Revisiter le chantier-école de fouilles d’Arcy-sur-Cure (Yonne), 1946-1963 : essai (paléo-)ethnologique d’histoire des techniques et des pratiques de la préhistoire contemporaine
Authors: Ramírez Galicia Alfonso 
Published: June 2022

The analogical transferring of a technological approach used in Prehistory towards the History of sciences, is a new method for the study of the everyday-ethnographic scientific practices, which uses the analysis of operational sequences (chaînes opératoires) of scientific techniques. The study of excavation techniques is best suited to illustrate this as excavation is a complex sequence of the removal of cuts and fills, surfaces and volumes that brings into play archaeological deposits and the scientific know-how and skills of the archaeologists. Using the archives of André Leroi-Gourhan’s excavation field-school at Arcy-sur-Cure (Yonne, France, 1946-1963), we aim to present a case study, which we find relevant for three reasons. Firstly, it is an important source of evidence concerning the intellectual and social complexity of humans during the transition towards the Upper Palaeolithic. Secondly, it was a locus of methodological innovation, particularly in relation to the development of excavation techniques of “ habitation surfaces”. Thirdly, it provides an overview of the unreleased archives, the data remaining largely unpublished. Our case study is based on the analysis of documentation relating to the first excavation campaign at the grotte du Renne during the summer of 1949. This body of work includes a series of written documents that pertain to the entire research cycle : from administrative files and personal correspondence, working papers such as hand-written field journals and preliminary campaign reports, to the final reports and drafts of scientific papers. It also contains an ensemble of visual documents such as field-sketches, stratigraphic profiles, and artistic perspectives, as well as a series of photographic takes and film recordings of the daily flow of activities on the field. In the last three decades, the archaeological record of the grotte du Renne has been entangled in a scientific debate on the behavioural and cognitive capacities of the last Neanderthal. It represents one of the exceptional sites where fossil remains were directly linked to personal ornaments, lithic, bone, and antler technologies of “ Upper-Palaeolithic-look”, and mammoth tusk and stone slab structures. Nevertheless, scholars question the integrity of such a correlation on the grounds of an alleged incoherence concerning the reliability of the stratigraphic levels and the 3D recording of vestiges on the living surfaces. The answer to the question on the integrity of the archaeological record of the grotte du Renne lies beyond the simple evaluation of the collections and other data under the light of current scientific criteria. We are dealing with a corpus of data produced by a scientific worldview dating to nearly a century ago within the socio-historical context of post-Second World War France. In order to address such questions this research proposes a historical re-contextualization of the first excavation campaign at the grotte du Renne. Reconstructing the excavation sequence (chaîne opératoire de la fouille) requires analysis of the indirect traces of the excavation’s technical performance recorded in the documents (e. g. a photographic take of a stratigraphic profile analysed not as a direct source of information of the sediments but as an indirect testimony of excavation’s installations, tools, procedures, etc.). This analysis builds up a detailed story of the excavation almost on a daily basis as well as the plan and 3D models of the entire sequence of operations. These constitute in turn the empirical source for the construction of a comprehension of the operations from the point of view of the excavators. Using this empirical basis, we are able to interpret and to define the scientific goals of the excavators as well as the methodological aims that were developed to attain them, while taking stock of the historical significance of their work within the comparative framework of the period. Effectively, the 1950’ s and 1960’ s were fundamental in revising the chrono-cultural classifications of Middle and Upper Palaeolithic lithic industries. The “ bataille périgordienne” was brought to a head by a multiplicity of traditions originating from multiple local and foreign sources that indicated, for instance, a local development of anatomically Modern Humans from a Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition source, whilst denying the capacity of invention of Upper Palaeolithic lithic technologies to the last Neanderthal. Our micro-historical analysis of the part played by Leroi-Gourhan’s field-school at Arcy-sur-Cure, underlines its role in the postulation of Neanderthal behavioural and cognitive modernity by proving his socio-cultural complexity. The development of recording techniques of “habitation structures” was one of the innovative aspects of Leroi-Gourhan’s school. The professionalization of excavation and the construction of alliances amongst local amateurs was the counterpart of Leroi-Gourhan’s strategy in order to construct a new and solid institutional niche for prehistoric archaeology in the academic sphere during the post War years to the 1960’ s, which culminated in the development of modern “ ethnographic excavation” techniques. This was one of the unforeseen developments of the Arcy-sur-Cure experience at the excavation-field school of Pincevent (Seine-et-Marne from 1964 onwards).