6533b829fe1ef96bd128aa76

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Composantes culturelles et Premières productions céramiques du Bronze ancien dans le sud-est de la France

subject

description

The collective research project "Cultural components of the first pottery productions of the Early Bronze Age in Southeast France" derives from renewal of documentation on the Early Bronze Age in the southeast Rhodanian region and new approaches to the Bell Beaker period, particularly in the southern part of Southeast France. In 1998, the Riva del Garda conference constituted a high point in Bell Beaker research at a European scale, of which the consequences and questions motivated the collective project for an overview of the transition from the end of the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age in a large southeastern quarter of France. In these regions, issues relating to the future of Bell Beaker cultures and the origin of the "Rhone civilization" and the Barbed-wire Beaker have most often been treated through examination of changes in the ceramics, metallurgical production more secondarily. Then, some cultural traits were examined locally in the aim of explaining these heritages between the Final Neolithic Bell Beaker and the Early Bronze Age, such as the symbolic foundations, architecture, the different forms of the subsistence economy and chronometry. Yet such research remained sporadic and showed a heterochrony in evolutionary dynamics for these different aspects. We have thus chosen to focus on ceramics for our analysis, which is by far the most abundant and of sufficiently broad geographic distribution to discriminate between the different cultural components playing a role in the establishment of Early Bronze Age productions along the Rhodanian axis, from the Alps to Auvergne and to the Mediterranean coast, between late manifestations of the Bell Beaker and the full Early Bronze Age, dated between ca. 2400 and 1800 BC. From the title, the term 'production' should be used in a restricted sense, no technological studies having been done, and those of the pottery concerning mainly recipients. A thematic separation was applied to isolate several descriptors for which analysis and combination of the different results enabled illustration of the geographic and cultural structures inferred during the first stages of the Early Bronze Age. The themes and research tools concern six fields: a chronometric overview provided by radiocarbon dates; morphological classification of recipients to differentiate the different cultural components involved in pottery making; detailed description of decorations made using the barbed wire technique and a classification of the different modes of execution based on the development of a specific descriptive terminology and a simple database; analysis of the decorative themes to identify the typological heritages from the Bell Beaker to the Early Bronze Age and finally, petrographic and microscopic analyses to cover the range of variability in ceramic containers. Another field considers the definition and place of the Rhodanian component. After a brief discussion of the initial research questions and a presentation of the regional chronocultural contexts, a summary of the radiocarbon dates helps to establish the temporal limits of the subject and the two phases of the Early Bronze Age considered, BzA1 and Early BzA2a (fig. 4). The morphological and typological analytic data set for the pottery contains two categories of intrinsic descriptors: metric values and indices, and morphological criteria. Each is presented as a graphic synthesis. Forty-seven ceramic types were identified from the inventory of 188 profiles and 146 fragments for which the state of preservation permitted classification to typological group and often to type (fig. 7-9). Frequencies for each type, site or microregion grouping the lowest counts are represented by seriation in a contingency table that clearly isolates the earliest southern and Rhodanian components at each end of the graph (fig. 10). The middle of the table contained series in intermediate position, both geographically and chronologically (Early BzA2a). Seven typological units (A-F) can be isolated in the contingency table, most often corresponding to different productions preferentially concentrated in a defined geographic area. Following a discussion of the state of extraregional chronocultural divisions, the contribution of the different areas of this broad framework of understanding can be identified. In a chronological and geographic overview, we then return to typological issues and chronocultural heritages. The first point relates to the difficulties in applying the concept of the Rhone civilization and its rejection in the Southeast. This may appear too narrow, considering the cultural relationships demonstrated supraregionally, which put into play a Danube-Rhine-Rhone axis during the first phases of the Early Bronze Age, or too broad if we refer to specific details of the economic bases or the very particular circulation sphere of the metallic attributes of power. This situation clearly shows the multiplicity of components involved in the establishment of the two main units, medio-Rhodanian and southern, of the Early Bronze Age (fig. 26-29). The zones of influence are located