CONTENTS
Lists of Illustrations, Tables, Maps
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapters 16
Conclusions
Bibliography
Index
The French Pyrenees occupy a key gateway position between southern
France and the Iberian Peninsula. In prehistoric studies this
region has long been overshadowed by the Périgord
yet it is an archaeologically rich area, and was the scene of
work by some of the earliest and greatest pioneers of prehistory:
Noulet, Lartet, Piette, and the first work by the abbé
Breuil. It contains two type-sites Aurignac and the Mas
d'Azil and many of the finest examples of palaeolithic parietal
and portable art. It is the region with the most evidence for
the enigmatic activities of Magdalenian man in deep caves; and
it is rich in megalithic monuments.
This book is the first synthesis of the prehistory of the French
Pyrenees; it attempts to present an up-to-date account of the
subject, from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, and from Tautavel
to the Iron Age. It lays emphasis not on the artefacts, but on
the site-locations and the development of subsistence patterns,
and relates them to environmental/climatic change and to topography.
It argues that Upper Palaeolithic man could have manipulated herds
of animals, that Mesolithic man was by no means a miserable eater
of snails, and that the distribution of megalithic monuments is
directly related to the seasonal altitudinal movements of pastoralists.
488pp.4to; 80 illus, 36 maps, 41 tables; (1984) pb 260 8 $85 / £42
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CONTENTS
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SOME COMMENTS BY REVIEWERS
"A valuable survey of the human geography of a classic area
of Stone Age research, based on an extensive literature
much of it going back into the C19 and on a firsthand knowledge
of the terrain." Oxbow Books