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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Le sanctuaire laténien de Semoine, « Voie Palon » (Aube)

subject

description

A rescue excavation in 2003 resulted in the discovery of a building on piles, constructed between two sections of ditch, of which the one on the north side has an entrance. The chronological data of the building and two ditches match and demonstrate the existence of cults during La Tène C2. Evidence of the cults is given by a small quantity of deliberately mutilated weapons, as has been found in other La Tène sanctuaries. Dating the creation of the enclosure is problematicaln but it probably derives from La Tène C1. Although sections of the site remained unexcavated, the stratigraphy of the ditches reveals the brevity and limited and unusual nature of the practices. This study links them to the very particular geographical context of the place, which lies on the watershed between the Aube and Marne rivers. During the Second Iron Age, this watershed was part of the area of influence of one or the other of the two populations living respectively in one of the two hydrographic basins, and it probably allowed the Augustinian administration to fix the frontier between the Remi and Senones. The transformations that took place during the La Tène C, therefore, may have led to the erection of a short-lived place of worship linked with the frontier.