Congratulations to Alexandre Cantin on the defense of his PhD!

The UMR TEMPS is delighted to warmly congratulate Alexandre Cantin, who brilliantly defended his PhD at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
His work represents a valuable contribution to the advancement of knowledge in archaeology and highlights the quality of research conducted in our laboratory. We wish him a bright future in his scientific and professional endeavors.

Cantin, A. (2019) — “Carving the Sandstone: Early Holocene (9th–8th millennium BCE). Attribution, Characterization, and Location of Mesolithic Rock Engravings in the Sandstone Chaos of Southern Île-de-France”, Paris 1. Supervised by Boris Valentin.

Alexandre Cantin’s thesis was conducted under the supervision of Boris Valentin and presented before a jury composed of:

• François BÉTARD, Professor at Sorbonne Université (examiner)
• Federica FONTANA, Professor at the University of Ferrara (reviewer)
• Colas GUÉRET, CNRS Researcher at UMR 8068 (examiner)
• Jacques JAUBERT, Professor at the University of Bordeaux (reviewer)
• Esther LÓPEZ-MONTALVO, CNRS Researcher at UMR 5608 (examiner)
• Frédéric SÉARA, Inspector of Heritage and Architecture at the French Ministry of Culture (examiner)
• Boris VALENTIN, Professor at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (supervisor)

The attribution of some of the rock engravings observed in the sandstone shelters of southern Île-de-France to Mesolithic hunter-gatherer societies was first proposed in the mid-20th century. This hypothesis is based on the repeated discovery of lithic industries from this period—including engraving tools—at the base of the engraved walls and within thick archaeological layers formed by the use of the largest shelters as habitats. However, the last excavations in these engraved shelters date back to the 1980s, and the types of motifs attributable to the Mesolithic remain a subject of debate.
This thesis aims to address this gap. It builds on a critical review of past archaeological research and on a new fieldwork operation we conducted at a key site for contextualizing the engravings in Larchant (Seine-et-Marne). For the first time, absolute dating was carried out on the layers containing engraving tools. This work refined previous chronological hypotheses, confirming that the rock art practice dates to the 8th millennium BCE, while pushing its origins back to the late 9th millennium BCE. Thus, a significant part of the Early Mesolithic is involved. In the seven engraved shelters where occupations from this period are clearly attested, our study identified the types of motifs engraved by the last hunter-gatherers. A coherent iconography emerges, based on the multiplication of parallel or orthogonal grooves, which may represent two distinct graphic phases. Furthermore, the spatial distribution study of this Mesolithic iconography across southern Île-de-France demonstrated that this was a regional-scale phenomenon, with rock art sites forming a dense network on the ground, as seen in the 5 km² micro-region where the site we re-excavated is located.
The paleoethnographic and paleohistorical implications of these rock art practices are discussed in the conclusion.