Prehistory rediscovered
Discovered in 1866, the Crot du Charnier deposit has been the subject of numerous excavation campaigns from the time of the pioneers of archeology to the present day. On two occasions, discoveries at the site helped clarify the chronology of prehistoric times. Immerse yourself in the history of Prehistory, a new science of Man that appeared in the last third of the XNUMXth century.
1866 – 1869: first research
On September 27, 1866, during a walk, Adrien Arcelin (1838 – 1904), historian archivist, accompanied byHenry Testot-Ferry (1826 – 1869), paleontologist, discovered flints at the foot of the Rock of Solutre , at a place called crot ou Clos du Charnier. Both Researchers then embarked on archaeological research on the site. They contact the most eminent specialists on the issue offossil man in Europe, recorded their observations and published them simultaneously in 1868. Their work concerns three main categories of remains:
- accumulations of horse bones,
- kitchen scraps,
- the burials, some of which appear to date from the age of the reindeer.
©Adrien Arcelin
©Emile Bayard
©Pierre Joubert
The scientific heritage of Testot-Ferry
Henry Testot-Ferry died suddenly in November 1869, Adrien Arcelin then completes and completes the writing of his latest work: Le Prehistoric Mâconnais. Published posthumously in 1870, the work is the first major synthesis on theprehistoric archeology of an entire region.
The birth of a myth
In parallel, Adrien Arcelin aims to share its discoveries at Solutré with the general public. In 1870, the writer Louis Figuier (1819-1894) prepared the first popular work on Prehistory: primitive man (Hachette, 1870).
Against the sending of his file on Solutré's research, Adrien Arcelin obtains the right to use the engravings of Fig tree. They will be used to illustrate the novel that he writes for a serial in the Revue du Lyonnais since 1870. In 1872, the first prehistoric novel from the history of literature: Solutré or the reindeer hunters of central France, signed by “Adrien Cranile”, anagram of Adrien Arcelin.
To explain the thick layer ofhorse bones covering the deposit, the author imagines prehistoric hunters doing tumble whole herds of horses in the void since the Rock of Solutre…The visual power of this scene dramatic hits readers. She gives birth to myth of the hunt for the abyss promised a long posterity under the pencil, or brush, of numerous illustrators of Prehistory.
1872-1890: Question time
A new scientific duo
In August 1873, the congress of the French Association for the Advancement of Sciences met in Solutré to discover the deposit which had become eponymous. A bronze ring found on the site of a burial, reputed to be prehistoric, sowed confusion among scholars. The matter is serious, it could compromise the rigor and credibility of the work. Fortunately a investigative committee, brought together by Adrien Arcelin, proves that this ring cannot come from the skeleton search. The prehistorian decides to join forces with his former competitor, theAbbot Antoine Ducrost (1833-1889), geologist and soon parish priest of Solutré, to resume research and better understand the deposit.
The two men multiply the trenches, examine and compare the succession of layers to validate their results. Their stratigraphic sections will serve as a reference for several decades. After that of Henry Testot-Ferry, the sudden death of Father Ducrost in 1889 once again surprised Adrien Arcelin. In 1890, he published their main results, notably highlighting the existence of ancient levels under the layer of brecciated bones of the horse magma.
A witness site to the chronology of Prehistory
On the occasion of prehistoric congress of Autun, in August 1907, Fabien Arcelin (1876-1942) took over his father's excavations with theAbbot Henri Breuil (1877-1961). A trench 40m long and 8m deep was opened under the path, the last intact area of the site, to the great dismay of the abbot. They manage to prove the existence of a prehistoric level interposed between the Solutrean and the Mousterian. All the prehistorians share their thesis despite the protests of Adrien de Mortillet (1854-1931), son of Gabriel de Mortillet (1821-1898) whose chronology is then definitively modified: the Aurignacian " pre-Solutrean » is integrated into the timeline of prehistoric times.
©Adrien Arcelin
©Honoré Hugrel
1923 - 1928: The bone rush
Between 1923 and 1928, teachers Charles Deperet (-1854 1929) and Lucien Mayet (1874-1949), from the Faculty of Sciences of Lyon, opened new excavations in Solutré. With Fabien Arcelin, they embark on the search for Solutrean human remains. 70 burials had already been unearthed and provoked debates about their age. In the fall of 1923, the first four skeletons, called “Aurignacians”, are unearthed under a layer of horse bones.
La media coverage of the discovery of prehistoric skeletons triggers the first tourist crowds of mass on the deposit. Daily shuttles transport tourists from Mâcon, photographic postcards of the skeletons being excavated are sold to tourists. This flood of curious people, synonymous with noise and lack of rigor in methods, brings down the site in disgrace in the minds of many researchers.
1968 – 1998: scientific rehabilitation of the site
New excavations began between 1968 and 1976, after the redemption by the State of the main plots of the deposit. They are led by Jean Combier, researcher at the CNRS, and specify the sequence of prehistoric occupations. Modern, these excavations make it possible to define the environmental context by means of several methods : studies of pollen and remains of micromammals, sedimentology. They shed light on the way of life of prehistoric hunters and demonstrate that the site was used for more than 25 millennia, during successive occupations, interspersed with long periods of abandonment. It mainly served as a place of hunts specialized in horses or reindeer during their seasonal migrations.
The myth of hunt into the abyss is denied: the cold and humid climatic conditions of the Gravettian (around -28 years ago) favored the preservation of a layer of broken horse bones, the result of repeated hunts on a long period, without the need for the simultaneous massacre of entire herds. Dating in carbon 14 specify the age of the occupations and deny the prehistory of the numerous burials discovered on the site: they are the remains of a necropolis dating from the Ve and VIe centuries AD.
The latest archaeological research
The development of the Archaeological Park
From the opening of the museum in 1987, the creation of a Archaeological park accessible to the public on the deposit is planned but not yet carried out. Jean Combier in 1987-1988, then a team from the University of Kansas in 1997-1998, completed the research with strippings et surveys stratigraphic. Casts are made to be presented in situ.
In 2003-2004, excavations of the Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap), led by Nelly Connet, make it possible to anticipate the destruction planned for the layout of the site into an archaeological and botanical park.
The Route de la Roche excavation
In 2015-2016, Jean-Baptiste Lajoux directs for Inrap a preventive search on the land of a future house at the entrance to the village of Solutré-Pouilly. There wealth exceptional nature of the deposit requires the extension of the construction site 7 months. The study of the material collected, including hundreds of lithic objects, numerous witnesses of bone industry, elements of adornment, an ocher zone as well as human remains, is still in progress today.