Grotte du Vallonnet is an archaeological site located near

Roquebrune-Cap-Martin Roquebrune-Cap-Martin (; oc, Ròcabruna Caup Martin or ; it, Roccabruna-Capo Martino, ; Mentonasc: ''Rocabrüna''; Roquebrune until 1921) is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, Southeastern Fr ...

, between Monaco and

Menton Menton (; , written ''Menton'' in classical norm or ''Mentan'' in Mistralian norm; it, Mentone ) is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the French Riviera, close to the Italian border. Mento ...

, in France, that was first discovered in 1958. Stone tools found at the site have been dated to between 1 and 1.05 million years old, making it one of the earliest sites of human settlement known in Europe.Henry de Lumley, ''La Grande Histoire des premiers européens'', Odile Jacob, Paris, 2010, pg. 131. "La grotte du Vallonnet est bien l'un es plus anciens temoins de la presence de l'homme en Europe, dans un contexte stratigraphique bien daté, avec les sites de Pirro Nord, de Barranco Léon, de Fuente Neuva 3 and de la Sima del Elefante..."

Description

The cave of Vallonnet is located on the western slope of Cap Martin, about above the Bay of

, at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in the

Alpes-Maritimes Alpes-Maritimes (; oc, Aups Maritims; it, Alpi Marittime, "Maritime Alps") is a department of France located in the country's southeast corner, on the Italian border and Mediterranean coast. Part of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, it ...

Department in France. It opens onto a ravine with a small creek, the Vallonnet, which drops down to the bay. The mountain is a massif of

calcite Calcite is a carbonate mineral and the most stable polymorph of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It is a very common mineral, particularly as a component of limestone. Calcite defines hardness 3 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, based on scratc ...

dolomitic Dolomite () is an anhydrous carbonate mineral composed of calcium magnesium carbonate, ideally The term is also used for a sedimentary carbonate rock composed mostly of the mineral dolomite. An alternative name sometimes used for the dolom ...

rock formed during the Jurassic period, covered with puddingstone and hardened sands of the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recent" ...

. The porch of the cave is narrow and low, and opens to a corridor in length, followed by a high room.

Discovery

The cave was discovered in 1958 by 13 year old Marianne Poire, who regularly visited the cave to collect pieces of

and one day showed them to René Pascal, an employee of a Monte Carlo casino and an amateur prehistorian. Marianne then led her parents, Pascal and others to the entry of the cave. The first systematic excavations were carried out in 1962.

Layers of sediment

The excavations found five distinct layers of sediment in the cave: # Layer I was a floor of

stalagmite A stalagmite (, ; from the Greek , from , "dropping, trickling") is a type of rock formation that rises from the floor of a cave due to the accumulation of material deposited on the floor from ceiling drippings. Stalagmites are typically ...

s, which could be dated between 1.4 and 1.370 million years BC. Analysis of the

pollen Pollen is a powdery substance produced by seed plants. It consists of pollen grains (highly reduced microgametophytes), which produce male gametes (sperm cells). Pollen grains have a hard coat made of sporopollenin that protects the gametophy ...

found in this layer showed it was located in a forested landscape, where platanes were dominant. # Layer II was composed of beach sand, mixed with seashells and fish bones, dated to a little over 1.05 million years. The types of fish bones found showed that at this time the cave was washed by a tropical or subtropical sea. The pollen found indicated that the landscape had been covered with pine forest, and that the climate at that time was relatively warm, with mild winters. # Layer III was the thickest layer (1.5 metres) composed of sand mixed with stones and rocks from the pudding which hung over the cave. Mixed into this layer were numerous animal bones, either brought there by man or by predatory animals. The pollen indicated a drier climate at that time, dominated by clusters of white oak trees. This layer was dated by

magnetostratigraphy Magnetostratigraphy is a geophysical correlation technique used to date sedimentary and volcanic sequences. The method works by collecting oriented samples at measured intervals throughout the section. The samples are analyzed to determine their '' ...

; the studies showed that the layer corresponded with the Jaramillo normal event period of direct geomagnetic polarity, between the periods of inverse geomagnetic polarity of

Motonori Matuyama was a Japanese geophysicist who was (in the late 1920s) the first to provide systematic evidence that the Earth's magnetic field had been reversed in the early Pleistocene and to suggest that long periods existed in the past in which the polarit ...

. This allowed the archaeologists to date the layer to between 1.050 and 1 million years. # About one million years ago the entry to the cave was emptied by erosion, leaving only the sediments in the deepest part of the interior chamber. The fourth layer, A thick stalagmitic floor, formed over these sediments, and was dated by

Electron paramagnetic resonance Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) or electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy is a method for studying materials that have unpaired electrons. The basic concepts of EPR are analogous to those of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), but the spi ...

to between 900,000 and 890,000 years. Pollen showed that the climate of this time was cooler and much wetter than the present climate. # The fifth and highest layer of sediment is composed of different sands from earlier layers of the cave, deposited during the successive wet periods which followed.

