{"id":"DIET2016-007","label":"La Roche de Birol Magdalenian bullroarer","people_or_site":"La Roche de Birol","country_current":"France","historic_region":"Dordogne","macroregion":"Europe / Southwest France","local_name":"","source_term":"Paleolithic bullroarer / Magdalenian churinga","source_language":"English","object_description":"Engraved reindeer-antler pendant with incised geometric decoration, pierced for suspension, from La Roche de Birol at Lalinde, Dordogne.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"archaeological_find","source_key":"dietrich2016spatulae","source_type":"archaeological_report","source_url":"https://jensnotroff.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ii-17_35_neolithics-1_bone-spatula-from-gc3b6bekli-tepe.pdf","page_or_plate":"MAN 74482; Delluc, Delluc & Guichard 2008, Prehistoire du Sud-Ouest 16/2008-2, p. 200 (accession) and p. 204 (Henry Field purchase); Neo-Lithics 1/16 p. 28; Morley 2003 pp. 34-35 Fig. 3.1-2; Dauvois 1989; Field 1954 Man 54 p. 162; Barandiaran Maestu 2015 Kobie BAI 6 p. 152; image: Javier Trueba/Science Photo Library \"Stone Age (Magdalenian) bullroarer, La Roche Cave, Lalinde\".","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Grotte de la Roche / abri de la Roche de Birol, Lalinde; cave site coordinate (Wikipedia 44 50 14 N, 0 43 06 E = 44.8373, 0.7183), near the hameau de Birol. Object-level provenience GPS not published.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Some fifteen to thirteen thousand years ago, in a Magdalenian camp in the Dordogne, someone shaped a slip of reindeer antler into a slender fish-without-a-tail, drilled it for a cord, painted it with red ochre, and then incised it with neat ranks of parallel lines and dots. Pulled from the cave of La Roche de Birol (also called the grotte de la Roche) near Lalinde in a hastily dug 1927 excavation, it became the first object European prehistory ever recognized as a bullroarer: Denis Peyrony, publishing it in 1930, saw in it \"an instrument identical to the one certain Australian natives call a churinga\" — the bull-roarer, the planche ronflante of French usage; Henry Field, reporting the Abbé Breuil's identification, called it the first complete Magdalenian \"churinga\" ever found. The identification has held up, and Dauvois's acoustic experiments on a copy of it recorded the voice: a fundamental sweeping from 35 to 205 hertz with every revolution of the cord. The same shelter, in the same last-Magdalenian occupation, yielded a limestone block cut deep with eleven women in profile, headless and footless, pared down to a few geometric strokes. What it once meant, who was allowed to hear it, and who had to flee its voice are lost with the people who made it; the ochred original is kept at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.","pull_quote":"La pièce de La Roche, présentant les mêmes caractères que les « churingas » australiens, devait certainement avoir la même destination.","pull_quote_translation":"The piece from La Roche, showing the same characters as the Australian 'churingas', must certainly have had the same purpose.","pull_quote_cite":"D. Peyrony, \"Sur quelques pièces intéressantes de la grotte de La Roche près de Lalinde (Dordogne)\", L'Anthropologie 40 (1930), p. 25","term_gloss":"","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"object","date_display":"c. 13,000–11,000 BC","date_qualification":"Final Magdalenian site context; object not directly dated.","date_basis":"cultural_phase","date_confidence":"medium","date_citation":"barandiaran2012_veleia, pp. 315-316; Musée national de Préhistoire, \"Bloc gravé de Lalinde\"; Bertran et al., PALEO 20 p. 189","sources":[{"citation":"Oliver Dietrich and Jens Notroff, “A Decorated Bone ‘Spatula’ from Göbekli Tepe,” Neo-Lithics 1/16 (2016):22–31, p. 28; citing Morley (2003) and Dauvois (1989)","url":"https://jensnotroff.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ii-17_35_neolithics-1_bone-spatula-from-gc3b6bekli-tepe.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250730031103/https://jensnotroff.