Burins du Chasséen méridional

The lithic industries of the end of the fifth and beginning of the fourth millennium B.C. in south of France and Catalogne (Chasseen, Montbolo, Molinot, Sepulcros de Fosa cultures) rely for the most part on the importation of blades, and bladelet cores knapped by pressure after thermal treatment, on bedoulien flint from Vaucluse. The study of the distribution and function of a burin sample of these lithic industries highlights several facts concerning these tools: • most of them are used by the lateral edges to scrape plants, however there exists a certain functional variation; • the transformation of supports into burins frequently corresponds to the recycling of a previously used tool; the burin blow technique derives from the lithic style of tool handling; • burins are used concurrently with other "equivalent-burins" derived from other techniques used for the same function; • these techniques (burin shaping, plants scraping,) are not shared by all the users of the lithic industries imported from western Provence. This demonstrates selective choices in the cultural borrowings and transfers between the groups linked by their usage of the same lithic production centres.