Figures de plaquettes gravées datant de la fin du Magdalénien et du début de l’Azilien

Animal figures engraved on bone or stone, discovered in various deposits dating from the Late Magdalenian (figures 1 to 7) and the Early Azilian (figures 8 to 11). Begun in 2013, the digs at the Rocher de l’Impératrice site in Plougastel-Daoulas, Finistère, led to the discovery of engraved schist tablets dating from the early Azilian. These tablets, the oldest evidence of artwork in Brittany, show a geometric register (hatching, grids and zigzags) as well as naturalistic representations of horses and aurochs. Artistic remains from this period (figures 8 to 11) are particularly rare, and this discovery provides a link between the naturalistic figurative art of the preceding Magdalenian culture (figures 1 to 7) and the development of geometric art painted and engraved on small stones during the Azilian. (Naudinot N, Bourdier C, Laforge M, Paris C, Bellot-Gurlet L, Beyries S, et al. (2017) Divergence in the evolution of Paleolithic symbolic and technological systems: The shining bull and engraved tablets of Rocher de l'Impératrice. PLoS ONE 12(3): e0173037.)