Old Abstract Art

A team of archaeologists from the United Kingdom has uncovered 15,000-year-old stone plaquettes extensively engraved with abstract designs at the Magdalenian site of Les Varines, Jersey, Channel Islands. The finds provide new evidence for technologies of abstract mark-making, and their significance within the lives of people on the edge of the Magdalenian world.

Plaquette 1 from the Magdalenian site of Les Varines, Jersey, Channel Islands. Inset: detail of blue-gray and white aplite rock type and lightly-weathered surface. Image credit: Bello et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0236875.

Plaquette 1 from the Magdalenian site of Les Varines, Jersey, Channel Islands. Inset: detail of blue-gray and white aplite rock type and lightly-weathered surface. Image credit: Bello et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0236875.

The archaeologists found 10 fragments of aplite microgranite plaquettes at the Les Varines site between 2015 and 2018.

The plaquettes are believed to have been made by the Magdalenians, an early hunter-gatherer culture dating between 23,000 and 14,000 years ago.

Etched plaquettes have previously been found in large quantities at numerous sites across the geographical spread of this culture.

In France, about 1,100 stone plaquettes were found at Enlène cave. On the Iberian Peninsula, over 5,000 stone plaquettes were uncovered at Parpalló cave in Spain and over 1,500 were found at the open air site of Foz do Medal Terrace in Portugal.

“Microscopic analysis indicates that many of the lines, including the curved, concentric designs, appear to have been made through layered or repeated incisions, suggesting that it is unlikely that they resulted from the stones being used for a functional purpose,” said lead author Dr. Silvia Bello, a researcher in the Department of Earth Sciences at the Natural History Museum, London.

“The majority of the designs are purely abstract, but others could depict basic forms such as animals, landscapes or people.”

“This strongly suggests that the plaquettes at Les Varines were engraved for purposeful artistic decoration.”

“This is an exciting discovery, not only for its geographical location, which extends the known range of plaquettes, but also for their discovery during a highly controlled excavation, providing a huge depth of contextual insight to support the understanding and interpretation of these important objects,” said co-author Dr. Andy Needham, a scientist in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York.

“The discovery raises the fascinating question of why we are not seeing plaquettes during the Magdalenian in locations further to the north and west, such as England or Wales, given their importance at Les Varines, which is geographically so close by.”

A stone plaquette engraved with abstract designs from the Magdalenian site of Les Varines, Jersey, Channel Islands. Image credit: Bello et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0236875.

A stone plaquette engraved with abstract designs from the Magdalenian site of Les Varines, Jersey, Channel Islands. Image credit: Bello et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0236875.

Dr. Bello, Dr. Needham and their colleagues analyzed the ancient plaquettes for traces of how the markings were made.

The analysis revealed that the plaquettes are engraved with groups of fine lines, thought to have been purposefully made using stone tools.

The geometric designs are made up of a combination of straight lines more or less parallel to each other and longer, curved incisions.

Two types of marks are likely to have been produced using the same tools, possibly by the same engraver and in short succession, giving new insight into the processes used to create the ancient designs.

“These engraved stone fragments provide exciting and rare evidence of artistic expression at what was the farthest edge of the Magdalenian world,” said senior author Dr. Chantal Conneller, a researcher in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at Newcastle University.

“The people at Les Varines are likely to have been pioneer colonizers of the region and creating engraved objects at new settlements may have been a way of creating symbolic relationships with new places.”

The Les Varines plaquettes were found in an area thought to have been used as a hearth.

Three of the fragments had been recovered from an area of granite slabs which may have served as paving, highlighting that the plaquettes were engraved in a domestic context.

“The plaquettes were tricky to pick apart from the natural geology at the site — every stone needed turning,” said co-author Dr. Ed Blinkhorn, a geoarchaeologist in the Institute of Archaeology at University College London.

“Their discovery amongst hearths, pits, paving, specialist tools, and thousands of flints shows that creating art was an important part of the Magdalenian pioneer toolkit, as much at camp as within caves.”

The team’s paper was published online in the journal PLoS ONE.

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S.M. Bello et al. 2020. Artists on the edge of the world: An integrated approach to the study of Magdalenian engraved stone plaquettes from Jersey (Channel Islands). PLoS ONE 15 (8): e0236875; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0236875

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