1 and A2 units in Sector I.
Photo and text: Valladas et al (2003)
Flints in archeological strata act as dosimeters for the natural radiation received from internal and environmental sources during the burial time.
When a flint is heated to a sufficiently high temperature (ca. 450°C) the effects of prior irradiation are erased and after cooling it begins storing the radiation energy received since the last heating. If the annual radiation dose received by such a flint can be determined, the thermoluminescence (TL) measurement of the total accumulated dose (paleodose) makes it possible to estimate how long ago a hearth, for example, into which the flint had fallen was abandoned. The thermoluminescence method is particularly useful for dating Middle Paleolithic sites beyond the range of radiocarbon method and has in the past provided age-estimates for several important Mousterian sites in Europe and the Near East.
The burnt flint specimens discussed in this article were collected during the Dibble and Lenoir excavations at Combe-Capelle Bas from Levels I-1D to I-2B of Sector I (excavation Units A1 and A2). Among the ten flints selected for TL analysis, only seven were sufficiently heated to be datable. Of these, five specimens came from Level I-1D and one sample each from Levels I-1E and I-2B, respectively (Table 1). The flint find locations are indicated on the section presented in Fig. 3. The industries of these three levels are technologically and typologically very similar and best classified as Typical Mousterian, rich in notched tools.
Annual dose-rates measurement
In 1990, seven CaSO4:Dy dosimeters were placed for one year to measure the gamma and cosmic dose-rates in Levels I-1D, 1-2A, and I-3A (see Fig. 3). The distance between each flint-find location and the nearest dosimeters usually ranged from 0.2 to 1 m.
One sample, CC2, gave a much younger age, but the six other samples are compatible and show no noticeable variation with their burial depth (Levels I-1D to I-2B). Such agreement suggests that all six were burned within a narrow time interval and allows us to compute the mean weighted age of the individual results, with the statistical and systematic errors being treated separately. The mean age of 51.8 ±3.0 ka (at one sigma level) indicates that the fires in which the flints were burnt belong to the first part of OIS 3.
West section of Units A1 and A2 with the locations of the
burnt flint specimens and of the dosimeters. Elevations and the Y
coordinates (across the top) are relative to the site datum.
Photo and text: Valladas et al (2003)
Haut de Combe-Capelle, also known as Abri Peyrony. It is directly upslope from the trench which Ami dug, and at the foot of the cliff below the plateau.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
When I looked at my photos I was puzzled that they showed a small cave in the place where the literature showed just a low cliff as being Abri Peyrony, as in the photo on the left.
Finally I realised that in the time since the photographs had been taken (1995 in this case) and 2008 when I was there, a dig had taken place which re-exposed the small cave, which had been covered up by some years of fill being pushed over the edge of the cliff from the quarry above.
The photos are of the same place, as may be seen by the single tree trunk on the right, and the distinctive four trunked tree, somewhat thicker in my photo, on the left, as well as the moss and vegetation spilling down the low cliff beside the cave opening.
Photo: (left) Dibble et al (1995), (right) Don Hitchcock 2008
The Abri Peyrony, or Haut de Combe-Capelle was excavated by Peyrony in 1925. The archaeological deposits, which were not very thick, were situated on two terraces of bedrock. Based both on Peyrony's description and testing carried out in 1990 there appear to be two levels. The upper level is composed of brownish-red sediments which recall the sediments of the plateau immediately above this locale, while the lower level is composed of grayish concreted sediments.
The rich and highly patinated industry recovered by Peyrony (including many of the pieces that he had originally left in his backdirt and which were later recovered by Paul Fitte), is clearly attributable to the Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition, containing numerous small cordiform bifaces, scrapers, denticulates/notches, and Levallois flakes. Our own testing of the site suggests that little remains of the locale, although a significant area immediately adjacent to the cliff has been covered by an enormous amount of debris from the limestone quarry located on the plateau.
