Du matriel au spirituel.

Ralits archologiques et historiques des dpts de la Prhistoire nos jours

XXIXe rencontres internationales darchologie et dhistoire dAntibes
Sous la direction de S. Bonnardin, C. Hamon, M. Lauwers et B. Quilliec
ditions APDCA, Antibes, 2009

NPO: complter les numros de pages en biblio

The range of caching behavior among

the past hunter-gatherers of Europe
Marco Peresani

Abstract
Caches are an important component of archaeological record, providing useful information about mobility and logistic organisation, but also cultural and even spiritual practises of the hunter-gatherers of the past. These extremely rare structures usually contain
selected and unexploited flint cobbles collected either elsewhere or nearby the cache
itself. As far as the information available is concerned it reveals that flint caches were
already present in Europe in the Middle Palaeolithic and that their number increased
during the late-glacial and post-glacial, a time in which global climatic improvement
ultimately caused significant changes in human behaviour and in economic strategies.
Colonisation of virgin territories, broadening of the range of prey species, modifications
in hunting practices, may be related to mobility, planning and organisational skills and
caching may therefore be one of the consequences of this increased mobility and therefore deserves a closer look when studying the human societies of the past.
Rsum
Les rserves sont une composante importante des contextes archologiques et peuvent
fournir dutiles informations sur la mobilit, lorganisation logistique et les activits des
chasseurs-cueilleurs du pass, mme sur le plan spirituel. Trs rarement observes, ces
structures contiennent en gnral des silex slectionns et non taills, prlevs autant
dans des lieux lointains qu proximit des rserves. Il ressort des donnes disponibles
que les rserves de silex taient dj utilises en Europe au Palolithique moyen, mais
que leur frquence augmente durant la priode tardi- et post-glaciaire, au moment o
ladoucissement global du climat permet des changements radicaux dans les stratgies
conomiques. La colonisation de territoires vierges, llargissement de lventail des
animaux chasss, la modification des pratiques de chasse, peuvent tre lis la mobilit
et la capacit de programmer et dorganiser. Cest pourquoi le stockage peut reprsenter une des pratiques lies au dveloppement de la mobilit et, pour cette raison,
rclamer davantage dattention dans ltude des socits humaines du pass.

* Universit di Ferrara, Dipartimento di Biologia ed Evoluzione, Sezione di Paleobiologia, Preistoria

e Antropologia, Corso Ercole I dEste 32, I-44100 Ferrara. <marco.peresani@unife.it>

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Marco Peresani

Resources in the landscapes of Western Eurasia during the Pleistocene and

early Holocene were patchy, forcing prehistoric people to move over large
areas to access food and raw materials for tools. One way of solving the obvious
problems caused by significant distances between the lithic sources and subsistence needs was through caching, a curational behaviour considered as a mean
of lessening inequalities among raw material availability, time stress and location of specific resources.
The first use of this term by L. Binford (1979) for the interpreting of
Palaeolithic record, caches are typically regarded as an accumulation of goods
placed in storage or hiding for future recovery and utilization. Being excluded
some ambiguous applications of this definition to the archaeological record,
authors consider that caches can include food reserves, raw materials, partially
reduced preforms, finished tools or containers. For example, the long-term
storage of specialized tool-kits or generalized tool chests constitutes a part of
the site contents fundamentally different from the logistical reserves of raw or
partially reduced resources (Lintz, Dockall, 2002).
Accumulation of goods may also legitimately reflect ritual behaviour in burials or at places used for ceremonies like caves or specific landmarks (i.e. Chiotti
et al., this volume). However, mortuary objects and burial articles are not herein
regarded as caches, since their contexts clearly indicate that the objects were
removed from other places, were hoarded and not stored for future retrieval
and use. Caching, in fact, has been identified as a key strategy among logistically oriented (or collector-oriented) hunter-gatherer groups aiming to reduce
time stress in critical situations. From this perspective, caches have also been
interpreted as evidence of anticipatory behaviour, indicating a certain degree
of depth in tactical planning and operating within the strategic framework of
the settlement/subsistence system (Binford, 1979).
Among nomadic hunter-gatherers, caching decisions within their primary
and peripheral use-area depend on several economically-based factors (Close,
1996; Testart, 1982): degree of mobility/rate of site abandonment; anticipated
return to the vicinity; distance from the next campsite; anticipated activities
to be performed at the next camp; resource bulk of artefact size and weight;
time and labour investment involved with material replacement costs; remnant
use-life of the implements. Furthermore, if inter-group exchange occurs, then
the preparation and movement of goods beyond the primary territory may
reflect investment decisions involving long-distance transport costs. Therefore,
the final composition of these caches is the outcome of a number of decisions made in determining what was to be left in the cache. Through his ethnographic work with the Nunamiut hunter and gatherer groups in the 70s,
Lewis Binford (1979) observed caches consisting of passive and insurance gear.
Employed seasonally and hidden for the rest of the year, passive gear is used on
specific resources that are temporally and spatially predictable. Caches of this
type are more likely to occur at residential or repeatedly used camping localities. Caching passive gear insures that tools are available for processing par-

