Mémoire LVI de la Société préhistorique française Romain PIGEAUD L’Ouest : carrefour ou périphérie ? Observations sur l’art pariétal et mobilier du Paléolithique supérieur ancien des « grottes de Saulges » Résumé Les études d’art paléolithique s’efforcent de renouveler l’approche sty- listique rendue caduque par les datations spectaculaires des dessins de la grotte Chauvet. Nous proposons des pistes de recherche vers la prise en compte de caractères discrets et de comportements répétitifs. Mots clés Style, Mayenne-Sciences, Margot, Pech-Merle, Arcy-sur-Cure, compor- tement, circulation des styles. Abstract Current research on Palaeolithic art tries to reconsider the stylistic ap- proaches which have become obsolete after the spectacular dating of the drawings in the Chauvet cave (Ardèche). Here we suggest some avenues of research that tend to take in account discrete characteristics and repetitive behaviours. Several of us apply ourselves to find discrete characteristics, “graphical conventions that could be considered with caution as chronological mile- stones or references” (Lorblanchet, 2007, p. 194), to initiate a “register” of formal or technical solutions (Pigeaud, 1999a, 1999b, 2000 and 2002) or a “formal vocabulary” (Fritz and Tosello, 2007, p. 406). These charac- teristics can be: - a theme, such as the bison sticking out its tongue in the Magdalenian art of the Pyrenees (Tosello et al., 2007); - the specific position of an anatomical feature, such as the insertion of the tusk in the forehead of the mammoths of the Grande Grotte of Arcy-sur- Cure, Yonne, found also, for example, on those of the Laraux shelter, Vienne (Baffier and Girard, 1998); - a particular way of stylizing an anatomical element; we particularly connected the “comma”-shaped nose of horses in Mayenne-Sciences to those of horses in Pair-non-Pair, Gironde, and in the Chauvet cave, Ardèche (Delluc and Delluc, 1991; Clottes et al., 1995 ; Pigeaud, 2004, fig. 1); we may note also the “fan”-shaped ears of the rhino in Chauvet, that we can connect to those of a rhino in the Aldène cave, Hérault (Sacchi, 2001, 2007); - the “graphical frame” (Plassard, 1999, p. 38), that is to say, the “basic structure” (Plassard, 1999, p. 38) of the figure’s layout – showing for