Animal species

Layer III contained the most important finds in the cave; a collection of animal bones, and 11 simple tools used by human visitors. It appears that the cave was used as a dining room by large carnivores, notably the

bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nort ...

, the

panther Panther may refer to: Large cats *Pantherinae, the cat subfamily that contains the genera ''Panthera'' and ''Neofelis'' **''Panthera'', the cat genus that contains tigers, lions, jaguars and leopards. ***Jaguar (''Panthera onca''), found in Sout ...

, the saber-tooth tiger, and the large

hyena Hyenas, or hyaenas (from Ancient Greek , ), are feliform carnivoran mammals of the family Hyaenidae . With only four extant species (each in its own genus), it is the fifth-smallest family in the Carnivora and one of the smallest in the cla ...

. These brought to the cave the carcasses of

herbivores A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpar ...

;

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the rei ...

bison Bison are large bovines in the genus ''Bison'' (Greek: "wild ox" (bison)) within the tribe Bovini. Two extant taxon, extant and numerous extinction, extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American bison, ''B. bison'' ...

, small bovides,

rhinoceros A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species o ...

horses The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...

, and

boars The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is no ...

. When the predators were not in the cave, it was used by humans, who left the tools. The bones of 25 different species of mammals were found in the cave, all characteristic of the lower

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

age. Besides those named above, bones were found of the Eurasian

jaguar The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus ''Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the th ...

(''Panthera gombaszoegensis''), the

leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus ''Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, a ...

, (''Acinonyx pardinensis'') the meridional

elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae a ...

(''Mammuthus meridionalis''), and others. Other species were found from the middle Pleistocene period, including an early species of

wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...

(''Canis mosbachensis''), an early

fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

(''Alopex praeglacialis)'', and a cave

lynx A lynx is a type of wild cat. Lynx may also refer to: Astronomy * Lynx (constellation) * Lynx (Chinese astronomy) * Lynx X-ray Observatory, a NASA-funded mission concept for a next-generation X-ray space observatory Places Canada * Lynx, O ...

(''Lynx spelaea'').

Tools

About 100 basic tools made by man were found in the cave. Most were made of calcaire (

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms when ...

), less often of sandstone, with a small number of tools made of

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical fo ...

and

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fire ...

. Percussion, or pounding, tools, were the most frequent. These included chopping tools, of poor quality. None of the tools had been reworked to improve their quality. The middle part of a femur bone of a bison was found which showed sign of being crafted into a pounding tool. While most of the bones in the cave showed that they had been broken by the teeth of predators, a number of bones had marks that showed that they had been broken by these early tools. It appears that the early human visitors to Vallonnet cave used their stone tools to break bones and eat the marrow inside. There were no indications of fire in the cave; fire had apparently not yet been domesticated. It appears that the people who visited the cave were not primarily hunters, but scavengers, who lived on the meat of animals killed by predators. There were also no signs that they lived in the cave.

Comparison with other archaeological sites

* Gona, Afar,

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the no ...

. Oldest known man-made

stone tools A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone Ag ...

, 2.55 million years BC. *

Dmanisi Dmanisi ( ka, დმანისი, tr, , az, Başkeçid) is a town and archaeological site in the Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia approximately 93 km southwest of the nation’s capital Tbilisi in the river valley of Mashavera. The hominin ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

. Remains of ''

Homo georgicus The Dmanisi hominins, Dmanisi people, or Dmanisi man were a population of Early Pleistocene hominins whose fossils have been recovered at Dmanisi, Georgia. The fossils and stone tools recovered at Dmanisi range in age from 1.85–1.77 million ye ...

'', oldest fossils of man in Europe, 1.8 million years BC. * Basin of Gaudix-Baza, Barranco Leon, Fuenta Nueva Three, Sima del Elefante, Atapuerca, Spain. 1.1 million–1.2 million years BC. * Grotte du Vallonnet. 1 million–1.05 million years BC. * Gran Dolina, Atapuerca, Spain. 780,000 years BC. * Terra Amata, Nice, France. 480,000 BC. * Lascaux Caves, Dordogne, France. 17,300 BC.Breuil, H., (1954), �
Les datations par C14 de Lascaux (Dordogne) et Philip Cave (S.W. Africa)
», ''Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française'', t. LI, 11-12, pp. 554-559.

References

Bibliography

Henry de Lumley, ''La Grande Histoire des premiers hommes européens'', Odile Jacob, Paris, 2010. () {{DEFAULTSORT:Grotte Du Vallonnet Geography of Alpes-Maritimes Prehistoric sites in France