Neolithisation in the Northern French Alps: First Results of the Lithic Study of the Industries of La Grande Rivoire Rockshelter (Isère, France)

Abstract

Abstract The “transition” period from the end of the Second Mesolithic to the Early Neolithic is a singular phase in the prehistory of Western Europe. The first signs of neolithisation will be observed in the Northern French Alps between 5500 and 5350 cal. BC, after having experienced an arrhythmic progression from the Mediterranean sphere. The presence of numerous imprecisions in the North Alpine chronocultural sequence makes it difficult to understand the rhythms and mechanisms of its implantation. The subject is all the more complex in that there seems to be a temporal and geographical proximity between the last indigenous hunter-gatherer-collector groups and the arrival of the first agropastoralists in the regions, which could have led to the acculturation of one or the other community. Some sites thus provide assemblages presenting industries described as “mixed sets,” where characteristic materials of the Second Mesolithic and the Early Neolithic are jointly revealed. Generally judged unreliable, they are considered to be the result of asynchronous mixtures of occupations. The study of lithic industries from recent excavations at La Grande Rivoire rockshelter offers a new perspective on this particular neolithisation context. This site of the Vercors massif is especially promising in this matter, displaying almost uninterrupted occupations from the First Mesolithic to the Protohistoric periods and having revealed a significant number of material productions. Oriented mainly on the observation of possible behavioural changes within the reduction sequences, the first results of this study already allow us to note the presence of a certain evolutionary sequence of lithic industries.