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The range of caching behavior among the past hunter-gatherers of Europe

Lithic
source#1

Lithic
source#1

Mean distance
drop off line
between lithic
sources

Lithic
source
Max distance
drop off line

Lithic
source#2
A

Residential
site

Fig.1. Hypothetical effect of the distribution of resource and mobility patterns on cache location
(after Hurst, 2006).

ticular resources in the future. In contrast, insurance gear is made for a variety
of anticipated and unknown needs. Caches composed of insurance gear serve
to limit the risk of unknown future procurement difficulties. Insurance gear
caches are left as furniture at site locations, well-known landscape markers, or
deliberately built facilities. Differences between passive and insurance gear are
measured in terms of diversity, versatility and flexibility.
Thus, a crucial series of decisions occurs after transporting, for instance,
procured chipped stone material to distant potential cache areas. One motive
for placing a cache in a certain area is the limited and scattered distribution
of lithic resources. To optimise travel costs between resource locations, a dropoff point is established close to the half way point between the lithic sources
(fig.1). This occurs if a groups mobility pattern intersects multiple chipped
stone resource areas (A). However, drop-off points between raw material
resource areas are unlikely if a prehistoric groups territory crosses only one
source. In this case, the caching of higher utility items occurs with increasing
distance from the resource area (B). Another scenario is a sedentary group
residing in a stone-poor area that sends logistic groups to a quarry location to
procure chipped-stone (C). In this situation caches discovered at more permanent residential camps may correspond to stock-piles of raw material of logistical groups that were procured resources far from the residential site. Transport
constraints from the quarry location to the residential site thus still play a part
in the composition of residential site caches (Hurst, 2006).
Recovering a cache is another factor to consider when selecting a suitable
location. Changes in topography or identifiable landforms are usable as markers for cache locations. The fact that archaeologists discover caches indicates
that some were not recovered, and this may reflect a failure of prominent landmarks for relocating caches, among other reasons. A different explication may
be to consider that these structures were deliberately left/abandoned because
of a given ceremony or cultural practice. Being excluded the most striking cases

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Marco Peresani

where the recovered items for instance the Palaeolithic Venus or the Mesolithic
engraved pebbles clearly appear as examples of a non-economic artefacts, lost
caches with customary cobbles or tools destined to subsistence may suggest
localities (and territories) changed their meaning within the late-glacial and/
or into the Holocene. Advanced studies, such as the one carried out by Angevin
and Langlais (this volume) may however reverse former interpretations.

Caching in palaeolithic Europe

Evidence of caching unexploited flint or other raw materials in the
Paleolithic and the Mesolithic of Europe is very rare, if not exceptional.
Leaving aside the raw blocks, pebbles and nodules of flint or other exploitable stones scattered on the ground and integrated in lithic worksites of several
Early and Middle Paleolithic sites, the very little evidence worth mentioning
refers to Soucy 1, settled on a fluvial bank of the Yonne River and attributed to
one of the Interglacial periods of the Middle Pleistocene (Lhomme et al., 1998)
and to Grotte Vaufrey, a large cave in Dordogne occupied during the Middle
Palaeolithic (Rigaud, 1988; Geneste, 1985).
The Early Upper Palaeolithic records the first appearance of variability in
cached items among the Aurignacians, consisting of molluscan shells that have
not been perforated, found concentrated at the Fumane Cave in Northern
Italy (Broglio et al., 2005) and at Wiesbaden-Igstadt, Germany (Terberger,
1998). Some millennia after, the sole evidence of passive gear is provided by
the 15Solutrean leaf-points discovered at the end of the xixth century at Volgu
(Aubry et al., this volume).

Caching in Late-glacial and post-glacial times

Caching behaviour increases at the end of the Upper Paleolithic, even if
it may be interpreted as a result of population growth and of archaeological
record visibility (fig.2).
Five Magdalenian large pre-forms made of local and exogenous flint for long
blades were found stacked at the base of the Montgaudier cave wall (Charente)
(Bouvier, Duport, 1968). Again in France, La Goulaine, H. Breuil reports
the discovery of more than 400 artefacts cached under a large slab, re-examined and framed in the wide socio-economic context of Middle Magdalenian
by Angevin and Langlais (this volume). Other pre-forms made of local flint
slabs collected 5 km from the site were found at Sesselfelsgrotte in Southern
Germany (Naber, 1981) and in central Rhineland at the Federmesser site of
Niederbieber, two large chalcedony flakes were cached after being taken from
sources 40km away (Baales, 2006). Again, unprocessed flints were discovered
in the 20s and 40s inside holes or other man-made structures at the Swiderian
sites Swidry Wielke I, Grzybowa Gora and Swidry Mate in Central-Southern
Poland (Krukowski, 1939; 1976; Sawicki Ludwik, 1963). At Swidry Wielke I a pit