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ii-17_35_neolithics-1_bone-spatula-from-gc3b6bekli-tepe.pdf"},{"citation":"D. Peyrony, “Sur quelques pièces intéressantes de la grotte de La Roche près de Lalinde (Dordogne),” L’Anthropologie 40 (1930):19–29, pp. 22, 24–25"},{"citation":"Delluc, Delluc & Guichard, Préhistoire du Sud-Ouest 16/2008-2 (2008), pp. 200, 204"},{"citation":"Iain Morley, The Evolutionary Origins and Archaeology of Music, Darwin College Research Report DCRR-002 (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 34–35, figs. 3.1–2, via Dietrich and Notroff (2016)"},{"citation":"M. Dauvois, “Son et musique paléolithiques,” Les Dossiers d’Archéologie 142 (1989):2–11, via Dietrich and Notroff (2016)"},{"citation":"Field, Man 54 (1954), p. 162"},{"citation":"Barandiaran Maestu, La bramadera de hueso, Kobie BAI 6 (2015), p. 152"},{"citation":"Musée d’Archéologie nationale, MAN 74482, accession documented by Delluc, Delluc & Guichard (2008), p. 200"}],"source_citations":"Oliver Dietrich and Jens Notroff, “A Decorated Bone ‘Spatula’ from Göbekli Tepe,” Neo-Lithics 1/16 (2016):22–31, p. 28; citing Morley (2003) and Dauvois (1989); D. Peyrony, “Sur quelques pièces intéressantes de la grotte de La Roche près de Lalinde (Dordogne),” L’Anthropologie 40 (1930):19–29, pp. 22, 24–25; Delluc, Delluc & Guichard, Préhistoire du Sud-Ouest 16/2008-2 (2008), pp. 200, 204; Iain Morley, The Evolutionary Origins and Archaeology of Music, Darwin College Research Report DCRR-002 (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 34–35, figs. 3.1–2, via Dietrich and Notroff (2016); M. Dauvois, “Son et musique paléolithiques,” Les Dossiers d’Archéologie 142 (1989):2–11, via Dietrich and Notroff (2016); Field, Man 54 (1954), p. 162; Barandiaran Maestu, La bramadera de hueso, Kobie BAI 6 (2015), p. 152; Musée d’Archéologie nationale, MAN 74482, accession documented by Delluc, Delluc & Guichard (2008), p. 200","source_display":"Oliver Dietrich and Jens Notroff, “A Decorated Bone ‘Spatula’ from Göbekli Tepe,” Neo-Lithics 1/16 (2016):22–31, p. 28; citing Morley (2003) and Dauvois (1989); D. Peyrony, “Sur quelques pièces intéressantes de la grotte de La Roche près de Lalinde (Dordogne),” L’Anthropologie 40 (1930):19–29, pp. 22, 24–25; Delluc, Delluc & Guichard, Préhistoire du…","date_citation_display":"Barandiaran 2012 Veleia, pp. 315-316; Musée national de Préhistoire, \"Bloc gravé de Lalinde\"; Bertran et al., PALEO 20 p. 189","object_display":"Engraved reindeer-antler pendant with incised geometric decoration, pierced for suspension, from La Roche de Birol at Lalinde, Dordogne.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"archaeological find","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"roche birol","display_name":"La Roche de Birol Magdalenian bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/DIET2016-007_man_74482_taypamart.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/DIET2016-007_man_74482_taypamart_thumb.jpg","alt":"A Magdalenian antler plaque from La Roche de Birol, engraved with panels of parallel lines and pierced near one end.","credit":"Musée d'Archéologie Nationale, MAN 74482; photo Marie-Lan Taÿ Pamart","license":"CC BY 4.0","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rhombus_from_La_Roche_cave_MAN_74482.jpg","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The engraved Magdalenian antler pendant from La Roche de Birol: an elongated, pointed plaque pierced near its narrow end.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/DIET2016-007_peyrony1930_fig3_churinga_comparison.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/DIET2016-007_peyrony1930_fig3_churinga_comparison_thumb.jpg","alt":"Line drawings of an Australian churinga at left, long and covered in zigzag engraving, and the shorter La Roche antler bullroarer at right, divided into panels of parallel lines.","credit":"D. Peyrony, L'Anthropologie 40 (1930), p. 22, fig. 3. Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF","license":"Public domain","source_page":"https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5433869g/f35","rehosted":true,"caption":"Peyrony's founding comparison: an Australian churinga at left, the La Roche blade at right, drawn at half size."}]},"slug":"diet2016-007-la-roche-de-birol"}