Researchers have discovered what may be the world’s oldest three-dimensional map, located within a quartzitic sandstone megaclast in the Paris Basin.
The Ségognole 3 rock shelter, known since the 1980s for its artistic engravings of two horses in a Late Palaeolithic style on either side of a female pubic figuration, has now been revealed to contain a miniature representation of the surrounding landscape.
Dr Anthony Milnes from the University of Adelaide’s School of Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences, participated in the research led by Dr Médard Thiry from the Mines Paris – PSL Centre of Geosciences.
Dr Thiry’s earlier research, following his first visit to the site in 2017, established that Palaeolithic people had “worked” the sandstone in a way that mirrored the female form, and opened fractures for infiltrating water into the sandstone that nourished an outflow at the base of the pelvic triangle.
New research suggests that part of the floor of the sandstone shelter which was shaped and adapted by Palaeolithic people around 13,000 years ago was modelled to reflect the region’s natural water flows and geomorphological features.
“What we’ve described is not a map as we understand it today — with distances, directions, and travel times — but rather a three-dimensional miniature depicting the functioning of a landscape, with runoff from highlands into streams and rivers, the convergence of valleys, and the downstream formation of lakes and swamps,” Dr Milnes explains.
Mapping of the cave floor with École River valley. Credit: Dr Médard Thiry
“For Palaeolithic peoples, the direction of water flows and the recognition of landscape features were likely more important than modern concepts like distance and time.
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