NEW APPROACH IN AN EMBLEMATIC SITE: THE PALEOLITHIC CAVE OF LA MOUTHE (DORDOGNE, FRANCE)
Our project for the cave of La Mouthe incorporates a current dynamic of rereading rock art sites, and developing new problems of analysis. The knowledge acquired since the 1990s on archaeological data, with the discovery of major sites for prehistoric art, as well as methodological, with advances in radiocarbon dating, microanalyses of materials and context, or 3D digitization, have profoundly renewed our perception of prehistoric art. In the face of these new data, the re-reading of previously studied sites brings many new data, and a valuable re-reading of the graphic contexts of Paleolithic art. Marsoulas, La Baume-Latrone, the Bernoux fully materialize this dynamic. Our approach therefore aims to place the cave of La Mouthe in the context of its chrono-cultural context. Updating the inventory of its representations through a prospecting operation on the walls and rock art surveys is necessary but insufficient in this overall archaeological approach. The review of the exhumed material, the control of the various interventions past in situ, and a better consideration of the karstological and geomorphological problems will allow in the coming years to put in place a decisive argument with a view to carry out possible new internal or external excavations.