La vaisselle de pierre du secteur 3 : aspects techniques et typologiques. In : Guilaine, J., Briois, F. & Vigne, J.-D. dir. Shillourokambos. Un établissement néolithique pré-céramique à Chypre. Les fouilles du secteur 3. Paris, CNRS éditions, p. 397-433, 2021
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The northern coast of the Médoc between Soulac-sur-Mer and Montalivet-les-Bains has a rich archaeological heritage that is being directly impacted by coastal erosion. A series of clay-peat palaeosols that formed in ancient estuarine marshes holds evidence of intensive occupation from the Mesolithic until the end of the Roman period. Within this framework, our research focused on the two key sites of La Lède du Gurp (Grayan-et-l’Hôpital) and L’Amélie (Soulac-sur-Mer), where an interdisciplinary approach based on comparison of archaeological, sedimentary and palaeo-environmental data has made it possible to situate the main phases of occupation in their environmental context. This work has benefited from field documentation that is exceptionally well-preserved in wet sediments sealed beneath the present-day dune system. The most fleeting traces (animal tracks) like the sturdiest anthropic structures are preserved, as are many organic remains. These items provide access to first-rate documentation for reconstructing the range of activities practised in a specific ecosystem: salt production, livestock grazing, shellfish collecting, passage and carriage, and funerary and symbolic practices. Study of occupation over the long term reveals an alternating pattern of dynamic phases and decline phases that seem to be correlated with changes in the local environment.
Les premières communautés agropastorales s’implantent en France dans le courant du 6e millénaire avant notre ère. On distingue traditionnellement la sphère méditerranéenne de la céramique imprimée de celle de la sphère continentale rubanée, qui se développent selon des temporalités et dans des espaces géographiques distincts. Loin d’être homogènes, les composantes culturelles, économiques et symboliques de ces communautés témoignent de trajectoires historiques très différentes. Nous proposons dans cet article une approche intégrée des mécanismes de la néolithisation de la France qui constitue l’une des rares entités territoriales européennes où il est possible -et donc indispensable- d’interroger les parallèles et interactions éventuelles entre ces deux sphères de néolithisation. Des mécanismes communs peuvent être identifiés. À une première phase pionnière méditerranéenne (impressa) et continentale (rubanée) aurait succédé une phase de consolidation et de pérennisation des fronts de colonisation, puis une phase de régionalisation marquée, concomitante d’une densification du tissu de sites et d’une diversification des territoires d’implantation. L’ensemble de ces processus se serait appuyé sur une triple mécanique : une forte mobilité des populations assurant un rôle de régulation sociale interne, un maillage de solidarité structuré par de multiples interactions intra-régionales au sein de chacune des sphères de néolithisation, et, enfin, des phénomènes de syncrétismes et de recompositions culturelles faisant intervenir des relations à proches comme très longues distances.
Abstract
The neolithisation of France in its broader European context has mainly been approached through the characterization of its diffusion vectors (cultural diffusion vs demic diffusion) and the conditions of emergence of techno-economic innovations (rythms, scenarios, transmission). The most common vision inherited from the 1980s of a European Neolithic developing from east to west following a regular rhythm, has progressively been replaced by a more complex model of diffusion characterized by arrhythmia and cultural reconfigurations.
The first farmers settled in France during the 6th millennium before our era. Far from being homogeneous, the cultural, economic and symbolic components of first farmer communities indicate very different historical trajectories. Two primary routes of agriculture diffusion are traditionally distinguished: along the Danube river corridor to the Atlantic coast, and along the Mediterranean littoral. To go beyond this dichotomy, this paper proposes a first attempt of integrated approach of the mechanisms of Neolithisation in France, one of the few European territories where it is possible, and so necessary, to investigate the common processes as well as possible interactions between these two main neolithization complexes.
