Villiers-sur-Seine

The known Bronze Age settlements between the Île-de-France and Champagne are usually small, unenclosed family farms. The Villiers-sur-Seine site, however, built in a visible and accessible location that enabled control of activities on the nearby river, is completely different: the two large buildings and their annexes were protected by a system of ditches and an ostentatious palisade. Though the Seine Valley was already anthropised at the end of the 9th century BC, this habitat seems to have had a significant impact on the nearby natural environment: development of agropastoral activities due to the extension of wet meadows, episodes of land clearing for construction, cultivation of variou…