Des ruptures socio-culturelles en traits ? Un réexamen de l’art azilien et épigravettien récent à la fin du Pléistocène

At the end of the Pleistocene, material culture in Western Europe underwent numerous changes, particularly in graphic expression with the development of non-figurative iconography on portable items, while realistic depictions and parietal art were getting scarce. These graphic discontinuities often interpreted as ruptures have served on the one hand as spatial cultural markers, between the Epigravettian cultures around the Mediterranean basin and the continental and Atlantic Magdalenian, and on the other hand as temporal markers between the Magdalenian and the Azilian. However, recent and ongoing studies of several assemblages of portable art from Atlantic (e.g. Rocher de l’Impératrice, Murat) and Italian (e.g. Polesini, Romanelli) contexts are offering a more nuanced picture. The graphic expressions in these two regions reveal numerous connections that challenge the perceived separation between the Epigravettian and the Magdalenian-Azilian worlds. At the same time, the apparent graphic rupture of the late Azilian increasingly appears to be a unicum, calling into question its very reality.