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Conclusion

Sandrine Costamagno, François Bon et Nicolas Valdeyron
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Conclusion [fr]

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1Was the ambition of this meeting really a wolf in sheep’s clothing? Would we be capable of defining the criteria necessary to identify a “hunting camp” based on the different elements of the prehistoric and ethno-archaeological record – for the former, extending from the Middle Paleolithic to the Mesolithic and throughout most of western Europe and secondarily the Near East, and for the latter, reaching into Africa and the two extremities of the Americas? Judging by the difficulties experienced by the participants and authors when trying to respond to this question, this would be a logical first conclusion. But in fact, one of the most important, and probably (at least we hope) most productive, aspects of this meeting was the intellectual discomfort we all felt when attempting to determine the function of sites that we should, in principle, be able to consider as the most simple and banal for hunter-gatherers…

2As we recalled in the introduction to this volume, for more than the past 40 years, the question of site function has played an essential role in Prehistoric archaeology, systematically and justifiably arising whenever the goal is to interpret the variability of a given assemblage or, subsequently, to propose a model of territorial organization. We have of course long benefitted from ethnographic references that enable us to construct the theoretical frameworks of this question, starting with the seminal propositions of Lewis Binford and his classification of hunter-gatherer populations, establishing a behavioral gradient between foragers and collectors. But despite the merits of such models, and the value of the numerous applications that have emerged from them, to what degree has this theoretical framework been transformed into a methodological tool applicable to research in Prehistoric archaeology?

3…And herein lies our discomfort: as studies and discussions have converged in this direction, and questions concerning site functions and the territorial organization of human groups have become increasingly pressing, we have simultaneously become aware of both the crucial role of these notions and our deficiency in the face of them. Behind a simple and banal hunting camp, very significant aspects of the social organization of a human group can be hidden: a hunting camp (as it is theoretically defined) can thus provide insight into the social identity of the actors of the hunt. In other words, through this question of site function, the goal is no longer (and has not been for a long time) to contribute to prehistoric chronicles through an increasingly detailed understanding of the diversity of the technical behaviors of prehistoric groups, but rather to explore to what degree we can comprehend the socio-economic organization of these populations and perceive its evolution.

4Ethnology once again leads the way…, while at the same time demonstrating (cruelly!) our deficiencies. For example, the models proposed by different authors, and in particular, Alain Testart, argue very convincingly that the technical nature of the hunting weapons employed by a human group primarily reflects the choices and orientations of its members from the perspective of the sociology of hunting. In other words, in the context of a solitary as opposed to collective hunting expedition, if we determine that a bow is more efficient than a spear, and a spear more than a lance, we find ourselves at the heart of an issue of social organization. According to the hypotheses often proposed concerning hunting tools and their evolution from the Middle Paleolithic to the Mesolithic, it would therefore be tempting to see in this evolution a gradual transformation of the image of a hunter, starting from a lone silhouette armed with a spear, to one with a bow, separating from a compact group bristling with lances. In the same manner, in ethnological contexts, prey selection, ranging from the trapping of small inoffensive animals to the necessarily collective hunt of large ferocious beasts, has also inspired sociological models of hunting. Returning to prehistory, meanwhile, are we capable in this context of observing such a behavioral transformation not only from the perspective of tools and prey animals, but from that of the sites and their complementarity as well? In other words, in the archaeological record, are we capable of detecting a “hunting camp” that represents the more or less solitary expedition of a small group of hunters having travelled some distance from their residential base camp to procure resources that they will then bring back with them to the main camp, following the definition of the collector model? As several participants at this meeting have pointed out (Legoupil; Rendu et al.; Marchand et al.; Fontana), this question is even more complex given that the activities represented at a “hunting camp” can differ depending on whether they were carried out before, during or after the hunt: “preparing weapons, stalking prey, killing it and cutting it into pieces for transport or conservation” (Marchand et al.) are all activities that may or may not be performed conjointly at a hunting camp or elsewhere, while leaving little or no traces.

