De nombreux sites archéologiques ont été mis au jour sur les îles de l’archipel de Molène, à l’occasion des fortes tempêtes hivernales qui ont entraîné un fort recul de trait de côte. Les contraintes ...du milieu insulaire (accès difficile, isolement) y ont imposé des modalités d’intervention spécifiques.
On the seashore, archaeologi’cal remains appear well preserved and sometimes immediatly visible during erosion periods. But the constraints are accumulating at all levels : limited intervention time, ...water, movement of tides, rapid change due to erosion, access conditions to excavations, difficulty encountered in implementation of heavy infrastructures. For these reasons, the interventions on this area have been limited for a long time to simple observations acompanied by samples. The rise of seashore issues and the increasing coastal erosion lead to real survey or excavation projects. Carried out nor in terrestrial conditions, nor in underwater conditions, these operations required an original methodology, new tools or sampling methods.Some examples choosen in various contexts illustrate the reactivity and the adaptations needed in the study of sites generally well preserved, supplying frequently organic remains, even fish or crustacean remains.
•Experiments have been conducted to produce copper and bronze objects.•Ore crushing, metal objects shaping by hammering and finishing by abrading were tested.•Use-wear analysis were combined to XRF ...analysis.•A use-wear reference collection is provided on metallurgists stone tools.•It allows identification of metallurgists’ stone tools from the Early Bronze in north-west Europe.
Use-wear analysis of stone tools involved in metallurgical processes is a recent field of research within functional analysis. In order to consolidate the methodological framework of such research, experiments were carried out on the production of copper and bronze objects. Several production steps were tested, on the basis of archaeological questions relating to sites dated from the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC in north-west Europe. The crushing of copper ore was tested in order to compare use-wear traces created by three different actions: breaking block, fragmenting into small pieces and grinding into powder. In addition, various parts of a test group of copper and tin bronze axeheads and daggers were shaped by hammering: this hammering involved deburring and regularization of the sides of the axeheads and daggers, as well as thinning out the cutting edges immediately after casting or at a later stage. Finally, the sides and edges of the copper and bronze axeheads were abraded and polished. The combination of use-wear and XRF analysis of the tools involved in this series of experiments consolidates the methodological background of the functional analysis of stone tools. They allow better differentiation of wear traces resulting from the processing of ores within the broader spectrum of hard mineral materials. They also raise questions about the preservation of metal residues on the surface of stone tools depending on the different activities carried out. Finally, the distinction between copper and bronze objects is also discussed. Examples of the analysis of various metallurgists’ stone tools from the Early Bronze in north-west Europe support the demonstration.
During the course of the diffusion of Neolithic agro-pastoral societies across Europe, animal husbandry was adapted to local constraints and resources, involving changes in practices as well as in ...animal physiology. As a result, the timing of animal breeding was impacted, with consequences on the organization of agro-pastoral tasks and the seasonal availability of animal products. Past sheep birth seasonality can be investigated through the reconstruction of the seasonal cycle recorded in molars, based on the sequential analysis of stable oxygen isotope ratios (δ18O) in enamel. Modern sheep serve as comparative material to define the season of birth. In the present study, we provide new reference values for winter births in the sheep third molar (M3) using data from the modern Kemenez sheep herd. The dataset also includes paired upper and lower M3s in order to test the comparability of results obtained from both teeth. Results show a moderate shift in the isotopic record between upper and lower M3s. The consecutive difference in the assessment of the timing of birth is one month, on average. Additionally, we provide a new set of results for sheep from Nova Nadezhda (Bulgaria, early sixth millennium BC), combining upper and lower molars, in order to expand data relating to the earliest stages of the introduction of sheep to Europe. At Nova Nadezhda, sheep were born in late winter and spring, and the pattern of birth distribution does not indicate the control of sheep reproduction by separating males from females. When compared to previously published results at other Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in the Balkans, corrected for the shift between upper and lower M3s, no latitudinal and chronological trend is observed between the Southern Balkans, Northern Balkans and Hungarian plains over the early sixth to the second half of the fifth millennia BC. This apparent uniformity for the length (3–4 months) and timing of the birth period could be challenged in the future by enlarged datasets.
•The timing of animal breeding impacts greatly the farming calendar.•Past sheep birth seasonality can be investigated through isotope analysis in teeth.•Oxygen isotope sequences in sheep paired upper and lower molars are shifted.•Neolithic sheep in Europe gave birth over 2–4 months in late winter and spring.
Whilst studying flat axes in the collections of the Dobrée Museum in Nantes and the National Archaeology Museum in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, it was found that one of the axes had the mention ...“Saint-Père-en-Retz, Loire-Inférieure” written on it. Found in the so-called “dolmen of Saint-Père-en-Retz” along with another axe and two gold artefacts, this material is often considered as typical of the Beaker culture and has thus been covered in a large number of papers and books. The objects were collected by F. Parenteau, the first curator of the local archaeology museum, the study of its private archives kept in the Dobrée Museum provided unpublished documents concerning this find. The objects were not discovered by Parenteau himself as he wrote in a publication that came out much later in 1872 (Musée des Beaux-arts de Nantes, 1872, p. 36), but were bought second-hand from a goldsmith in Nantes. Parenteau’s notes lead us to understand that both the location (Saint-Père-en-Retz) and the context (‘dolmen’) are not verified. The subsequent publications sometimes contained fanciful artefacts. Some previously unpublished drawings from the Parenteau archives do complete the documentation we have while at the same time cast a doubt over the provenance of the Saint-Germain-en-Laye axe. It also provides us with an opportunity to put forth a new hypothesis as to the provenance of one of the axes of the Dobrée Museum. To conclude, the new elements gathered here show that both provenance and context are extremely doubtful, and that therefore the study of the 19th century archives can often be of invaluable assistance when one works on old collections.
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