from Bavaria to the Middle Danube and from the Po Plain to central-southern and continental Italy. Diffusion vectors are principally north and south alpine in the middle Rhone Valley, south alpine and Mediterranean in coastal regions. Based on the ceramic data, this large-scale cultural dynamic appears to have an effect on the development of local substrates in the middle Rhone Valley. One can thus speak of an eastern-Rhodanian Early Bronze Age. In Provence, the Bell Beaker component persists for a time, during the BzA1, as shown by the survival into the Early Bronze Age of many decorative motifs and themes. The concept of Epi-Bell Beaker appears to maintain an operational value and we can keep the term Epi-Bell Beaker Early Bronze Age, with several post- or peri-Bell Beaker vectors of different geographic origins. Next, during the Early Bronze Age A2a, a northern impact is more marked, corresponding to a Rhodanian cultural transgression itself appearing somewhat more detached from eastern influxes. It is possible, on as yet provisional foundations, that the eastern Languedoc participated earlier in this Rhodanian circle of influence, spread via Auvergne and the southern margins of the Massif Central since the BzA1, with some eastern markers. Unique geographic characteristics have been noted, such as the pivotal role played by the Vaucluse/Drôme/Ardèche limit in the spread of southern components, especially barbed-wire pottery, from the eastern Languedoc region and Provence toward lower Auvergne. This axis seems to have benefited, or taken into account, the location of a different entity in the middle Rhone Valley that also had a strong identity. Conversely, but at a much more reduced scale, the uniqueness of productions result from attempts to combine different support forms, decorative themes and the different modalities of variables summarized in the kinds of barbed-wire pottery. Rules proper to each descriptive criterion lead to rare preferential combinations, which however, remain partial (fig. 46). Petrographic analyses are pertinent to both the origin of the clays used and the kinds of particles that are added as temper. The sample includes 651 units, 98 to complete the earlier Bell Beaker data set and 553 for pottery from the Early Bronze Age. Raw material procurement took place most often within a radius of seven kilometers and reflects opportunistic acquisition, which is supported by the values obtained from ethnographic research. The very high variability in the petrographic groups identified reflects productions that are entirely independent or nearly so, confirming observations made following unproductive attempts to identify recurrent typological combinations. The introduction of added temper based on rules varying by region, going from the continued use of grog in some zones (Vaunage, Rhodanian Vaucluse) to the exclusive use of carbonates in others, during the BzA1. During the Early BzA2a, the return to an earlier southern trait from the Final Neolithic is observed, with the widespread use of crushed carbonates in the pastes (fig. 176 and 178). A high degree of freedom of execution is thus imparted, corresponding to a structure of production that does not appear to go beyond domestic use. However, petrographic analyses clearly identify the circulation of some pottery or groups of recipients over distances ranging from a ten to sixty kilometers. The most important transfers take place in the middle Rhone Valley, from the right bank to the left of the river and to the base of the Pre-Alps. Such mobility of products and people also shows the spread of certain forms and decorations. It likely results from necessities linked to economic activities, discovery contexts in caves suggesting the possibility of the movement of relatively few individuals in the context of pastoral activities. Finally, the spatio-temporal structure and conditions for the establishment of cultures at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age can be addressed. During the BzA1, a north-south partition between Rhodanian and southern entities is paralleled in the Midi by the existence of a mosaic of different zones that appear to reflect Neolithic cultures in central Provence, prolong earlier traits in Vaunage or, toward the southwest, be receptive to the Rhodanian influence (fig. 190). During the Early BzA2a, the north-south distinction still exists, but at a lower hierarchical level within a single entity of Rhodanian origin. The different themes developed throughout our research ultimately lead to an adjustment of the title to better reflect the contributions of this work: Cultural components and initial pottery productions during the Early Bronze Age in Southeast France. In conclusion, different questions are raised, whether generalized or not, during the Early Bronze Age, regarding an advanced stage of agropastoral economy, a historical cultural Neolithic stage, the impact that the development of copper metallurgy could have had faced with certain socioeconomic needs for separation from bioclimatic and contextual constraints, or even the compatibility and articulation between two situations, developments under eastern and southern influxes and internal transformations of the economic foundations of power, questions that serve as points of departure for future research.