The French Mediterranean shoreline is colonized by agro-pastoral populations (Impressa) at an early stage around 5800-5600 cal. BC. These pioneers groups correspond to small family units whose economy is based on specialized caprine breeding and cereal culture (mainly emmer wheat and Einkorn). Links with the Italian sphere are confirmed by the analysis of the ceramic and lithic systems, but also by the presence of obsidian from Palmarolla and Sardinia. For now, the impact of these groups seems to be confined to the coastline. From 5400/5300 cal. BC, the Cardial complex develops and becomes the vector of Neolithisation in a wider geographic area. New ecosystems are taken over, alongside a diversification of food acquisition systems, which include domestic meat resources (mainly sheep and goats), but also wild animals (wild boar, red deer…) and the cultivation of naked wheat and barley. The diverse settled environments (plains, coastal zones but also plateaus and mountains) and types of sites (open-air sites, caves, rock shelters) point to a reorganization of the socio-economic systems. Far from the reproduction of a single pattern, these communities seem to have pragmatically optimized the location and the structuration of the settlement itself according to the available resources. Important phenomenon’s of regionalization start to occur around 5200 cal. BC, as underlined by the diversity of the ceramic productions. This reflects new relationships with space and environment, phenomena of cultural syncretism and the end of the Neolithisation process.
The first continental Linearbandkeramik settlers reach the Rhine valley in the eastern part of France around 5300/5200 cal. BC. This first step announces the beginning of a territorial spreading of the Lbk populations up to the Channel coasts and the center of France until 4900 BC. Adapting a model of village organization known throughout continental Europe, the first Lbk hamlets are composed of long tripartite wooden and daub houses installed in cleared areas adapted to agriculture and pasture of cattle and caprines. These hamlets are occupied from one generation up to 200 years, and organized in a dense territorial pattern along alluvial valleys and plateaus. The size of the houses is related to the number of their inhabitants, but also their economic maturity and elderness in the village. The end of the LBk in Western Europe is characterized by a rapid shift of the cultural traditions, such as the disappearance of necropolises in favour of burial within the domestic space. The raw material sourcing and technical tradition diffusions indicate an important circulation of people and know-how, made possible by a strong structuration exchange networks and interdependency in between neighboring regions. With the emergence of the post-Lbk cultures (especially Hinkelstein and BVSG, until 4600 BC), a strong regionalization process occurs under the double influence of internal evolutions and probable external influences, especially from Mediterranea. The densification of the number of sites is accompanied to the west and south by the achievement of the Neolithic colonization of the territories situated north of the Loire.
Despite different origins and trajectories, common mechanisms have made possible the expansion of the first farmers from the Mediterranean and Linearbandkeramik complex. In both cases, the neolithisation is based on demic diffusion, which does not rule out, after a first pioneer settling, a second step of cultural diffusion. Cardial and Lbk societies faced similar constraints, especially to ensure the stability of their social and economic model, while minimizing the risks inherent to the colonization of new territories. However, the solutions adopted within each sphere are radically opposed to each other. The Lbk people choose to build a social model based on the reproducibility of its cultural and economic rules, and on a complex system of integration of exogenous people and exchanges networks to stimulate and control innovation processes. On the contrary, the Cardial society seems to have adapted its economic practices to the diverse ecosystems and contrasted Mediterranean climate they faced: by increasing the spectrum of food resources and promoting economic complementarities, they chose to adopt solutions sometimes far from the original model in order to minimise risks.
In the state of the research, it keeps difficult to state the reality of contacts between the last Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and the first Neolithic farmers, and by extension to discuss their role in the neolithisation processes of France. Two scenarios are still plausible: a very fast assimilation of Mesolithic populations nearly undetectable within the archaeological facts, or an “escape” of Mesolithic in refugee zones.
As a matter of fact, the mechanisms of neolithisation within the Mediterranean and continental spheres seems highly comparable. After a first pioneer phase, both spheres see a consolidation and perenisation of their colonisation front, which precede a strong regionalisation process, parallel to a densification and diversification of the territorial occupation. Despite chronological and environmental specificities, three main mechanisms would have structured the first neolithisation phases of both spheres: a strong mobility of populations more or less regulated by social rules, a strong solidarity expressed at multiple levels of interactions inside each sphere, and finally the existence of synchretism and cultural recompositions including close and long-distance relations. This probably explains why for the very last stages of the neolithisation expansion, especially on a large central east-west zone in France it appears so difficult to determine the respective influences of the continental and mediterranean spheres. Beyond borders, the Neolithic cultures were probably highly connected and porous entities, open to multiple influences.
