38,000-Year-Old Aurignacian Artwork Found in France

Researchers have uncovered a 38,000-year-old engraved image at Abri Blanchard, an Upper Paleolithic site of the Aurignacian culture — a finding that marks some of the earliest known graphic imagery found in Western Eurasia.

Limestone block engraved with an aurochs. Image credit: P. Jugie, Musée National de Préhistoire Collections.

The limestone slab engraved with image of a now-extinct wild aurochs (Bos primigenius) was discovered at the partially collapsed rock shelter of Abri Blanchard in France’s Vézère Valley in 2012.

Details of the discovery are published in the journal Quaternary International by Randall White, a professor of anthropology at New York University, and his colleagues from the University of Oxford, UK.

“The discovery sheds new light on regional patterning of art and ornamentation across Europe at a time when the first modern humans to enter Europe dispersed westward and northward across the continent,” Prof. White said.

The findings center on the early modern humans’ Aurignacian culture, which existed from 43,000 to 33,000 years ago.

The researchers contend that Aurignacian art offers a window into the lives and minds of its makers — and into the societies they created.

The engraved image shows “significant technical and thematic similarities to the Chauvet Cave that are reinforced by our reanalysis of engraved slabs from the older excavations at Abri Blanchard,” they said.

“The aligned punctuations find their counterparts at Chauvet, in the south German sites and on several other objects from Abri Blanchard and surrounding Aurignacian sites.”

“Following their arrival from Africa, groups of modern humans settled into western and Central Europe, showing a broad commonality in graphic expression against which more regionalized characteristics stand out,” Prof. White said.

“This pattern fits well with social geography models that see art and personal ornamentation as markers of social identity at regional, group, and individual levels.”

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R. Bourrillon et al. A new Aurignacian engraving from Abri Blanchard, France: Implications for understanding Aurignacian graphic expression in Western and Central Europe. Quaternary International, published online January 24, 2017; doi: 10.1016/j.quaint.2016.09.063