Radiocarbon dates for the early shouldered Tardigravettian from the rockshelter of Chinchon 1 at Saumane-de-Vaucluse and the chronology of the recent Provençal Upper Palaeolithic

The lithic industry with shouldered points and truncated backed bladelets from the rockshelter of Chinchon 1 in the Vaucluse has been variously interpreted over the past few decades : some authors clearly see it as belonging to an ultimate, classic, phase of the final Magdalenian, whereas others link it just as clearly to an early, Italic, phase of the Tardigravettian. The results of stratigraphic, sedimentological and palaeontological analyses speak for an early date for this complex, a date that had hitherto eluded absolute dating. Here we present a series of new chronological markers for this episode, subjected to Bayesian analysis and modelling. We examine the chronological relationship between these new data and the Salpetrian Tardisolutrean of Languedoc as well as the recent phase of activity in Cosquer Cave and show that the (early) Salpetrian Tardisolutrean and early Tardigravettian with shouldered points are partly synchronous ; further, that in the Tardigravettian region where Cosquer Cave is located, it is in the early phase of the Tardigravettian with shouldered points that the paintings and engravings of the second period of activity at Cosquer were created.