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The range of caching behavior among the past hunter-gatherers of Europe

11
10

6
7
4

2
3

89

Fig.2. Position of the Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic flint caches mentioned in the
text: 1.Vale of Pickering, 2. Montgaudier, 3. La Goulaine, 4. Volgu, 5. Ruffey-sur-Seille,
6.Niederbieber, 7.Sesselfelsgrotte, 8.Val Lastari, 9. Palughetto, 10. Grzybowa Gora, 11. Swidry
Wielke I and Swidry Mate.

was filled with scores of artefacts, among which there were partially corticated
nodules, thick flakes and pre-cores made of chocolate coloured flint collected
some 150 km away. The cache from Swidry Mate contained one crested preform, a handful of incompletely exploited blade cores and several thick blades.
At Grzybowa Gora four caches compute pre-forms and cores used to produce
blades.
Un-worked, tested or pre-formed flint cobbles compose the caches discovered at Val Lastari and Palughetto, two Epigravettian sites in the Italian Alps.
The Val Lastari cache contains a main group of 57 blocks neatly stacked together
and others isolated in the surroundings refit with the main heap (Broglio et al.,
1992; Peresani, 2006; Peresani et al., at press). Many of them went through a
suitability test before being cached, a few were pre-formed or initially exploited
for bladelet making via removing just one natural ridge. Being the site functionally used for producing, consuming and exporting blades and bladelets,

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Marco Peresani

10 cm

Fig.3. The Palughetto cache

(after Bertola et al., 1997).

the cache suggests that a temporary accumulation of selected cobbles was for
immediate exploitation. The Palughetto cache (fig.3) was discovered isolated
in a peat-bog containing six blocks (Bertola et al., 1997; Peresani, 2006) collected 25 km away from the plateau and almost all tested before caching. This
cache suggests long-term anticipation
for further
01-PERASANI
03seasonal occupations.
A handful of sites suggest caching was one of the ways Mesolithic people
organized lithic provisioning in a given territory. Flint nodules were found
cached at the Vale of Pickering (Yorkshire), the site of an ancient lake repeatedly visited by hunter-gatherer groups. The three caches are attributed to the
Early Mesolithic and consist of respectively 12, 9 and 5 nodules collected from
the till and left untouched, tested or partially worked and stacked (Conneller
and Schadla-Hall , 2003). At the early Mesolithic site of Ruffey-sur-Seille the custom of making quality controls before to transport exploitable flint is proved
by a cache containing 22 blocks collected 20km away from the site (Sara etal.,
2002). Blocks and slabs stacked together suggest the existence of the use of a bag
for transporting them, which has been proved by the discovery of a birch bark
container filled with 29 prepared flint blocks at the Russian site of Nizhneye
Veretye I (cited by Sara et al., 2002). Finally in Poland, again at Grzybowa
Gora, five caches with pre-forms and cores have been attributed to the Early
and Late Mesolithic (Schild et al., 1975; Krlik, personal communication).
European Late-Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic caches in most cases thus
provide evidence of insurance gear in the frame of repeated visits to the campsite, the number of which at almost all cases still remains undetermined.

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The range of caching behavior among the past hunter-gatherers of Europe

Conclusions and implications

The more or less customary stocking of tools or raw materials in case of
future needs may have had relevant implications on the way humans moved
within a given territory. It certainly implies that they expected to return to the
cache location as a result of a relatively regular pattern of habitual movement
from place to place. The complexity of the concept of mobility among huntergatherers has often forced archaeologists to oversimplify the significance of the
behavioural indexes. High mobility is seen as a factor affecting lithic economy
due to the raw material transport cost (Kelly, 1992). As regards to provisioning,
Kuhn (1994) states that in the case of high residential mobility, provisioning
of individuals becomes more common, while when the sites are occupied for
longer periods or repeatedly used, a provisioning of places strategy seems to be
the most suitable. At the same time, he admits that the relation between mobility and provisioning is not exclusively mutual. Other aspects may influence the
degree with which each one of these strategies predominates, as for example
territory size, tool durability, raw material distribution and time spent in producing and repairing implements.
Comparing caching behaviour among the European Late-Glacial huntergatherers with that of the Northern Americans, we find archaeological evidence is still largely unrepresented for such a complex activity considered as an
expression of small and mobile units (task groups) crossing territories with
their ecothones, landmarks and inequalities in the raw material available. The
social and geographical implications on cultural and economic entities stable
for hundreds of generations requires a more integrated approach to explore
the way these populations organized their biological success.
Acknowledgments
The author is indebted to the organizers for the invitation to attend the
meeting and to many colleagues for the information provided and the stimulating discussion about the argument treated in my communication. The English
text has been revised by Anita Gubbiotti, the french abstract has been translated from italian by Laurence Mercuri.
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