Beware - rhinos on the Riviera (and elephants)

Last week, I was invited to the inauguration of a new exhibition at the Castellar Cultural Centre. Castellar is only a small village, but is home to one of the most important archaeological sites on the Riviera, the Pendimoun Abri, which was discovered in 1953. Louis Barral, who was the Keeper of the Prehistoric Anthropology Museum in Monaco, ran a series of digs at the site and uncovered the Castellar Man. The man, who lived around 6000 BC, was handicapped which means that his family, friends or tribe must have taken care of him. A type of prehistoric social security.


 

The original skeleton of Castellar Man is in the Museum in Monaco, but Castellar does have a copy in the Cultural Centre, which also houses a collection of pierced shells used as jewellery, agricultural implements and bones from domestic animals, all found at Pendimoun.

The new exhibition is a collaboration between archaeologists from France and Italy, and concentrates on sites in the trans-frontier region. One of the organisers is an archaeologist who lives in Castellar, and goes by the wonderful alliterative name of Almudena Arellano Alonso. Almudena loves her job, and listening to her as she describes the new exhibition in heavily Spanish accented French, you cannot help but be infected by her enthusiasm. After the talk and a visit to the museum, we sat down together and I asked her how she ended up on the Riviera.

Almudena grew up in the centre of Madrid. Her father, a sales director for a large American concern, was passionate about history, particularly the Middle Ages. He built up an extensive library of books, and the family spent many holidays travelling Europe visiting, chateaux, forts, churches and museums. So from a very young age, Almudena was immersed in history and grew to share her father’s passion. When I asked her how come she became an expert in prehistory, she laughed and told me that history has too many dates!!

She studied prehistoric archaeology at the Autonomous University of Madrid, specialising in prehistoric fauna. Towards the end of her five-year course, she answered a call for students to work at the Grotte de Vallonet in Roquebrune Cap Martin, where the remains of a wide variety of animals have been found, including rhinoceros, the ancestors of the mammoths and sabre toothed tigers. She was invited by the professor in charge of the dig to study for her doctorate at Perpignan, where she chose fauna from the Grottes de Grimaldi at Balzi Rossi on the Franco-Italian frontier as her thesis subject. The Grimaldi caves have yielded up the remains of an even wider variety of fauna, including the bones of elephants, hippos, hyenas, lynx, bison, bears, panthers and, of course, homo erectus. She told me that the team are in the process of reconstructing an elephant from bones found at the site.

Out of curiosity, I asked her what happened to the sabre tooth tigers. Unfortunately for them, they were a victim of their own teeth - the tigers had difficulty turning their heads because of their teeth, so when lions appeared in the region all the lions had to do was jump on the necks, and bit by bit (so to speak) that was the end of them!

Although she has travelled all over Europe, Almudena is now based in Menton, working at the Prehistoric Museum. It seems unlikely that she will leave us, as she is now married to a man from our village.


For further information on the prehistory of the Riviera:

www.menton.com www.prehistoirepaca.com http://lazaret.unice.com 

Hilary Spronken, September 2010