Examples of objects made from whalebone found in archaeological collections in northern Spain.

1: El Pendo (Cantabria), 2: Ermittia (Guipuscoa), 3: Tito Bustillo (Asturias), aet b: focus on the material.

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Alexandre Lefebvre

  • Alexandre Lefebvre, researcher at the Toulouse laboratory Traces, has just published an article on the exploitation of maritime resources by prehistoric men.

  • Specialized in the study of objects made from bone materials, this scientist was interested in the first coastal economies, by tracking whale bones.

  • He demonstrated the first relationships between humans and cetaceans during prehistoric times, around 18,000 years ago, using whalebone tools found in the Pyrenees.

One cannot imagine the men of Prehistory navigating the sea. Considered as hunter-gatherers, they nevertheless also exploited maritime resources, such as the carcasses of whales, stranded, not fished.

This is what emerges from the study of Alexandre Lefebvre, researcher in prehistoric archeology associated with the Traces laboratory in Toulouse.

Specialized in the study of objects made from bone materials, this scientist has just published an article on these discoveries in the journal

Quaternary Science Reviews

.

There he demonstrates the first relationships between humans and whales during prehistoric times, around 18,000 years ago, thanks to whalebone tools found, as astonishing as it may be, in the Pyrenees.

Tool circulation in the land

The researcher's objective was to find out whether the use of whale bones as a raw material is a phenomenon that has been limited to the Pyrenean massif or whether it has spread to all Atlantic communities.

“We tracked the presence of objects made from whalebone in Cantabria, in northern Spain, where 54 objects have been identified in old and recent collections, at twelve sites,” explains Alexandre Lefebvre.

These are the oldest objects made from whalebone, mainly weapons, found in the Iberian Peninsula.

We thought that prehistoric hunter-gatherers mainly exploited land resources, but we realize the importance of marine resources in the subsistence of these populations ”.

Structured communication networks

These objects thus circulated in the Pyrenees, thanks to communication networks structured around the Bay of Biscay.

These discoveries revive the hypothesis of an anteriority of the first coastal economies in this part of Europe at the end of the last glaciation.

"It was found that these whalebone weapons circulated inland, between the north of Spain and the southwest of France, including some in Haute-Garonne, Lespugue and Gourdan", details Alexandre Lefebvre.

By tracing the trail of these objects, scientists deduce that they circulated thanks to structured communication networks on either side of the Pyrenees.

They are thus certain that relations existed between the different groups of hunter-gatherers, without knowing whether this relation is social or only economic.

Another mystery that remains: have men moved with these whalebone tools over several generations or have these objects been exchanged from one group to another, in a prehistoric way of barter?

“Apart from the bone tools, we found shells that served as ornaments or the remains of marine mammals such as seals, a set of elements that show a clear intensification of these maritime resources in their daily life,” underlines Alexandre Lefebvre.

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  • Spain

  • Pyrenees

  • Weapons

  • Archeology

  • Whale

  • Wed

  • Prehistory