Sites
Abri du Cheix
Wikipedia data hasn't been reviewed for accuracy by the Gignos Research Team
- Site type:
- Shelter
- Site function:
- Habitation site
- Lat/Long:
- 45.54, 2.99
- Country:
- France
The Abri du Cheix is a shallow cave (or rock shelter) and prehistoric site located in the commune of Saint-Diéry, in the Puy-de-Dôme department, Auvergne, France. The site was occupied from the Epipaleolithic to the Neolithic. It is particularly known for having housed the burial of a young girl, to whom the name of the site was given.
The excavation of the site has yielded a large number of flint tools, fossil remains of animals, objects of adornment, and especially the burial in excellent condition of a young woman buried in a fetal position often referred to as the "maiden of the Cheix".
The site was dated to the Azilien by excavators and, again, by Jean-Pierre Daugas in 1979. It is now more generally referred to as Epipaleolithic. But there are traces of a later occupation in the Neolithic.
The epipaleolithic deposit is characteristic of the small episodic occupations of the Auvergne middle mountains.