5Many of the discussions during this meeting, as well as several of the papers in this volume, lead us to conclude that the questions concerning the notion of a “hunting camp” are above all sociological in nature. And it is this dimension that must dictate the nature of the archaeological criteria that we define. In other words, a given location cannot be identified as a “temporary camp” unless we can demonstrate its complementarity with other sites of more permanent “residential” nature. And it is therefore this complementarity between different locations, which is at once technological, economic and social, that we must apprehend. It is from this perspective that we collectively attempted to distinguish some of the defining criteria of a “hunting camp” (HC), as opposed to a “residential camp” (RC). We must nonetheless keep in mind the following precaution: if a hunting camp is defined as site that is temporarily occupied by a few hunters on an expedition to procure animal resources that will be brought back to the residential camp, in a manner such that the former (HC) is by definition complementary to the latter (RC), this latter, according to the models of socio-economic organization, can function autonomously; in the foraging model there are theoretically only residential camps (at least among the archaeologically visible occupations…).

  • On the recurrence of occupations: this criterion does not appear to be valid for the distinction of an HC or an RC because the site conditions (topography, orientation, site configuration, resource accessibility, etc.) that dictated the installation of one or the other at a given location could have operated on several repeated occasions.

  • On the spatial organization of occupations: while in the case of a hunting camp we would expect a minimal investment (for example, no shelter construction that would require the transport of potentially heavy materials, possibly over long distances); we cannot inverse this argument to define the nature of an RC: while a high investment does not argue in favor of a hunting camp, a low investment does not exclude the possibility of a residential camp.

  • On the nature of the prey and the hunt: for each hunting episode, an HC must be have a low diversity faunal spectrum, regardless of whether it is associated with a specialized hunting episode or not; here again, we cannot inverse this argument because an RC can also be associated with the exploitation of a single taxon. The seasonality of the hunt must also be considered. Since a hunting camp is occupied for only a short duration, the prey was forcibly hunted within a short time span. This characteristic is obviously not exclusive to hunting camps and can be difficult to observe at repeatedly occupied sites. A more reliable criterion is the manner in which the animal was exploited: the remains found in an HC must reflect an exportation of part of the carcass and therefore also indicate a low consumption rate – there nonetheless remains the difficulty of distinguishing the remains associated with an in situ consumption from those associated with a preparation of the carcasses for transport; an RC, on the other hand, must correspond to a more intensive in situ consumption, without excluding a complete absence of a limited exportation. The size of the prey and the number of animals hunted must be taken into account as the mass of available resources can require all or part of the group to move near the hunting location, thus excluding an HC.

  • On the activities associated with carcass processing: this is one of the strongest arguments since we would expect that at a hunting camp the butchery activities would serve primarily to prepare the carcass portions to be exported (this can concern the meat, hide and certain bones); we do not expect to find other processing phases, such as hide processing or the transformation of osseous materials. In other words, any activity requiring a long stay (hide drying and processing being the best example) is excluded from a hunting camp; such an activity is much better adapted (though not obligatory) to a residential camp.

  • On the activities associated with tool manufacturing: here again, activities that take a long time to perform are excluded from an HC, and we thus do not expect to find abundant evidence for lithic or osseous material processing. The geological context of the site must nonetheless be taken into account: if the HC is located in immediate proximity to lithic resources, we could expect more intensive stone knapping activities than if the sources are further away. At a residential camp, on the other hand, we can expect to find more activities linked to tool manufacturing and maintenance, especially domestic tools, but once again, this is not an absolute criterion, especially if the RC is located far from raw material sources, which could engender an importation of mostly finished tools. In the same way, any traces of apprenticeship, at stone knapping, for example, is probably excluded from an HC, but their presence is not obligatory at an RC.

