Welcome to the Combe-Capelle Bas Home Page

Combe-Capelle Bas is a Middle Paleolithic site situated in the Couze valley in the Perigord region of Southern France.  The most significant excavations were those conducted by Henri-Marc Ami from the late twenties until his death in 1931. The task of reporting on his work then fell to his friend and colleague, Denis Peyrony, and a portion of the collections were later studied by Maurice Bourgon (the results of which were published posthumously by François Bordes). Unfortunately, the deaths of both Ami and Bourgon prior to the publication of their studies meant that a tremendous amount of information went unreported. Nonetheless, Combe-Capelle Bas quickly acquired the status of a key site and its industries were central to the formulation of Middle Paleolithic systematics by the Abbé Breuil, Peyrony, Bordes, and others during the middle part of this century.

This page provides a brief overview and presentation of the results of an excavation at Combe-Capelle Bas that took place between 1987 through 1990.

Comments or questions? E-mail mcpherron@uncg.edu or hdibble@sas.upenn.edu