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Abri du Cheix

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Site type:
Shelter
Site function:
Habitation site
Lat/Long:
45.54, 2.99
Country:
France
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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.