Terminal Pleistocene adaptations in Pyrenean France: The nature and role of the Abri Dufaure site (Sorde‐L’Abbaye, Les Landes)

The authors discuss the goals and some of the preliminary results of the excavation of Abri Dufaure, a Magdalenian and Azilian site in extreme SW France. The stratigraphic sequence covers the period of the Würm Tardiglacial. The lithic industries are quite classic, but the bone industries are numerically poor despite good faunal preservation. Site formation analyses have permitted the discrimination of intact, slightly disturbed and redeposited areas of the talus, the small rocksheiter itself having been dug out in 1900. Evidence of lithic procurement, reduction and tool use is presented, along with descriptions of constructed pavements and combustion areas. The site was used repeatedly for major cold season occupations by otherwise mobile hunter‐gatherer bands taking advantage of the strategic location of the Pastou Cliff to hunt large herd ungulates (reindeer, bovines and horses) and to fish. Dufaure and other adjacent sites represent the lowland pose of Pyrenean settlement‐subsistence systems during the last 5000 years of the Pleistocene.