Exceptional evidence for Palaeolithic art in the Paris Basin: the engraved pebble from Etiolles (Essonne)

The discovery of an engraved stone on the open-air Magdalenian site of Etiolles (Essonne) is an exceptional event, as there is very little evidence for Palaeolithic art in the Paris Basin. The stone is a large, hard limestone pebble (3 kg), chosen for its suitability for engraving. It had been placed beneath a slab on the edge of hearth D71-1, dated by C-14 to 12,315 +/- 75 BP. On the front, a horse in very naturalistic style seems to be lying on its side, the eye shut and mouth open. Two wound signs mark the body. This horse is followed by a composite human of female gender, who appears to menace it. On the back, more roughly drawn, there are two reindeer and a horse. The figures, especially the horses, show graphical particularities whose significance in the northern Magdalenian remains to be assessed. On the basis of two specimens it is difficult to evoke a local style. Comparison of the Etiolles equids with the rare figures known in the Paris Basin (Cepoy, Pincevent ou Boutigny) is rather inconclusive. Above all, these finds show that horses played an important thematic role in the art of the latest Palaeolithic in the region. The position of the pebble on the edge of the hearth could indicate a relationship with fire, although less clearly so than for other engraved stones, notably from sites in south-western Europe. However, comparisons can be found in the art of southern regions. The Etiolles engravings provide new examples of long-distance analogies, all the more interesting as they occur at a time when the symbolic unity of the Magdalenian is apparently breaking up. Thus at around 12,000 BP, the Aquitaine groups, previously closely linked to their counterparts in the Pyrenees and Cantabria, become more distinctive: their symbolic work (for example stylized female figures) indicates that the orientation of exchange networks shifted from the south-west to the north and east, in other words to the Paris Basin, and the plains of Belgium and Germany. So the discovery at Etiolles, though isolated, could be one of the last signs of the persistence of ancestral links between groups throughout the Magdalenian zone. The graphical symbiosis of human and animal features in the composite creature, together with the choice of prefered game species, guide interpretation towards the sphere of hunting. Paraphrasing C. Levi-Strauss (1980, p. 93), should one consider that for these men of the past reindeer and horse were not only good to eat but also good to think?