  • On the activities linked with tool consumption: at an HC, we should find almost no traces of tool consumption, other than a few tenuous remains of weapon and/or butchery knife maintenance. These criteria must naturally be adjusted in function of the nature of the tools and their presumed use-life. Similarly, the maintenance of tools linked with time consuming activities, such as dry hide processing, require an occupation duration that is incompatible with an HC. The presence of numerous end-scrapers or side-scrapers (assuming that they were implicated in dry hide processing), in form of tools or retouch flakes, is thus a criterion that can distinguish an RC from an HC.

  • On ritual or symbolic activities: nothing prevents an HC from containing remains associated with symbolic activities, such as traces of parietal art in a rock shelter. But this is once again a question of the degree of investment and time required; the transport of materials (colorants, etc.) and the temporal investment implied in some techniques excludes their practice at an HC. In the same manner, burials are not completely excluded from hunting camps (hunting accidents surely occurred and it is not impossible for the victim not to have been buried at such a site). Burials containing numerous and/or heavy artifacts not directly associated with hunting activities are excluded, however. The burial of children appears to be totally incoherent with an HC. Similarly, while the presence of deciduous teeth is logical, if not naturally systematic, at an RC, their presence would likely be excluded at an HC.

6It is evident that none of the criteria listed above are unequivocal and a convergence of archaeological elements is necessary to propose a definition of a “hunting camp”:

  • minimal investment in spatial organization, absence of long distant importations of heavy materials;

  • seasonal hunting (with the possibility of several seasons for reoccupied hunting camps);

  • low faunal spectrum diversity;

  • few hunted animals, especially in the case of large species;

  • absence of post carcass processing activities (dry hide tanning, bone tool making, etc.);

  • limited in situ consumption and exportation of a large quantity of the available resources;

  • limited stone knapping activities except if the HC is located near raw material sources; limited tool consumption, with the possible exception of those implied in hunting activities;

  • possible ritual or symbolic activities, but a low investment in the acquisition and transport of the elements associated with them;

  • any trace of the presence of young children at a site (child burial, deciduous teeth, apprentice-ship, etc.) excludes the hypothesis of a hunting camp.

7If we return now to the examples presented at this meeting, which served as the bases for the ideas discussed above (meaning they were taken as both examples and counter-examples), three categories emerge: ethnoarchaeological examples, which we will address the end of this discussion, studies integrating both faunal and technical elements, and those involving only tool industries, most often lithic. Concerning the latter category, since there are no faunal remains at Chaloignes (Marchand et al. a) or Pont-Glas (Marchand et al. b), in Azilian and Mesolithic contexts respectively, as well as at most of the Bellosian sites in the Paris Basin (Bodu et al.), the functions of these sites are deducted based on the degree of investment in their spatial organization, the spatial fractioning of the lithic chaînes opératoires (reduction sequences) and the relative abundance of weapons relative to tools associated with butchery, and more generally, carcass processing (which can include hide working). At Chaloignes, the absence of a spatial organization could indicate short term occupations, while the absence of refits between the different loci argue in favor of small occupations by distinct groups rather than a camp with complementary activity zones. In locus 1, the abundance of weapon elements, which were manufactured in place and some of which have impact fractures, along with the presence of tools associated with wood working, could indicate a pre-hunting camp at which arrows (and not only arrowheads) were manufactured, as well as a post-hunting camp. Meanwhile, evidence for the working of hides that were in the process of drying raises questions concerning the duration of this second phase, which does not seem to support the hypothesis of a hunting camp as defined above. At Pont-Glas, the high quantities of weapon elements and their high rate of use could indicate short stays in association with hunting activities (manufacturing and maintenance of weapons). However, even if this site, defined as logistic, could have been repeatedly occupied by hunting groups on an expedition away from their residential camp and their usual procurement zone, does it really correspond to a hunting camp?

