Search results for " prehistory"
showing 10 items of 4300 documents
Connecting Gien Castle to its Landscape: Faunal, Environmental and Buildings Analyses (Loiret, France)
2021
International audience; Gien castle is a listed monument of French architectural heritage. Today it houses the National Museum of Hunting and its collection. Organised visits to the site have traditionally lacked any clear mention of the castle’s historical background. Recently, however, archaeological excavations and building analysis in 2011–2015 produced a wealth of new knowledge about the castle’s medieval origins and history, and about its relationship to its landscape. During the ninth and tenth centuries and then in the fifteenth century the castle occupied a strategically exceptional position reflecting the connection with its environment, notably the strong connection between the c…
Morphometry of Middle Bronze Age palstaves. Part II - spatial distribution of shapes in two typological groups, implications for production and expor…
2013
10 pages; International audience; For archaeologists, metallic artifacts are key materials to assess Middle Bronze Age production areas and cultural exchanges. Here, a set of 629 bronze palstaves excavated in northern France, belonging to Breton and Norman typological groups, was treated by (open) outline-based morphometrics with orthogonal polynomial regression. Using robust statistics developed for outlier detection, these Norman and Breton palstave outlines can be divided into two groups: those for which the shape fluctuates close to the standard shape, called "congruent" axes, and those which are far enough from this standard to be considered as "non-congruent", although they possess mo…
Intra-skeletal variability in trace elemental content of Precolumbian Chupicuaro human bones: the record of post-mortem alteration and a tool for pal…
2011
14 pages; International audience; This study applies an intra-skeletal sampling strategy to examine post-mortem alteration of archaeological human bone from west Mexico, and to reconstruct ancient diet. Human bone from the Chupicuaro culture (Mexico, Preclassic period) constitutes an ideal material with which to examine subsistence strategies because the specific hydrothermal environment in which the population lived would have provided certain food components (hydrothermal waters and carbonates) with distinct signature in Ca, Mg, F, Li, Sr, Mn, V and U values. Four to ten samples were taken from the long bones of six skeletons. Bone trace element content (Ca, P, F, Mn, Mg, Na, Li, V, Zn, R…
Dead wood gathering among Neanderthal groups: Charcoal evidence from Abric del Pastor and El Salt (Eastern Iberia)
2017
International audience; We present here a new approach combining the microscopic characterization of fungal decay features and the fragmentation degree of the charcoal remains from Middle Palaeolithic combustion structures: features H4 and H11 from Abric del Pastor, unit IV (>75 ka BP) and features H50 and H57 from El Salt, unit Xb (ca. 52 ka BP), Eastern Iberia. The observation of wood degradation patterns that occurred prior to charring followed by their quantitative analysis according to previous experimental studies revealed differences between the alteration degrees of the firewood used in the hearths, highlighting the existence of firewood acquisition criteria based on dead wood gathe…
Oppida, Agglomerations, and Suburbia: the Bibracte Environs and New Perspectives on Late Iron Age Urbanism in Central-eastern France
2013
This paper explores the nature and chronology of La Tène and early Roman unenclosed agglomerations in central-eastern France. It has been prompted by the discovery of a c. 115 ha La Tène D2b/Augustan (c. 50 BC to AD 15) site close to Bibracte in the Morvan, located around the source of the River Yonne. This complex provides a new perspective on the chronology and role of Late La Tène and early Roman unenclosed settlements, adding further complexity to the story of the development of Late La Tène oppida. It indicates that these ‘agglomerations’ followed remarkably varied chronological trajectories, raising important issues concerning the nature of landscape and social change at the end of th…
Tracking archaeological and historical mines using mineral prospectivity mapping.
2014
13 pages; International audience; The present study proposes a technological transfer from modern mining prospection to the field of archaeology, providing a methodology to facilitate the discovery of ancient mining sites. This method takes advantage of the thousands of geochemical analyses of streambed sediments, performed by national geological surveys to inventory mineral substances. In order to delineate geochemical anomalies, the datasets are treated following two different approaches: Exploratory Data Analysis and a fractal-based method often recognised as more powerful. Mineral prospectivity maps are then obtained by combining the results with a geographical information system. The s…
Copper supply during the Final Neolithic at the Saint-Blaise/Bains des Dames site (Neuchâtel, Switzerland)
2009
The Saint-Blaise/Bains des Dames stratified site in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, contains several occupations that span the Late through Final Neolithic, including the Horgen, Lüscherz, and Auvernier-Cordé periods. As part of a study on prehistoric metallurgy in western Switzerland, we compare the lead isotope ratios (multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer) and elemental compositions (instrumental neutron activation analysis) of the site's numerous copper finds to a database of corresponding measurements for copper ores throughout Europe. The results show a considerable variation in copper compositions present at the site, suggesting complex economic relationships and multip…
Copper quality and sources in Middle Bronze Age I Byblos and Tell Arqa (Lebanon)
2013
Abstract Forty-four Middle Bronze Age I weapons discovered at the sites of Byblos and Tell Arqa in Lebanon were investigated in order to study their copper quality and provenance. The evaluation of copper qualities is based on quantifying permanent inclusions such as copper sulfide and lead globules. The provenance of copper was studied using lead isotope analyses. For further discrimination between copper groups and sources elemental analyses by PIXE were performed on some of the weapons investigated. The results revealed two copper groups that could be qualified as “dirty” copper and “clean” copper. The former was used in most of the weapon types whereas the latter was reserved for items …
Identifying fossil rabbit warrens: Insights from a taphonomical analysis of a modern warren
2016
14 pages; International audience; The European rabbit is a small burrowing mammal that is particularly abundant in Western Europe since the Pleistocene and introduced around the world over the last few centuries. Rabbit bones are regularly recovered from archaeological and palaeontological sites; however, demonstrating their contemporaneity with associated material is often difficult. Additionally, determining the origin of rabbit remains in fossil sites is equally problematic due to the lack of reference collections for natural accumulations. In order to address these issues, we excavated a modern rabbit warren in southwestern France using modern archaeological field methods and techniques…
Les offrandes animales de la nécropole celtique de Ludas-Varjù Dulo (Hongrie)
2006
International audience; Des restes animaux ont été recueillis dans trente six sépultures (dont une inhumation) de la nécropole du troisième siècle avant notre ère de Ludas-Varjù. Ces restes présentent des états de conservation assez contrastés : certains sont très altérés, alors que d'autres sont très bien préservés. Ces différences semblent dues à des circonstances locales (profondeur, nature du terrain ?). Ces restes, comme l'ensemble du mobilier, ont fait l'objet de relevés graphiques et photographiques. Tout cela constitue des conditions favorables à leur étude. Cette présentation ne concerne que les restes animaux déposés directement dans les sépultures. En effet, seule une petite part…