Identifying dwellings in Upper Palaeolithic open-air sites: the Magdalenian site at Monruz and its contribution to analysing palimpsests.

This contribution questions the heterogeneity of dwellings in Late Upper Palaeolithic open-air sites: does it correspond to an archaeological reality or is it a methodological artefact? If it is the former, it might be due either to distinctive behaviour of diff erent populations, or to factors such as the natural environment, season of occupation, duration of se lement, site function, group size or social context. If it is the la er, then the lack of recurrence of dwelling ground plans could be related to diff erent preservation of the sites, diff erent methodological approaches, research traditions or problems in untangling palimpsests. The diffi culty in reconstructing reliably hut- and tentfl oors is illustrated by confronting the occupation layer of the open-air site Monruz with various habitation plans that have been proposed for other Magdalenian sites. It has to be emphasized that the major diff erence between Monruz and most other contemporaneous sites is the extreme density and proximity of the hearths at Monruz, a consequence of the multiple reoccupations of the site. However, this dissimilarity may only be an apparent one, due to the exceptional preservation of the charcoal that has allowed identifying hearths that would have stayed undetected otherwise. Prior to the delimitation of habitations it is therefore crucial to clarify the site formation process and to precisely locate all hearths.