Mesolithic and Neolithic material productions in Aveyron (France) during the 6th millennium BC: Originality or adaptability? | Request PDF. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314167904_Mesolithic_and_Neolithic_material_productions_in_Aveyron_France_during_the_6th_millennium_BC_Originality_or_adaptability [accessed Nov 01 2018].
The northern coast of the Médoc between Soulac-sur-Mer and Montalivet-les-Bains has a rich archaeological heritage that is being directly impacted by coastal erosion. A series of clay-peat palaeosols that formed in ancient estuarine marshes holds evidence of intensive occupation from the Mesolithic until the end of the Roman period. Within this framework, our research focused on the two key sites of La Lède du Gurp (Grayan-et-l’Hôpital) and L’Amélie (Soulac-sur-Mer), where an interdisciplinary approach based on comparison of archaeological, sedimentary and palaeo-environmental data has made it possible to situate the main phases of occupation in their environmental context. This work has benefited from field documentation that is exceptionally well-preserved in wet sediments sealed beneath the present-day dune system. The most fleeting traces (animal tracks) like the sturdiest anthropic structures are preserved, as are many organic remains. These items provide access to first-rate documentation for reconstructing the range of activities practised in a specific ecosystem: salt production, livestock grazing, shellfish collecting, passage and carriage, and funerary and symbolic practices. Study of occupation over the long term reveals an alternating pattern of dynamic phases and decline phases that seem to be correlated with changes in the local environment.
Les premières communautés agropastorales s’implantent en France dans le courant du 6e millénaire avant notre ère. On distingue traditionnellement la sphère méditerranéenne de la céramique imprimée de celle de la sphère continentale rubanée, qui se développent selon des temporalités et dans des espaces géographiques distincts. Loin d’être homogènes, les composantes culturelles, économiques et symboliques de ces communautés témoignent de trajectoires historiques très différentes. Nous proposons dans cet article une approche intégrée des mécanismes de la néolithisation de la France qui constitue l’une des rares entités territoriales européennes où il est possible -et donc indispensable- d’interroger les parallèles et interactions éventuelles entre ces deux sphères de néolithisation. Des mécanismes communs peuvent être identifiés. À une première phase pionnière méditerranéenne (impressa) et continentale (rubanée) aurait succédé une phase de consolidation et de pérennisation des fronts de colonisation, puis une phase de régionalisation marquée, concomitante d’une densification du tissu de sites et d’une diversification des territoires d’implantation. L’ensemble de ces processus se serait appuyé sur une triple mécanique : une forte mobilité des populations assurant un rôle de régulation sociale interne, un maillage de solidarité structuré par de multiples interactions intra-régionales au sein de chacune des sphères de néolithisation, et, enfin, des phénomènes de syncrétismes et de recompositions culturelles faisant intervenir des relations à proches comme très longues distances.
Abstract
The neolithisation of France in its broader European context has mainly been approached through the characterization of its diffusion vectors (cultural diffusion vs demic diffusion) and the conditions of emergence of techno-economic innovations (rythms, scenarios, transmission). The most common vision inherited from the 1980s of a European Neolithic developing from east to west following a regular rhythm, has progressively been replaced by a more complex model of diffusion characterized by arrhythmia and cultural reconfigurations.
The first farmers settled in France during the 6th millennium before our era. Far from being homogeneous, the cultural, economic and symbolic components of first farmer communities indicate very different historical trajectories. Two primary routes of agriculture diffusion are traditionally distinguished: along the Danube river corridor to the Atlantic coast, and along the Mediterranean littoral. To go beyond this dichotomy, this paper proposes a first attempt of integrated approach of the mechanisms of Neolithisation in France, one of the few European territories where it is possible, and so necessary, to investigate the common processes as well as possible interactions between these two main neolithization complexes.