8Based on the same types of arguments, François Bachellerie and his collaborators reach similar conclusions concerning small occupations in Chatelperronian cave sites in the Pyrenees, and propose that the existence of these latter differentiate this context from that of the Aurignacian, for which no hunting camps are known, at least not in the region concerned by their study. However, as they rightly point out, the relative visibility of hunting weapon elements in different industries is a limiting factor when they are the sole exploitable evidence: how can we demonstrate, in some cases, the influence of hunting at a given site? It is perhaps not surprising that most of the Upper Paleolithic contexts with sites interpreted as specialized hunting locations are those whose weapon elements include lithic points (e.g. the Chatelperronian), and not those that have only bone points and/or composite lateral elements in the form of bladelets (e.g. the Aurignacian). While the “lithic point” model is perhaps the most adapted to a hunting strategy involving logistical expeditions, and therefore hunting camps, the nature of the archaeological signatures of these different weapon types must still be considered. This is especially true if we add the factor of taphonomy. While this obstacle is somewhat reduced at open-air sites of the type found in the Paris Basin (Bodu et al.), due to exceptional sedimentary contexts that preserve “snapshots” of occupations, in the case of the palimpsests that are often associated with caves and rock shelters, such archeological signatures rapidly become indecipherable.

9Among the sites at which both faunal and technological data are available, we must distinguish those at which the fauna has not been studied from a zooarchaeological perspective. Most of the sites discussed by Aurélien Simonet fall into this category and their identification as a hunting camp is thus based on the same criteria as those cited above. In this context, and given this limitation, few of the sites presented are good candidates. At La Carane-3, despite the small number of lithic remains, the diversity of the faunal spectra suggests several hunting episodes, which if they occurred during the same occupation do not correspond to a hunting camp. The second example, Amalda, was long considered to be a specialized ungulate hunting camp, but while the abundance of weapon elements and paucity of lithic production activities argue in this direction, recent taphonomic studies of the osseous materials have shown that the chamois and some of the ibex remains do not have an anthropogenic origin. The zooarchaeological analysis in progress should contribute useful elements to these interpretations, for the moment based mainly on the tool industries.

10Other than the Mousterian assemblage of Le Payre (Daujeard et al.) and the Mesolithic occupations of Les Fieux (Valdeyron et al.), which have diverse faunal spectra, all of the examples discussed in these proceedings are associated with relatively specialized spectra. At Le Payre, the in situ production and consumption of the lithic industry indicates a residential camp. This is confirmed by the faunal remains, which show that the richest animal parts were imported to the site and consumed in place. The dental micro-wear of the hunted animals suggests that the cave was repeatedly occupied during a short time span and the authors thus interpret the site as a “short-term camp” (Daujeard et al.). The example of Les Fieux is interesting because the lithic production activities, mainly oriented toward the manufacturing of bladelets, which were often transformed into weapon elements, would appear to correspond to the hunting camps described above, while the faunal remains do not indicate a logistical strategy, thus contradicting this hypothesis. The range of species hunted, the transformation and consumption of dietary resources, the absence of imported products, the in situ working of osseous materials, and the diverse range of activities revealed by the functional analysis, all argue in favor of a temporary residential camp of hunter-gatherers, rather than a true hunting camp (Valdeyron et al.).

