Abri Olha

About

The Olha Shelter is a rock shelter with prehistoric occupation located in the commune of Cambo-les-Bains, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, France. The excavations revealed levels of Moustarian (Medium Paleolithic). The Olha shelter serves as a reference for defining a late Moustarian, says Vasconian. The site is divided into two sectors: Olha I and Olha II.

Situation: The Olha shelter, now collapsed, is located on one of the old alluvial terraces of the Nive, near Cambo-les-Bains, in the ravine of Urdaueio (a tributary of the Nive), in the French Basque Country. It is one of the regional reference sites for the Middle and Upper Paleolithic in the West of the Pyrenees.

History: The Olha shelter was discovered by Emmanuel Passemard in 1917. In 1947, Georges Laplace made excavations in the extension of the shelter, in a locus which he named Olha II, another collapsed sub-rock shelter, adjacent to Olha I. From the excavations of the Mousterian layer, François Bordes proposed in 1953 to define the Vasconian facies as follows: " We forge this new term for a very special character of the Moustérien, the one that meets in Basque Country sheltered from Olha (layer...