The French Mediterranean shoreline is colonized by agro-pastoral populations (Impressa) at an early stage around 5800-5600 cal. BC. These pioneers groups correspond to small family units whose economy is based on specialized caprine breeding and cereal culture (mainly emmer wheat and Einkorn). Links with the Italian sphere are confirmed by the analysis of the ceramic and lithic systems, but also by the presence of obsidian from Palmarolla and Sardinia. For now, the impact of these groups seems to be confined to the coastline. From 5400/5300 cal. BC, the Cardial complex develops and becomes the vector of Neolithisation in a wider geographic area. New ecosystems are taken over, alongside a diversification of food acquisition systems, which include domestic meat resources (mainly sheep and goats), but also wild animals (wild boar, red deer…) and the cultivation of naked wheat and barley. The diverse settled environments (plains, coastal zones but also plateaus and mountains) and types of sites (open-air sites, caves, rock shelters) point to a reorganization of the socio-economic systems. Far from the reproduction of a single pattern, these communities seem to have pragmatically optimized the location and the structuration of the settlement itself according to the available resources. Important phenomenon’s of regionalization start to occur around 5200 cal. BC, as underlined by the diversity of the ceramic productions. This reflects new relationships with space and environment, phenomena of cultural syncretism and the end of the Neolithisation process.
The first continental Linearbandkeramik settlers reach the Rhine valley in the eastern part of France around 5300/5200 cal. BC. This first step announces the beginning of a territorial spreading of the Lbk populations up to the Channel coasts and the center of France until 4900 BC. Adapting a model of village organization known throughout continental Europe, the first Lbk hamlets are composed of long tripartite wooden and daub houses installed in cleared areas adapted to agriculture and pasture of cattle and caprines. These hamlets are occupied from one generation up to 200 years, and organized in a dense territorial pattern along alluvial valleys and plateaus. The size of the houses is related to the number of their inhabitants, but also their economic maturity and elderness in the village. The end of the LBk in Western Europe is characterized by a rapid shift of the cultural traditions, such as the disappearance of necropolises in favour of burial within the domestic space. The raw material sourcing and technical tradition diffusions indicate an important circulation of people and know-how, made possible by a strong structuration exchange networks and interdependency in between neighboring regions. With the emergence of the post-Lbk cultures (especially Hinkelstein and BVSG, until 4600 BC), a strong regionalization process occurs under the double influence of internal evolutions and probable external influences, especially from Mediterranea. The densification of the number of sites is accompanied to the west and south by the achievement of the Neolithic colonization of the territories situated north of the Loire.
Despite different origins and trajectories, common mechanisms have made possible the expansion of the first farmers from the Mediterranean and Linearbandkeramik complex. In both cases, the neolithisation is based on demic diffusion, which does not rule out, after a first pioneer settling, a second step of cultural diffusion. Cardial and Lbk societies faced similar constraints, especially to ensure the stability of their social and economic model, while minimizing the risks inherent to the colonization of new territories. However, the solutions adopted within each sphere are radically opposed to each other. The Lbk people choose to build a social model based on the reproducibility of its cultural and economic rules, and on a complex system of integration of exogenous people and exchanges networks to stimulate and control innovation processes. On the contrary, the Cardial society seems to have adapted its economic practices to the diverse ecosystems and contrasted Mediterranean climate they faced: by increasing the spectrum of food resources and promoting economic complementarities, they chose to adopt solutions sometimes far from the original model in order to minimise risks.
In the state of the research, it keeps difficult to state the reality of contacts between the last Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and the first Neolithic farmers, and by extension to discuss their role in the neolithisation processes of France. Two scenarios are still plausible: a very fast assimilation of Mesolithic populations nearly undetectable within the archaeological facts, or an “escape” of Mesolithic in refugee zones.
