Raphaelle Bourrillon

• Docteur
• Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès

La Baume-Latrone, a cave located in the Gardon gorges north of Nîmes (Gard), has been subject of several 3D survey campaigns between 2008 and 2013. During this period, digitization techniques and practices lived an explosive boost. Objective: clone the galleries and ornate walls, to facilitate the study of parietal art and restore the aspect origin...

An international group of archaeologists specializing in cave art explain the difficulties they faced to publish their response to another paper, previously published in Science (Hoffmann et al. 2018), reporting a Neanderthal origin of some Spanish cave paintings according to Uranium-thorium method. In their reply, they underlined the different sou...

An international group of archaeologists specializing in cave art explain the diffi- culties they faced to publish their response to another paper, previously published in Science (Hoffmann et al. 2018), reporting a Neanderthal origin of some Spanish cave pain- tings according to Uranium-thorium method. In their reply, they underlined the diffe- re...

Dramatic progress was seen in 14C-dating with the introduction of accelerator mass spectroscopy (AMS) which made possible the direct dating of prehistoric artworks painted or drawn with charcoal. However, in the case of engravings and red paintings, only indirect methods can be used that allow us to date deposits that have covered the works over ti...

Dramatic progress was seen in 14C-dating with the introduction of accelerator mass spectroscopy (AMS) which made possible the direct dating of prehistoric artworks painted or drawn with charcoal. However, in the case of engravings and red paintings, only indirect methods can be used that allow us to date deposits that have covered the works over ti...

In the excitement of the widely publicized new finds of Aurignacian art from Chauvet, from the Swabian Jura and from as far afield as Pestera Coliboaia in Romania, it has almost been forgotten that a rich corpus of Aurignacian wall painting, engraving and bas-relief sculpture had been recognized and studied before World War I in the Vézère Valley o...

For six years, an interdisciplinary team carried out the study of a Bronze Age underground network. This program has been labelled by the Institute of Ecology and Environment of the French Research Council (CNRS), who wants to promote new methodologies and experimental studies in Global Ecology. It takes advantage of the support of the French Minis...

In 2011, an engraved limestone block was found in the cave of Arlanpe (Lemoa, northern Iberian Peninsula). One of the figures represented on it was identified as a schematic feminine representation similar to those of the Gönnersdorf-Lalinde style. The stratigraphical position of the block is not totally clear owing to severe disturbance in the Upp...

The decorated cave “Les Fraux”, located at Saint-Martin-de-Fressengeas (Dordogne, France), was discovered in 1989 and registered in the French Historical Monuments in 1995. The site has been occupied during nearly 3 centuries, from the middle to the final Bronze Age (1450-1150 BC). The cave forms the only protohistorical site in Europe wherein are...

Abstract: The Uranium-Thorium (U/Th) series dating method, developed 50 years ago, has proven its usefulness and reliability for the dating of marine (corals) and continental (speleothems) secondary carbonates deposits. Recently, improvements of the analytical techniques (TIMS – Thermo-Ionization Mass Spectrometry, and then MC-ICPMS – Multicollecto...

Questions of chronology and temporality are a central part of archaeological debates. For many years, typological and stylistic approaches have dominated archaeological discourse on the subject. Recently, developments in absolute dating methods have provided new perspectives. The construction of chronometric models, based on the compilation of AMS...

Since 2012, Tastet Cave (Sainte-Colome, Pyrénées-Atlantiques) is the subject of a new research program led by one of the authors (J.-M. P.). This program offered the opportunity to restudy the parietal art from this site. The parietal art in Tastet Cave has been known since the 1970s; its restudy by three of the authors (D.G., O.R. and R.B.) offers...

Abstract. The archaeological cave « Les Fraux » (Saint-Martin-de-Fressengeas, Dordogne) forms a great network of galleries, characterized by the exceptional richness of its archaeological Bronze Age remains such as domestic fireplaces, ceramic and metal deposits, fingerings incised in the clayey-walls. The cave has been closed according to the coll...

The archaeological cave « Les Fraux » (Saint-Martin-de-Fressengeas, Dordogne) forms a great network of galleries, characterized by the exceptional richness of its archaeological Bronze Age remains such as domestic fireplaces, ceramic and metal deposits, fingerings incised in the clayey-walls. The cave has been closed according to the collapse of it...

The cave of Etxeberriko Karbia, in the "Massif des Arbailles" (Western Pyrenees), has been the subject of spelunking expeditions since the early 20th century. However, during a visit in May 1950, P. Boucher, with G. Laplace, discovered a small painting of a red horse as they were on their way out of the cave before crossing through a crawlway. The...

We report here on the 2007 discovery, in perfect archaeological context, of part of the engraved and ocre-stained undersurface of the collapsed rockshelter ceiling from Abri Castanet, Dordogne, France. The decorated surface of the 1.5-t roof-collapse block was in direct contact with the exposed archaeological surface onto which it fell. Because the...

