Flint end scrapers. Aurignacian period, 33,000–23,000 years ago. Abri de la Souquette, Dordogne, France. European Archaeology, Snow Collection. UMMAA 9299.

These Upper Paleolithic stone tools come from the site of Abri de la Souquette in the Dordogne region of southwestern France. One of many deeply stratified cave sites in the region, Souquette was largely destroyed in the early 20th century by looters and antiquarians interested in recovering prehistoric artifacts. Large quantities of Aurignacian (38,000–23,000 years ago) and Magdalenian (17,000–10,000 years ago) stone and bone objects have been recovered from the heaps of earth left by early looters. Excavations in the 1960s were able to find some intact deposits from the earliest, Aurignacian levels, which yielded radiocarbon dates from about 33,000–32,000 years ago.

Ms. Clara Snow of Dearborn donated these flint end scrapers to the Museum in the 1940s. She had acquired them from the estate of archaeologist Edna Thuner Woodbury (1890–1935). Dr. Woodbury, a Detroit native and University of Michigan undergraduate (MA 1912), earned her PhD from the University of Vienna in 1929, where she specialized in European archaeology. The Snow collection consists of several hundred Paleolithic stone artifacts and casts that Dr. Woodbury acquired during her research.

Back to Day 153 or continue to Day 155.

In honor of the University of Michigan’s 2017 bicentennial, we are celebrating the remarkable archaeological and ethnographic collections and rich legacy of research and teaching at the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology by posting one entry a day for 200 days. The entries will highlight objects from the collections, museum personalities, and UMMAA expeditions. The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology is also posting each day for 200 days on Twitter and Facebook (follow along at #KMA200). After the last post, an exhibition on two centuries of archaeology at U-M opens at the Kelsey. Visit the exhibit—a joint project of the UMMAA and the Kelsey—from October 18, 2017 to May 27, 2018.