As a matter of fact, the mechanisms of neolithisation within the Mediterranean and continental spheres seems highly comparable. After a first pioneer phase, both spheres see a consolidation and perenisation of their colonisation front, which precede a strong regionalisation process, parallel to a densification and diversification of the territorial occupation. Despite chronological and environmental specificities, three main mechanisms would have structured the first neolithisation phases of both spheres: a strong mobility of populations more or less regulated by social rules, a strong solidarity expressed at multiple levels of interactions inside each sphere, and finally the existence of synchretism and cultural recompositions including close and long-distance relations. This probably explains why for the very last stages of the neolithisation expansion, especially on a large central east-west zone in France it appears so difficult to determine the respective influences of the continental and mediterranean spheres. Beyond borders, the Neolithic cultures were probably highly connected and porous entities, open to multiple influences.
Mesolithic and Neolithic material productions in Aveyron (France) during the 6th millennium BC: Originality or adaptability? | Request PDF. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314167904_Mesolithic_and_Neolithic_material_productions_in_Aveyron_France_during_the_6th_millennium_BC_Originality_or_adaptability [accessed Nov 01 2018].
C’est d’abord sur les terres de la Méditerranée orientale et sur ses prolongements, depuis le Levant Sud jusqu’à la Haute Mésopotamie et au Zagros, que des communautés ont progressivement modifié leur organisation sociale, leur cadre symbolique, leur mode de vie pour devenir des sociétés sédentaires et productrices, inaugurant ainsi une ère nouvelle, annonciatrice des temps historiques. Puis ce nouveau système s’est propagé en Méditerranée, favorisant ainsi la conversion à l’économie agricole et pastorale de l’Europe et d’une partie de l’Asie et de l’Afrique. Les mécanismes de cette diffusion furent complexes, entraînant de fréquentes recompositions culturelles et donnant lieu à des processus adaptatifs commandés par le double jeu des contraintes environnementales et de la créativité humaine.
Cet ouvrage constitue la publication d’un colloque international organisé en avril 2011 au Muséum de Toulouse à l’occasion de l’exposition “Préhistoire[s]”. Il réunit vingt-six contributions qui dressent le panorama de la recherche actuelle en trois principaux domaines géographiques : le Proche-Orient, les îles de la Méditerranée orientale et la Méditerranée occidentale.
The Mediterranean Neolithic Transition
The Mediterranean represents an ideal space for studying the transition from the last hunters-gatherers to the first farmers. It was both a primal place of transition between these two steps and a space of diffusion of the new economy, two key mechanisms for understanding the process of the emergence of farming.
It was first in the eastern Mediterranean, from the southern Levant to upper Mesopotamia and the Zagros, that some communities progressively modified their social organization, their symbolic framework, their way of life to become sedentary and food-producing societies, thus opening a new era that set the pattern for historical times. Later on, this new economic system progressively expanded, promoting the farming economy in Europe and in some part of Asia and Africa. The mechanisms of this diffusion were complex and they produced frequent cultural transformations and adaptive processes, both determined by environmental constraints and by human creativity.
This book constitutes the proceedings of an international conference held in April 2011 in the Museum of Toulouse for the exhibition “Prehistory(ies)”. It gathers twenty-six papers offering an overview of the current research in three main geographical areas: the Near-East, the eastern Mediterranean islands and the western Mediterranean."
Toutes les études récentes s'accordent à reconnaître qu'on ne peut plus comprendre ce processus sans prendre en compte le rôle éventuel des sociétés autochtones de chasseurs – collecteurs mésolithiques, et leur possible impact sur la recomposition du système technique et social des premières sociétés néolithiques. Appréhender ces sociétés du Néolithique ancien implique donc de réfléchir sur les termes de ruptures ou de continuité avec le Mésolithique récent / final.
Il faut également s'interroger sur le devenir de ces premières sociétés paysannes, au terme de cette phase pionnière. On constate souvent des différences notables entre les groupes du Néolithique ancien et ceux du Néolithique moyen, du point de vue des productions matérielles comme de celui de l'occupation territoriale, voir de l'organisation sociale. Comment comprendre et documenter cette évolution ?