Photos and text above: http://www.oldstoneage.com/cc/abri.htm
(note that since I was there in 2008 the small cave is once again covered with fill - Don )
The Abri Peyrony (also known as the Haut de Combe-Capelle) was last excavated by D. Peyrony in 1925. It produced a rich Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition (MTA) industry and fauna. At some point prior to 1987, a portion of the site was covered in debris from the nearby quarry in an effort to protect the site. Then in 1990, Lenoir and Dibble did a limited test of the site and were able to locate an archaeological horizon that yielded some stone tools including four bifaces.
The long-term goal is to collect a new, controlled sample of lithics and fauna from the MTA and to date this material. The MTA is quite important as one of the last manifestations of Neadertals in southwest Europe and as perhaps the origins of the Chatelperronian. While it is mostly known from older excavations, more recent excavations at sites like Pech de l'Azé I and IV, Jonzac, and the Bergerac highway sites, are providing new data on the MTA. The new material from the Abri Peyrony will make an additional point of comparison.
Photo and text: http://www.eva.mpg.de/evolution/files/abri_peyrony_combe_capelle.htm
In 2009 we opened a trench against the cliff face and located in situ deposits. In 2010 we excavated these deposits to bedrock. Because the site is quite rich, we were able to generate a large lithic and faunal collection that we are now in the process of studying. Thus far we can confirm the presence of MTA only on the lower terrace. The upper terrace industry in clearly Middle Paleolithic, with Levallois and discoidal techniques of blank production, but there are no handaxes or backed pieces. Geological, site formation, dating, faunal, and lithic studies are underway. Whether there are renewed excavations at the site depends on the results of the on-going studies.
The Roc de Combe-Capelle is located about 60m from the Abri Peyrony along the same cliff line. The site became famous in 1909 when Hauser discovered a nearly complete skeleton of Homo sapiens, which Hauser and later others thought was associated with the Chatelperronian at the base of the sequence. Above the Chatelperronian the site also contained Aurignacian, Gravettian and Solutrean. Our excavations in 2009 at this site confirmed that nothing remains of this sequence today and that the site has been entirely excavated (what remains is only backdirt). It is still possible that some smalll, isolated pockets of in situ material remain in places under the backdirt or against the cliff, but we have no additional plans to work at the site.
Photo and text: http://www.eva.mpg.de/evolution/files/abri_peyrony_combe_capelle.htm
Roc de Combe-Capelle, viewed from down-slope.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Roc de Combe-Capelle
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Close by Roc de Combe-Capelle.
This was pointed out to me by the official from the French Ministry of Culture as illegal digging by flint tool collectors. This is a continuing problem at many similar sites.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Roc de Combe-Capelle.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Roc de Combe-Capelle
This photo is taken from a viewpoint a few metres to the right of my photo. (Note the distinctive white mark on the rock.) It would appear that there has been about 50 cm of material built up at the foot of the rock between the times of the two photos.
There is a quarry on the plateau a few metres above this section, and Dibble et al (1995) refer to a large amount of quarried limestone rubble being dumped over the cliff directly onto the vicinity of the site.
Photo: http://www.oldstoneage.com/cc/rocdecc.htm
Coupe stratigraphique du gisement de Combe-Capelle fait le 01.07.1907, d'apres H. Breuil.
This is almost certainly the stratigraphy of the Roc de Combe Capelle at the top of the slope, originally excavated by Villeréal in 1907.
Photo: Breuil (1909) in Groenen (1994)
Looking down the slope of Combe-Capelle from Roc de Combe-Capelle
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Looking down the slope of Combe-Capelle from the top of the Ami trench.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Map of the dig at Combe-Capelle
Photo: Dibble et al (1995)
Combe-Capelle skull
Photo: Wikipedia
Provenance:
Deutsch: Schädel des fossilen Homo sapiens sapiens aus dem Aurignacien von Combe Capelle
English: skull of the fossil Homo sapiens sapiens from the Aurignacien of Combe Capelle
Date: 28 August 2008
photographed by Dr. Günter Bechly
The fossil skull is displayed since 2003 in the Museum für Ur- und Frühgeschichte in Berlin - Charlottenburg (Germany).
