The Grotte du Placard at 150: New Considerations on an Exceptional Prehistoric Site

The prehistoric site of Le Placard, Southwest France, was first explored 150 years. 19th-century excavations almost emptied the cavity, now surprisingly ill-known. This 150-year milestone grants an opportunity to look back at this exceptional site and what it can tell us about the Late Pleistocene hunting and gathering societies who dwelt there.

The prehistoric site of Le Placard, located in Southwest France, was discovered and first explored 150 years ago at a time when prehistory was just emerging as a scientific discipline. Through this century and a half of explorations this site has been involved in numerous debates of prehistoric research; it has also yielded an extraordinary amount and diverse range of archaeological materials (i.e. lithics, fauna, osseous industry, body adornments, pigments, human remains, mobiliary and parietal art, hearths, etc.). Yet this site appears now poorly valued due to the devastating 19th-century excavation techniques that almost completely emptied the cavity. Subsequently it is surprisingly ill-known. This 150-year milestone gives us an opportunity to look back at this exceptional site and its associated materials in order to demonstrate that it still holds a unique potential in the debates about these Late Pleistocene hunting and gathering societies. The various chapters cover multiple aspects of the history of research and of the collections, present detailed studies on the material culture (osseous industry, spearthrowers, musical instruments), and address specific issues related to parietal art, social networks and the political nature of these prehistoric communities. The best hypothesis and explanation to account for this exceptional diversity of remains would argue that Le Placard has been a village occupied by various groups of complex (transegalitarian) hunter-gatherers.