11Le Crôt du Charnier at Solutré for horse and to a lesser extent reindeer (Aurignacian; Bayle et al.), Mauran and La Quina for bison (Mousterian: Rendu et al.), and Umm el Tlel for camel, all correspond to strategic hunting locations. At the first three sites, the fractioning of the chaîne opératoire indicates short term occupations dedicated to the exploitation of large ungulate carcasses, which were often subject to intensive processing. At Mauran and La Quina, it is possible that several animals were killed during the same hunting episode. Since herd driving requires the participation of a relatively large number of individuals, it is probable that all the members of the group (or even several groups) took part in this activity, thus excluding a social division. Though carcass processing could also involve all the members of a group, the exportation of some resources, probably to locations better adapted to longer term occupations, nonetheless indicates that these sites were complementary to others. This interpretation is also proposed for the Mousterian site of Les Pradelles, from which reindeer carcasses, after being secondarily butchered, were exported elsewhere in the form of finished products (Rendu et al.). The low degree of resolution of these Mousterian sites (Mauran, La Quina and Les Pradelles) is problematic, however, since many of the arguments are based on the presence of a large number of hunted animals relative to the presumed short duration of the occupations, which is deducted based on the lithic industry. Following the same reasoning, meanwhile, (abundance of faunal remains/low quantity of tools), Solutré seems to correspond more closely to a “camp with hunting” than to a “hunting camp” in the strict sense; Gregory Bayle and his collaborators speak of the possible presence of all of the members of the Aurignacian group “in order to participate in all the activities associated with the processing of the hunted animals”. It is true, meanwhile, that one essential criterion is lacking at Solutré since there is no evidence for the exportation of some of the resources to another site. In the end, among these sites, Umm el Tlell (Griggo et al.) probably represents the most definitive archetype of a “hunting camp”, according to our definition. All evidence indicates that the Mousterian occupation presented here corresponds to the time necessary to hunt a few camels and prepare the carcasses for transport. This site, located near a lake, could have served as an ambush stand frequented by only a few hunters since a large number of individuals is not necessarily required to capture animals in this type of location. The subsequent exportation of some of the products of the hunt confirms that this site was complementary to a residential camp located elsewhere.

12Balma Guilanya (Martinez-Moreno and Mora Torcal) and Grotta del Clusantin (Peresani et al.) are both Epipaleolithic sites located in the mountains and specialized in the procurement of animals that live only in this particular biotope: ibex for the former and marmot for the latter. Despite this, neither site shows evidence for logistical expeditions since the entire group moved seasonally to the mountains to exploit these prey. Some of the resources thus procured – marmot fur and ibex food products – were then exported elsewhere. Such sites, specialized in the procurement and exploitation of mountain species, coupled with a residential function, are also described by Federica Fontana in the northern Italian peninsula for the Mesolithic. In this region, most of the middle mountain range sites show evidence of short term occupations associated with hunting activities that could have been linked with “small” residential camps at high altitudes occupied only during the warm season (though it is not possible at present to precisely define the social structure of the groups and thus to propose the hypothesis of a “hunting camp”), while during the cold season, these same groups occupied “large” residential camps on the plains.

13Speaking of the plains, the Tardiglacial period (Magdalenian, Azilian, Belloisian) in the Paris Basin provides a particularly favorable context for testing our capacity to address this question of site function and the possible complementarity of sites (Bodu et al.). However, while this region contains several spectacular examples of true residential base camps – identified though integrated analyses of spatial organization, activity diversity, and evidence of apprenticeship, indicating the presence of complete family groups (Etiolles, Pincevent, Verberie, etc.) – the existence of “hunting camps” remains elusive. Does this mean that they simply did not exist, as could be true for the Magdalenian, or that we are not capable of identifying them, which seems more likely for the Azilian, and particularly its late phase (according to the example of Le Closeau)? This is what time will probably tell us, as it already seems to have for the Belloisian. To define a hunting camp will indeed require better confrontations of the data obtained at numerous specialized sites with obtained at residential camps, which are unfortunately still too rare. While the former are linked with activities focused on butchery and especially lithic production activities, and thus cannot be strictly defined as hunting camps, they were nonetheless very likely complementary to the latter.