(Note: This may be the original, or a good facsimile from the original, which was rediscovered in 1990 after having been thought to be lost forever in the fires during the final assault of Russian troops on Berlin in 1945. See the abstract below from Henry-Gambier and White (2003) - Don)
Combe-Capelle skull, another version.
Photo: Einsamer Schütze, Lone Shooter
Permission: GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version
Date: 2011.06.28
Source: Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, Berlin.
Henry-Gambier and White (2003)
The question of the age of the Cro-Magnon and Combe-Capelle human fossils is clearly of considerable importance. Hominid specimens from both sites have played a critical role in the development of current perspectives on modern human origins in Western Europe.
The Cro-Magnon skeletal remains, discovered en 1868 near les Eyzies-de- Tayac by workmen and excavated by L. Lartet are routinely attributed to the Aurignacian culture. An AMS C14 date (27 680 ± 270 BP, Beta — 157439) of a shell associated with the human remains as well as cultural indications, demonstrates that these specimens postdate 28000 BP. The Cro-Magnon burials should not be attributed to the earliest Aurignacian, but rather to the Gravettian.
The Combe-Capelle skeleton was discovered by O. Hauser at the beginning of the twentieth century. According to him, the burial occurred at the interface between a Mousterian and an early Aurignacian (i.e. Châtelperronian) level. The supposedly Châtelperronan age of the skeleton (and the very authenticity of the skeleton itself), and its morphology, have long been the subject of debate. As the remains had until recently been thought to have been lost or destroyed during the last war, it was impossible to check the original data.
In 1990, the Combe-Capelle remains were rediscovered by A. Hoffmann and D. Wegner at the Museum für Vorund Frühgeschichte, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (RFA). The morphological study of the Combe-Capelle skull, the analyses of associated shell ornaments and of available archives provide some new insight into the probable age of this specimen. This new analysis has quite important implications for our understanding of cultural and biological processes at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe.
Henri-Marc Ami (November 23, 1858 – January 4, 1931) was a French Canadian archaeologist responsible for the initial excavation of Combe-Capelle from the years of 1926 until his death in 1931.
In 1900 he was elected to the Royal Society of Canada.
Photo and text: Wikipedia
Date: October 1897
Provenance:
Photographer: William James Topley (1845 - 1930)
The photo is in the public domain.
Text below from: www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com
Henri-Marc Ami, paleontologist, prehistorian (b at Belle-Rivière, Qué 23 Nov 1858; d at Menton, France 4 Jan 1931). The son of a Swiss pastor, Ami studied science at McGill, notably under John William DAWSON. He worked for the Geological Survey of Canada 1882-1911. Ami is best known for his work on geological formations in Québec and the Maritimes. His bibliography contains over 200 titles.
He was editor of the Ottawa Naturalist 1895-1900. In 1900 he was elected to the Royal Society of Canada, and the Geological Society of London honoured him with the Bigsby Medal 1905. His comfortable financial situation and marriage to Clarissa Burland, from a prominent Montréal family, allowed Ami to resign from the Geological Survey in 1911 to concentrate on prehistorical studies. After moving to France, he founded the École canadienne de préhistoire, an institution jointly funded by the French government and the RSC.
Text below from: http://www.montferrandduperigord.com/AGeneral.htm
The Prehistoric site of Combe-Capelle is a three tiered complex situated on a hillside in the Couze valley near the village of Montferrand-du-Périgord. At the top of the hill, at the foot of a small cliff, the caves of Roc de Combe-Capelle and Combe-Capelle Haut were the first to be excavated.
On the slope, Combe-Capelle Bas was excavated more recently. The Roc de Combe-Capelle discovered in 1887 was excavated by Mr Villereal and then by O.Hauser, who discovered in 1909 a skeleton belonging to the Chatelperronien. It was buried intentionally with a cloth and a twin-edged tool next to its left hand. It was a small man measuring 1.60m. Hauser published his discovery, sold the skeleton to the Berlin museum and gave a mold of it to the Périgueux museum.
