PALAEOLITHIC SETTLEMENTS OF NORMANDY IN THEIR CHRONOSTRATIGRAPHIC CONTEXT: ``ARCHAEOLOGICAL SCRAPS''
Abstract
This contribution results from the review of sites previously excavated and analyzed in the context of works, since the 1970s, in conjunction with the geomorphologists of the Centre de Geomorphologie du CNRS at Caen, and then in the 1980s, as part of ``Groupe Seine'' and the project on ``L'Homme et la Mer'' and finally, in the Project of Collective Research ``Les Premiers Hommes en Normandie'' established in 2000. This article includes results from many sites including stratigraphies affected by hiatus. Yet these ``archaeological scraps'' participate in the knowledge of the first human settlements of Normandy and allow to write a ``history of ancient prehistory'' in its environmental context. The first settlements are associated with silty deposits and alluvial formations of the valley of Seine at Saint-Pierre-les-Elbeuf. They relate to the Acheulean and date of marine isotope stages (MIS) 11 and 10. In Lower Normandy, the earliest settlements are associated with raised beaches and dated to MIS 9. As frequently in north-western Europe, the settlements of the late Middle Pleistocene take place during MIS 7 and early MIS 6. The lithic assemblages can relate to the Acheulean, but especially the former phase of the Middle Paleolithic. The originality of Normandy lies in the exceptional preservation of occupancy levels in two sites dated by TL and OSL method of the Eemian optimum, in coastline context and sinkhole. As often in northern France, the occupations of the Early Weichselian (between 112 and 72 ka) are the best preserved and most numerous, though few settlements take place during the Pleniglacial. The occupation of Normandy is done in a timely manner through the Middle Pleniglacial (55 to 30 ka) before resuming the extent to Late Glacial (15 ka to 11 ka) with the cultures of the late upper Paleolithic.