Feminine representations were first discovered at the end of the XIXth century (e.g. archeological sites of Grimaldi, Liguria in Italy; Brassempouy, Landes or Laugerie-Basse, Dordogne in France). Since then, they have been studied from different perspectives, formal, technical and symbolic as well as anthropological (Piette, 1984; Bégouën, 1934; Pa...

The cave of Etxeberriko karbia, in the “Massif des Arbailles” (Western Pyrenees), has been the subject of spelunking expeditions since the early 20th century. But, during a visit in May, 1950, P. Boucher, with G. Laplace, discovered a small painting of a red horse, on their way out of the cave before crossing through a crawlway. The following year,...

Here, we report on the discovery in 2007, in perfect archaeological context, of part of the engraved and ocre-stained undersurface of the rockshelter ceiling from Abri Castanet, Commune de Sergeac, Dordogne. The engraved/painted undersurface of the massive roof-collapse block, weighing more than a ton, was in direct contact with the surface of the...

L’art pariétal paléolithique de la grotte d’Etxeberri, découvert par P. Boucher en 1950, a été étudié par G. Laplace en 1952. Trente ans plus tard, É. de Valicourt et M. Lauga identifient de nouvelles figures, dont un cheval gravé dans l’argile (1981). La dernière publication concernant l’art pariétal d’Etxeberri de P. Paillet (1988) se base sur le...

Depuis 2009, la reprise de l’étude de la grotte de Baume Latrone (France, Gard), dirigée par Marc Azéma, porte principalement sur le relevé de ses étonnantes images pariétales, dessinées à l’argile ou gravées sur le calcaire, en combinant les techniques traditionnelles et la numérisation tridimensionnelle. À terme, cette association technologique p...

de la Société préhistorique française 2012, tome 109, n o 4, p. 637-650 La grotte ornée paléolithique d'Etxeberri (Camou-Cihige, Pyrénées-Atlantiques) : datation du contexte archéologique de la « salle des Peintures » Résumé Etxeberriko karbia, située dans le massif des Arbailles (Pyrénées occi-dentales), était déjà connue avant sa découverte scien...

Female representations were first discovered at the end of the 19 th century (e.g. archaeological sites of Grimaldi, Liguria in Italy; Brassempouy, Landes or Laugerie-Basse, Dordogne in France). Since then, they have been studied from different perspectives, formal, technical and symbolic as well as anthropological (Piette, 1984; Bégouën, 1934; Pal...

La grotte ornée des Fraux (Saint-Martin-de-Fressengeas, Dordogne), vaste réseau de galeries ayant livré des vestiges d’une rare richesse (aménagements domestiques, dépôts de mobilier, manifestations pariétales, tous datés de l’âge du Bronze), a été scellée à la fin de l’âge du Bronze suite à l’effondrement de son porche d’entrée. L’étude du site es...

The archaeological cave «Les Fraux» (Saint-Martin-de-Fressengeas, Dordogne) forms a great network of galleries, characterized by the exceptional richness of its archaeological Bronze age remains such as domestic fireplaces, ceramic and metal deposits, fingerings incised in the clayey-walls. The cave has been closed according to the collapse of its...

L’exceptionnelle découverte, dans d’excellentes conditions, d’un fragment de voûte ornée sur le site aurignacien ancien de l’abri Castanet (Sergeac, Dordogne) est ici présentée. Une réflexion pluridisciplinaire destinée à l’étude et à la contextualisation, du bloc comme de l’ensemble des témoignages archéologiques aurignaciens trouvés dans le vallo...

This work concerns the gendered human representations throughout the European Upper Palaeolithic. An hierarchical Database was designed and used to analyse syntactic and formal variability. Various statistical treatments such as Correspondence Factor Analysis allow us to analyse this variability, from a synchronic and a diachronic point of view, an...

Découverte accidentellement en 1989, la grotte des Fraux (Dordogne) constitue un rare exemple de site de l'âge du Bronze qui regroupe en son sein des vestiges archéologiques et des manifestations pariétales. Les conditions exceptionnelles de la fossilisation du site à la fin de l'âge du Bronze, suite à l'effondrement de son principal accès, ont per...

The diachronic study of the feminine figures during the Upper Palaeolithic art shows a large range of formal, stylistic and technological variations. Thanks to the use of Correspondences Factor Analysis, it was possible to identify formal changes as well as stable traits throughout the Upper Palaeolithic over the European territory. This trans-chro...

The massif of Arbailles is in the Western end of the Pyrenees. The archaeological caves of the Upper Palaeolithic are concentrated in the Eastern end of the mountain towards the higher basin of the Saison river. They are two sites and three decorated caves (Etxeberri, Sinhikole and Sasiziloaga). They are located in a strategic place for the analysi...

Identifiant de l'operation archeologique : 025117 Date de l'operation : 2008 (RE) Le projet d’etude des grottes ornees du massif des Arbailles a debute en 2007 et s’est prolonge en 2008. L’objectif principal est la mise en place d’une documentation scientifique et exhaustive de l’art de ces trois cavites afin de pallier le deficit documentaire actu...