14The three studies integrating archaeology and ethnology contributed particularly enlightening elements to the strictly archaeological studies. This is nothing new, of course, but the heuristic capacity of these approaches once again merits recognition. At La Terre de Feu, the Selk’nam peoples, who did not master storage techniques, hunted guanacos almost daily, illustrating not only the complexity of the situations observed but also the difficulty of isolating their archaeological traces, even when this diversity can be seen in the ethnohistoric data (Legoupil). This hunting strategy, which was individual or collective and practiced in the context of a high residential mobility strategy, left very few traces: in this case, only the final camp, that of the kill, has any chance of being preserved. Consequently, comparisons between the two contexts show a clear discrepancy between what we could expect based on ethnohistoric sources, and what we find through archaeology, for the moment still of little significance and rather monotonous. At the other extremity of the continent, a study of the hunter-gatherers of eastern Canada, based on a confrontation of data originating from these same two contexts – sometimes complemented by insight from the local communities occupying ancestral lands – results in nearly the same realization: here again, the variability and complexity of the situations observed or reported is only vaguely suggested by the data collected in the field (Burke). And then there are the traps…, which are quite numerous when exploring the relationships between hunting activities and variations in social organization, and are even further complicated by strong seasonal contrasts: a group that practices a residential mobility strategy during part of the year – thus moving within their territory as a hunting group – can opt for a logistical organization of the territory at another time of year, and thus at times be intensively segmented, perhaps in relationship to hunting activities, but others as well. Such a situation would be attested by a multitude of small sites, not all of which would be hunting camps, but whose identification is essential to an understanding of the lifeways of these populations. Since the potential interest of these small sites, seen as “insignificant” by land developers, carries little weight in the face of financial or economic interests, they are often sacrificed for budgetary reasons, and are thus not excavated. The third, more theoretical, contribution (Fougère) consists of a very stimulating discussion of variations in social organization and economic activities in order to define occupation types within the duration of an annual cycle. Based on ethnographic examples, three occupation types are identified, each being characterized by particular sociological conditions. The resulting model is then applied to the Magdalenian in the Paris Basin, confirming the hypothesis of a residential mobility pattern.

15Though they are very different from each other, each of these three contributions shows the incredible richness of the dialogue stimulated by a meeting of archaeology and ethnology, while also cruelly highlighting the gaps and limitations of prehistoric archaeology, which, by definition, cannot attain the same degree of resolution. We can of course regret this, but we must above all integrate it as an irrefutable element in order to avoid falling into interpretive complacency or the imprudent convocation of models that we sometimes forget are no more than just that, models. If this meeting accomplished no more than to firmly remind us of this, we consider that it at least partly attained its goal. Nonetheless, we hope that it also contributed to fulfilling another, more positive objective, because if we must indeed remain very cautious in our use of models, this is also, and especially, because it is absolutely necessary to convert them to the archaeological record through the formulation of an adapted analytical framework. This is the goal that we collectively attempted to achieve through this meeting. This analytical framework of course amounts to recognizing the existence of a model, which, even if archaeologically defined in this case, is still theoretical and naturally subject to criticism. And this will be its future role: to be criticized, as has already begun in the contributions discussed above, but on bases that we hope will be a bit more solid now because they are more archaeologically founded. And here we arrive at what we hope will be the destiny of “hunting camps”, the main object of our interrogations, and which we now perceive more clearly following the discussions that have lead us to formulate the definition proposed above. This definition, which is forcibly restrictive, now calls for others, which we hope will replace the hunting camp within a complex system that can be interpreted and understood only through a global perception of territories and sites, evaluated based on a complementary approach integrating function, seasonal mobility and variations in social organization.

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Sandrine Costamagno, François Bon et Nicolas Valdeyron, « Conclusion »Palethnologie [En ligne], 3 | 2011, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 2011, consulté le 20 juin 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/palethnologie/7987 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/palethnologie.7987

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Auteurs

Sandrine Costamagno

CNRS - UMR 5608 – TRACES, Université Toulouse II - Le Mirail, 5 allées Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse cedex 9, FRANCE
costamag[at]univ-tlse2.fr

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François Bon

CNRS - UMR 5608 – TRACES, Université Toulouse II - Le Mirail, 5 allées Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse cedex 9, FRANCE
bon[at]univ-tlse2.fr
Honorary Research Fellow School of Geography Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA

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Nicolas Valdeyron

CNRS - UMR 5608 – TRACES, Université Toulouse II - Le Mirail, 5 allées Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse cedex 9, FRANCE
valdeyro[at]univ-tlse2.fr

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