The circumstances of the discovery, the exact position and the skull characteristics have been questioned by several prehistorians since the first criticisms by the prehistorian, Denis Peyrony.
The site, having been completely excavated, has lost its stratigraphy. The skeleton was destroyed in the Berlin fire of 1945 and so no analysis by modern methods is possible. Apart from the mold and old publications, nothing remains of this famous and controversial Combe-Capelle man.
Denis Peyrony
Photo: http://www.montferrandduperigord.com/prehis2.htm
A cast of the skeleton and skull, the original skull on a postcard, and Otto Hauser with a different skeleton.
Photo: http://www.montferrandduperigord.com/prehis2.htm
Combe Capelle skeleton with Hauser
Photo: http://www.otto-hauser.de/bilder.php
Homo Aurignacensis Hauseri
Combe - Capelle, situated near the ancient town of Montferrand-du-Perigord (Dordogne), is the site of the discovery of another Palaeolithic skeleton by M. O. Hauser. While excavating in archaeological ground of the Aurignacien Age on the 26th August 1909, he exposed the upper portion of a human skull in a deposit which had not been disturbed by any previous excavators. The skull was not then removed, but was left in situ till the I2th September, when the discoverer secured the assistance of Professor Klaatsch, well known as an expert in human palaeontology. In the course of removing the bones, numerous perforated marine shells were observed in the vicinity of the head and neck, which evidently had served as some kind of ornament. The skeleton was that of a male subject, but its osteological characters were not those peculiar to the Neanderthal-Spy race.
Front and side views of Homo Aurignacensis Hauseri. (After Hauser)
Photo: Munro (1912)
A lofty skull and forehead at once indicated a higher type of humanity ; but it is not on this account of less importance. To this, apparently novel race in the Dordogne, Professor Klaatsch has given the name Homo Aurignacensis Hauseri. The skull was extremely dolichocephalic, the face slightly prognathic, and the chin little developed. A peculiarity of the skeleton was the relative shortness of the limbs, the fore- arms and legs proper being no longer than the humerus and femur. The body was dumpy and the thorax voluminous, and both these as well as the limbs indicated powerful muscular action. It had been deposited in Mousterien debris, but the associated relics were characteristic of the Aurignacien Age, and were grouped about the head and feet. The race to which this fossil man belonged would appear to have occupied an intermediate position between the Neanderthal-Spy and Chancelade races, recalling in some respects the man of Galley Hill in Kent. (L'Homme Prehistorique, 1909, p. 341.)
References
- Breuil, H., 1909: L'Aurignacien présolutréen. Epilogue d'une controverse Revue préhistorique, IV, 1909, p. 270, fig 2.
- Dibble, H. and Lenoir, M., 1995: The Middle Paleolithic site of Combe-Capelle Bas, University of Pennsylvania Museum Publication, December 1995, ISBN-10: 0924171383 ISBN-13: 978-0924171383
- Eshleman C., 2003: Juniper Fuse: Upper Paleolithic Imagination & the Construction of the Underworld, Wesleyan University Press 2003
- Groenen Marc, 1994: Pour une histoire de la préhistoire, Éditions Jérôme Millon 1994
- Henry-Gambier D., and White R., 2003: New chrono-cultural data on the Cro-Magnon and Combe-Capelle human remains (Dordogne, France): consequences for the biocultural origins of modern humans in Europe Paleoanthropology Society Abstracts for the 2003 Meetings, Tempe, AZ
- Munro, R., 1912: Paleolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe, Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd. 1912 (out of copyright)
- Peyrony, D., 1943: Combe-Capelle, Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française, Année 1943, Volume 40, Numéro 10 p. 243 - 257
- Valladas, H., Mercier N., Joron, J., McPherron, S., Dibble H., Lenoire M. , 2003: TL dates for the Middle Paleolithic site of Combe-Capelle Bas, Journal of Archaeological Science 30 (2003) 1443–1450
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