6533b852fe1ef96bd12ab3ee

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Problèmes d'identification des habitats ruraux de l'Antiquité tardive en CHampagne)Ardenne

subject

description

Two sites in Champagne-Ardennes are illustrative of the discontinuity of the vestiges of the phases of occupation during Late Antiquity. At Saint-Germain-la-Ville (Marne), a large rural building seems at first view to have been unoccupied between the 3rd and 6th centuries although the organisation of Merovingian buildings partly imitated that of the Early Empire. Despite the absence of relics that can be associated with certainty, a continuous presence seems to have been highly likely during the 4th and 5th centuries. At Semoine (Aube), the bulk of the objects from the 7th and 8th centuries found on the site were produced during Late Antiquity, while a single storeroom dates from that period. Several arguments demonstrate that these objects were not brought to the site but that contemporary developments have been levelled or are invisible. Identification of the occupations during that period is, therefore, often the result of diachronic reasoning, as much with regard to the developments as to the objects.