Depuis les années 1980-90, les études de l’art préhistorique ont développé les analyses techniques afin de rechercher les choix individuels, aborder le contexte techno-économique des groupes paléolithiques, et proposer un modèle social et culturel. Les recherches menées sur l’art mobilier ont apporté des résultats tels que l’identification des outils, ou plus généralement les processus mis en œuvre pour la réalisation des œuvres. L’ensemble de ces renseignements a permis de comprendre la succession des gestes des graveurs et ainsi apercevoir l’Homme derrière la technique.Dans la suite de ces travaux, une étude des processus techniques des supports de l’art mobilier en matières osseuses depuis leur acquisition sur l’animal jusqu’à la réalisation de la gravure, semblait nécessaire pour compléter les informations du système technique, et documenter la complémentarité support/décor. L’objectif est de retracer dans un premier temps les différentes actions sur la matière première conduisant à l’obtention d’un objet orné. Puis, dans un second temps d’analyser la place du décor dans la chaîne opératoire de l’objet, afin d’identifier des possibles variations dans les choix techniques de cette production. La méthodologie choisie fait référence, à la fois aux travaux développés depuis les années 1970 en industrie osseuse, et à ceux en art mobilier. Une approche expérimentale a permis la création et l’observation d’un corpus de stigmates, amenant à l’étude d’un ensemble choisi d’objets archéologiques. L’analyse détaillée à la fois des éléments de transformation du support et de la description du décor, a permis de proposer la chaîne opératoire de chacun d’entre eux, de la phase d’acquisition de la matière à celle de son utilisation. Le corpus archéologique a été constitué de pièces des gisements magdaléniens de la vallée de l’Aveyron, Lafaye, Plantade, Montastruc et Courbet, conservées au Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Montauban et au British Museum. / Since the 80s and 90s, the studies of prehistoric art are mostly directed towards technical analyses allowing us to look for individual choices, to approach the techno-economic context of the palaeolithic groups, and to propose social and cultural models. Researches carried out on osseous mobiliary art have led to identify the tools and, more generally, the processes used for the manufacture of these objects. This set of information brought about a better comprehension of the engravers’ hand gestures, allowing to perceive the Man behind the technique.Following these works, a study of the technical processing of portable art on osseous materials from the acquisition of the raw material to the realization of engravings appeared necessary to complete our knowledge of the technical system, and get information about the complementary relationship between blank and decoration. The first objective was to understand the various actions performed on the raw material to obtain the final decorated piece. The second aim was to analyze when the decoration takes place during the “chaîne opératoire” and to identify possible variations in the technical choices during the whole process. The chosen methodology makes reference at the same time to the research developed since the 1970s in osseous industry, and to studies specifically dedicated to mobiliary art. An experimental approach was used to observe a large variety of traces and to create a reference corpus, that was useful afterwards to select a set of archaeological objects to be studied. The simultaneous analysis of the transformation of the raw material and the description of the decoration led us to propose a full “chaîne opératoire” for each of them, from the acquisition of the raw material to the use of the final artefact. The archaeological corpus was constituted by pieces from the Magdalenian sites of Lafaye, Plantade, Montastruc and Courbet in the Aveyron valley, cared in the Natural History Museum of Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne, France) and in the British Museum (London, England).

The diet of the Stone Age cultures is a strong indicator to the social group, thus farmers and hunters can be distinguished through their diet. There is well-preserved and well excavated Polish skeletal material available for such a study but the material has not previously been subject to stable isotopes analyses and therefore the questions of diets has not been answered. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of the cultures in the Kichary Nowe 2 area in the Lesser Poland district in southern Poland. Through analysis of the stable isotopes of Carbon, Nitrogen and Sulphur in the collagen of teeth and skeletal bones from the humans in the Kichary Nowe 2 grave-field and from bones from the fauna, coeval and from the same area, the study will establish whether there were any sharp changes of diets. The material from the grave-field comes from cultures with an established agricultural economy, where their cultural belonging has been anticipated from the burial context. The results from my study of stable isotopes from the bone material will be grouped by various parameters, culture, attribution to sex and age. The groups will then be compared to each other to investigate patterns within and between the groups.