{"id":"DIET2016-009","label":"Lespugue Solutrean hearth blade","people_or_site":"Grotte des Harpons, Lespugue","country_current":"France","historic_region":"Haute-Garonne / Pyrenees","macroregion":"Europe / Pyrenees","local_name":"","source_term":"lame pisciforme (Saint-Périer); rhombe (Dauvois)","source_language":"English","object_description":"Thin, carefully polished bone blade, 90 mm long, fish-shaped in outline and pierced by one circular hole at one end; both edges carry groups of fine oblique parallel striations. The notch in one edge is an excavation break.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"archaeological_find","source_key":"dietrich2016spatulae","source_type":"archaeological_report","source_url":"https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k54288475/f30.item","page_or_plate":"Saint-Périer 1928, L'Anthropologie 38:17-18, fig. 1 no. 1; Neo-Lithics 1/16 p. 28; Morley 2003 pp. 34-35 Fig. 3.1-2; Dauvois 1989 p. 10; Praxmarer 2019 p. 89 Table 1 no. 7","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Anchored in the Save gorges at Lespugue, near the Grotte des Harpons; the find lay in a hearth about ten metres in front of the shelter overhang.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In 1926, about ten metres out from the overhang of the Grotte des Harpons at Lespugue, René de Saint-Périer uncovered a scatter of small Solutrean hearths, each ringed with quartzite pebbles. In one of them, among shouldered flint points with hollowed bases, lay a blade of bone ninety millimetres long, polished very thin, pierced at one end and fringed along both edges with groups of fine oblique cuts: the outline of a fish. Saint-Périer thought of the bone lures Inuit fishermen twirled on a line to draw salmon. Michel Dauvois, who set replicas of Ice Age blades roaring on a cord, placed it among the bullroarers of Solutrean France. The gorge of the Save holds women on either side of that fire: the ivory Venus of Lespugue, carved thousands of years earlier in the neighbouring Grotte des Rideaux, and a woman engraved on reindeer antler by the Magdalenians who later camped in the Harpons cave itself.","pull_quote":"C'est dans l'un de ces foyers que gisait le premier objet que nous décrirons, accompagné de pointes à cran à base concave.","pull_quote_translation":"It was in one of these hearths that the first object we shall describe lay, accompanied by shouldered points with concave bases.","pull_quote_cite":"R. de Saint-Périer, \"Engins de pêche paléolithiques,\" L'Anthropologie 38 (1928), p. 17","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. 22,000–17,000 BC","date_qualification":"Solutrean hearth context; object not directly dated.","date_basis":"stratigraphic","date_confidence":"medium","date_citation":"dietrich2016spatulae, Saint-Périer 1928, L'Anthropologie 38:17-18 fig. 1 no. 1; Praxmarer 2019, Archaeologia Austriaca 103:89 Table 1 no. 7; Morley 2003 pp. 34-35","sources":[{"citation":"R. de Saint-Périer, 'Engins de pêche paléolithiques,' L'Anthropologie 38 (1928), pp. 17-19, fig. 1 no. 1","url":"https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k54288475/f30.item"},{"citation":"Michael Praxmarer, 'Blasinstrumente aus dem europäischen Jungpaläolithikum,' Archaeologia Austriaca 103 (2019), p. 89, table 1 no. 7"},{"citation":"Oliver Dietrich and Jens Notroff, Neo-Lithics 1/16 (2016): 22-31, p. 28"},{"citation":"Iain Morley, The Evolutionary Origins and Archaeology of Music (2003), pp. 34-35, fig. 3.1-2"},{"citation":"M. Dauvois, 'Son et musique paléolithiques,' Les Dossiers d'Archéologie 142 (1989): 2-11, p. 10"},{"citation":"Seewald (1934), cited in the Saint-Périer–Dietrich source chain"}],"source_citations":"R. de Saint-Périer, 'Engins de pêche paléolithiques,' L'Anthropologie 38 (1928), pp. 17-19, fig. 1 no. 1; Michael Praxmarer, 'Blasinstrumente aus dem europäischen Jungpaläolithikum,' Archaeologia Austriaca 103 (2019), p. 89, table 1 no. 7; Oliver Dietrich and Jens Notroff, Neo-Lithics 1/16 (2016): 22-31, p. 28; Iain Morley, The Evolutionary Origins and Archaeology of Music (2003), pp. 34-35, fig. 3.1-2; M. Dauvois, 'Son et musique paléolithiques,' Les Dossiers d'Archéologie 142 (1989): 2-11, p. 10; Seewald (1934), cited in the Saint-Périer–Dietrich source chain","source_display":"R. de Saint-Périer, 'Engins de pêche paléolithiques,' L'Anthropologie 38 (1928), pp. 17-19, fig. 1 no. 1; Michael Praxmarer, 'Blasinstrumente aus dem europäischen Jungpaläolithikum,' Archaeologia Austriaca 103 (2019), p. 89, table 1 no. 7; Oliver Dietrich and Jens Notroff, Neo-Lithics 1/16 (2016): 22-31, p. 28; Iain Morley, The Evolutionary Origins and…","date_citation_display":"Dietrich 2016, Saint-Périer 1928, L'Anthropologie 38:17-18 fig. 1 no. 1; Praxmarer 2019, Archaeologia Austriaca 103:89 Table 1 no. 7; Morley 2003 pp. 34-35","object_display":"Thin, carefully polished bone blade, 90 mm long, fish-shaped in outline and pierced by one circular hole at one end; both edges carry groups of fine oblique parallel striations. The notch in one edge is an excavation break.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"archaeological find","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"grotte des","display_name":"Lespugue Solutrean hearth blade","image":{"full":"assets/objects/DIET2016-009_saintperier1928-fig1-no1.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/DIET2016-009_saintperier1928-fig1-no1_thumb.jpg","alt":"Saint-Périer’s 1928 drawing of both faces of the Lespugue bone blade: a broad oval body narrowing to a short rounded head pierced with a hole.","credit":"R. de Saint-Périer, L'Anthropologie 38 (1928), p. 18, fig. 1 no. 1 (Gallica / BnF)","license":"Public domain (published 1928; author d. 1950)","source_page":"https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k54288475/f31.item","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The Lespugue bone blade, both faces, as Saint-Périer published it in 1928.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/dauvois1989_french_paleolithic_bullroarers.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/dauvois1989_french_paleolithic_bullroarers_thumb.jpg","alt":"Four drawings of Palaeolithic blades after Dauvois and Morley; no. 3 is the pointed oval Solutrean blade from Lespugue.","crop_alt":"Drawing of the Solutrean blade from Lespugue, no. 3: a pointed oval form pierced near one end, with grouped incisions across its face; part of a neighboring blade remains visible at right.","credit":"Don's Maps; plate photo credited there to Dauvois (1989); source/text credited to Morley (2003)","license":"Rights not stated on Don's Maps; low-resolution research-atlas reference from a source-cited educational page","source_page":"https://www.donsmaps.com/musicalinstruments.html","highlight":{"box":[0.603,0.06,0.243,0.605],"plate":[325,400]},"rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Comparative plate of Paleolithic bullroarers after Dauvois and Morley; no. 3 is the Solutrean blade from Lespugue."}]},"slug":"diet2016-009-lespugue"}