NO. II ARCHEOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN PYRENEES RUSSELL 5 



of Lower or Middle Paleolithic age, having been found by tlie Aurigna- 

 cians in a stream bed, brought by them to Tarte and used without 

 further adaptation. 



Among the quartzite pieces on the floor of the cave was found a 

 splendid example of the Paleolithic artist's pallette, which probably 

 came from the Aurignacian levels. This piece consists of the cleanly 

 broken half of a quartzite pebble, the flat surface of which is thickly 

 coated in red ochre. It measures 23 centimeters long by 19 centimeters 

 wide. 



THE OPEN-AIR WORKSHOP OF ROQUECOURBERE 



Four kilometers " as the crow flies '' due east from Marsoulas 

 and Tarte is a cave known as the Cave of Roquecourbere " situated 

 in the Commune of Betchat, Ariege. It is one of the two sites in the 

 Pyrenees that yielded remains of the Solutrean culture. Soundings 

 were made here, but it was found to have been completely emptied. 

 Below the clifi:' containing this cave, on the left bank of the little 

 stream known as the Lens, is the open-air workshop of Roquecourbere. 



The site is in a wood and covers several hectares. A number of 

 man-made flint flakes found in a rain-washed cart track leading 

 through it first attracted attention to the station. 



Twenty-one soundings were made. Below a level of humus vary- 

 ing from 60 centimeters to over a meter in thickness was a layer 

 50 centimeters thick consisting of quartzite pebbles and flint nodules 

 of poor quality tightly packed with earth. This layer had been 

 superficially quarried from the surface in Upper Paleolithic times. 

 Artifacts and debris of manufacture occurred in this level, as well 

 as in the lower part of the humus. In sounding No. 8, a consid- 

 erable quantity of flints was found where the quarry layer appeared 

 to have been dug into deeper than elsewhere. The stones had been 

 thrown aside so as to make a cup-like depression, whose borders were 

 covered only by a few centimeters of humus. 



The quality of the material is very poor and the yield of the station 

 meager ; the proportion of worked flakes and finished tools is only 10 

 to 15 per cent of the whole (pis. 5-8). Plate 6, Figure i shows a 

 nucleus trimmed into a double scratcher resembling the rostro-carinate 

 scratchers of the Aurignacian from Tarte. 



The industry belongs to the Lower Aurignacian, but if the work- 

 shop was used by the people of Tarte, the poor quality of the material 

 rendered impossible the production of typical Tarte pieces. 



" Cazedessus, Jean, Galerie de Roquecourbere. Assoc. Frangaise Advanc. Sci., 

 Congr. du Havre, 1929. 



