Des gravures réalisées sur une paroi rocheuse viennent d'être récemment authentifiées dans les Préalpes du Sud (Chastel-Arnaud, Drôme, France). Un premier relevé a permis de distinguer une série de poignards et d'autres motifs encore mal identifiés. Pour les poignards, les premières comparaisons renvoient aux productions de la culture Remedello, en Italie du Nord, dont les traces sont rarissimes dans les Alpes françaises. Un descriptif des gravures et une réflexion sur leurs implications dans le Néolithique final régional sont proposés. Par le biais de certaines productions d'armatures et de pointes en silex, les auteurs s 'interrogent et mettent en perspective de possibles filiations culturelles entre les Préalpes du Sud et l'Italie du Nord, dans lesquelles le cuivre pourrait jouer un rôle significatif.

Engraved figures on a limestone rock wall have recently been identified in the French Alpine foothills (Chastel-Arnaud, Drôme, France). A first plotting session allowed us to characterize a series of daggers associated with other signs as yet poorly identified. Concerning the daggers, first comparisons recall the Remedello culture, in North Italy, traces of which are exceptional in the French Alps. A description of the engravings and a reflection on their meaning in the local Late Neolithic are proposed. Through particular flint arrowheads, the authors wonder about the possible cultural relationship between the southern Alpine foothills and northern Italy, in which copper could have played a significant role. Some of the arrowheads found in the region of Die, the Buè'ch valley and the Baronnies, both in burial contexts and in open-air settlements, call for special attention. Those artefacts, in which the 'Sigottier» arrowhead is only one type among many, show us an original knowledge which is not found in the Rhône-Alpine and Provençal corpus. The fact that those artefacts are contemporaneous is not yet certain, however the assumption of a common origin maybe arising from the second Italian «copper» Age (2nd phase of the Remedello culture, 2900/2800 to 2500/2400 B.C.) seems to be an interesting direction for research. This transalpine influence in the local substratum could have led to original types of production such as the «Sigottier» point. A specificity of these productions may be the use of copper retouching tools. Through this debate, the authors ' wish has been to consider the engraved rocks of Les Auberts as part of a profound dynamism established in time, which is for us a better theory than the hypothesis of copper prospectors arriving from Italy. The existence of this engraved rock in the interconnecting valleys between the South Alps and the Rhône valley (Drôme-Chauranne, Roanne-Oule, Eygues-Blème, etc.) reinforced the influence of the Durance valley in the spread of copper metallurgy from the transalpine areas along the Montgenèvre and Madeleine routes. (revue)