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Abri des Harpoons

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Site type:
Shelter
Site function:
Habitation site
Lat/Long:
43.22, 0.63
Country:
France
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L'abri des Harpons is a prehistoric rock shelter that is part of the caves of Lespugue, also called caves of the Save, located in the gorges of the Save, in the town of Lespugue, in Haute-Garonne, in Pays Comminges Pyrénées, in the administrative region of Occitanie (formerly Midi-Pyrénées), in France.

It was occupied mainly during the Solutrean and the Magdalenian. It is one of the rare Solutrean stratigraphic sequences known (in 2003) in the Pyrenean foothills. He delivered several pieces of decorated furniture, including a Magdalenian Venus on a stick (not to be confused with its famous sister, the Venus of the Rideaux cave, known as the "Venus of Lespugue"), an oil lamp, and Magdalenian-eyed needles.

In 1913 and 1914, Saint-Périer recognized three levels of Magdalenian filling and an upper Solutrean level. He meticulously notes the locations of the elements of the layers, which nowadays makes it possible to replace many elements despite their dispersion. According to Méroc (1959), the cave yielded Solutrean, Magdalenian and Azilian, the latter also mentioned by Lalande who also cites, on the surface, a Bronze Age deposit. But for San Juan (2003), the stratigraphy begins in the Solutrean and ends in the Magdalenian, including all levels of the Magdalenian from the Azilian to the early Magdalenian; the only comparable site for such a stratigraphic series is the cave of Troubat in the Hautes-Pyrénées.