Abri Castanet

About

The Castanet shelter is one of the rock shelters of the Castel Merle (or Castermerle) site on the territory of the municipality of Sergeac in Dordogne (France). It includes prehistoric engravings dating from the Aurignacian. This Paleolithic site is classified as historical monuments on October 18, 1912.

Searches and discoveries: The Castanet shelter, like its neighbour the Blanchard shelter, was searched by Marcel Castanet between 1911 and 1913, for the Eyzies museum. These two rock shelters are known to have provided among the first aurignacian parietal manifestations and a large amount of trimming elements (mammouth ivory pearls, pierced sea shells, pierced teeth...). The collapsed fragments of walls, adorned with engravings and paintings, were studied and published by Denis Peyrony (1935), Henri Breuil (1952), then by Brigitte and Gilles Delluc (1978). The history of the excavations was reconstructed thanks to the notes, drawings and cuts of Marcel Castanet. From 1995 to 1998, Randall White and Jacques Pelegrin resumed excavations at the Castanet shelter in the southern part of the slope. In 2012, engravings of animals and symbols were discovered on a rocky plate.