SESSION 3 – Stone tool production and processing techniques
Late Middle Paleolithic industries of Grotte de la Verpillière II (Saône-et-Loire, France)

Recent, detailed studies of Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic sites are quite rare in southern Burgundy. Here, we present insights gained from on-going analyses of Late Middle Paleolithic lithic assemblages from the Grotte de la Verpillière II, near Chalon-sur-Saône in southern Burgundy. The site contains three geological horizons (GHs) that have yielded intact material attributed to the Middle Paleolithic (GH 3, 4x and 4). Middle Paleolithic accumulations were deposited on top of a layer of rockfall from the interior of the shelter roof. Slightly after the MP occupation, a significant collapse destroyed large parts of the rock shelter, leaving the site as it appears today: as a collapsed rock shelter with a cave-like karst tunnel. From lithic variation, specific spatial distribution, refitting trials and the geological setting, it seems probably that only 25% of the site is and was under excavation (campaigns 2006-2015). We present here the preliminary conclusions of analyses of the lithic assemblages from the site.