Cette session s'attachera à illustrer ces divers aspects autour du Néolithique ancien, dans le cadre géographique de la France et de ses régions limitrophes. Nous privilégierons les communications prenant en compte les aspects culturels des sociétés préhistoriques concernées, et surtout celles traitant d'aspects méthodologiques sur nos moyens d'appréhension de ces problématiques.
This book constitutes the specific publication on the site of Pont de Roque-Haute (Portiragnes, Hérault), one of earliest Neolithic settlements known on the French Mediterranean coast. The finds from this site reflect the settlement of small groups of pioneers from Italy during the first half of the sixth millennium cal BC. While maintaining their original way of life, these Neolithic pioneers successfully adapted their activities to the regional environment and made use of the range of locally available resources. The collection of about twenty papers presents a description of the environment in which these Neolithic developed their activities and an analysis of the way they exploited this environment, from material and economic data. In the final synthesis, the site is put back in the broader context of the Neolithisation of the north-western Mediterranea.
L’Italia per la sua posizione e per la sua conformazione geografica rappresenta un’area privilegiata per lo studio di questi movimenti e per comprendere la formazione di aspetti locali e la loro rielaborazione nel corso del tempo.
Obiettivo del contributo è di mettere a confronto due cerchie culturali, posizionate ad oriente e ad occidente della Penisola: si considerano alcuni siti chiave del Neolitico antico apulo materano e i siti costieri e insulari dalla Toscana alla Linguadoca. Se tutte le categorie di materiali contribuiscono ad una migliore definizione dei contesti, oltre che alcune riflettere la persistenza di tradizioni mesolitiche diversamente acquisite e assimilate, si ritiene la produzione ceramica l’indicatore discriminante per riconoscere il comune mondo dell’impressa e al suo interno individuare le variazioni intervenute nel tempo e nello spazio. Quindi a partire dalla lettura degli aspetti tecnologici, morfologici e stilistici delle produzioni fittili vascolari si propone la definizione delle caratteristiche delle due cerchie culturali, nelle quali si considerano i tratti diffusi nello spazio e/o persistenti nel processo evolutivo come le manifestazioni inusuali.
La seconda parte del contributo affronta le questioni emerse dal confronto fra le due cerchie, in particolare verificando l’incidenza e il significato dei tratti comuni, nonché la valenza delle innovazioni e/o modificazioni a livello tecnologico, formale e decorativo, in rapporto allo spazio e al tempo intercorso fra l’impianto dei primi villaggi del sud est e la diffusione nei territori più occidentali. La cerchia apulo-materana rivela più marcate somiglianze con l’Adriatico orientale, se pure siano largamente riconoscibili le peculiarità locali, soprattutto nei prodotti fini, maggiormente interessati dalle successive modificazioni evolutive, mentre i siti più antichi dei territori Nord occidentali, accanto a caratteristiche comprovanti la comune origine (alcune morfologie vascolari, elementi di presa, tecnica decorativa e stile ad impressioni isolate disposte con tendenza a coprire la parete del vaso, l’uso della conchiglia dentellata), esprimono nuove tecniche, i cd sillons d’impression, forme decorative proprie (distribuzione del decoro in spazi geometrici) e l’abbandono di motivi comuni nell’Adriatico (il rocker).
Nell’area occidentale, la distribuzione delle ossidiane di Lipari e di Palmarola è rivelatrice di possibili tappe dei coloni neolitici lungo le coste e sulle isole, ma la scarsità delle testimonianze in rapporto all’estensione del territorio considerato riduce finora le opportunità di individuare dove e quando il patrimonio originario sia stato rielaborato.
This session aims to encourage debate among researchers who focus their research on new studies and proposals related to the spread of the Neolithic, the tempo of the phenomena and the role of the hunter-gatherers communities in this process. Although this session is focused on the European region, it welcomes proposals from the origin and spread areas, such as the Near East or North of Africa.