Fouille de la butte de FA 10 (Banc d'Arguin) et son apport à la connaissance de la culture épipaléolithique de Foum Arguin, nord-ouest du Sahara

The epipaleolithic culture of Foum Arguin stretched from the Oued Draa, in southern Morocco, to the Banc d’Arguin and from the Atlantic shore to the lowlands of northwestern Sahara in Mauritania. Its chronology is vague, located between the eighth and the seventh millenniums BP. It preceded a little the Neolithic, which followed it after 5500 BP on almost all the numerous habitats of this region.Thanks to several sites of the Banc d’Arguin, less plundered than most others, we have been able to define the lithic industry of this culture and to compare it with similar groups, notably those located in southern Morocco. This industry, very varied, is unique and very distinct from other known traditions of that time — for instance the Iberomaurusian and the Caspian. Thus the place of the populations of Foum Arguin in the Saharian cultures of the early Holocene is an essential topic. In particular it is necessary to investigate the possible similarities with central and eastern Sahara, where epipaleolithic or preneolithic cultures are known — yet badly understood and dated as shown by the confusion surrounding the notion of “Ounan point”.