Archéozoologie des niveaux moustériens et aurignaciens de la grotte Tournal à Bize (aude)

The Tournal cave, near Bize-Minervois (Aude, Southern France), yielded a very thick archaeological filling, subdivided into four units by A. Tavoso who excavated it. Each unit is composed of several levels with Middle and Upper Paleolithic material. Big mammals from the three lower units were submitted to the archaeozoological study presented in this paper. This allowed us, among other things, to work out that : Mousterian and Aurignacian layers are contemporaneous with isotopic stage 3 ; the cave was alternately occupied by cave Hyena, cave Bear and humans ; Neandertal men hunted the Horse during a long span of time ; Aurignacian men too have eaten Horse, but also, in similar proportions, Bovins and Reindeer, their hunting was apparently more diversified. The interstadium "Early Wurm-Late Wurm" could be dated between 38,000 and 34,000 years BP (if radiometric dates are confirmed) ; the transition from Equus caballus cf. germanicus to Equus caballus cf. gallicus might have happened around 33,000 years and the change from the Mousterian rich in denticulates to the Early Aurignacian between 35,000 and 34,000 years BP, during a temperate event (Les Cottès ?).