BOOKS

January 2020

Le dolmen de Saint-Eugène (Laure-Minervois, Aude) est l’un des monuments mégalithiques les plus emblématiques et les plus connus du Sud de la France. Il fait partie du groupe des galeries allongées (ou « allées ») à tertre circulaire qui se développe du Minervois à la Catalogne. Partiellement fouillé entre 1924 et 1928, il a fait l’objet entre 1990 et 1994 de recherches élargies qui en ont révélé l’architecture complexe, la tombe s’insérant dans un grand tertre à quatre murs concentriques.

Cet ouvrage décrit l’ensemble des campagnes de fouilles et de restauration réalisées sur ce monument et présente une série d’études détaillées sur les mobiliers archéologiques qui en proviennent. Dix datations radiocarbone lui assignent une construction dans la seconde moitié du IVe millénaire mais une utilisation qui s’est poursuivie jusqu’aux débuts de l’Âge du bronze. Partiellement conservée, la documentation anthropologique est envisagée sous divers aspects : ostéologique, odontologique, paléopathologique, paléogénétique. Des chapitres de synthèse replacent le monument dans son contexte architectural et culturel de l’Ouest méditerranéen.

The dolmen of Saint-Eugène (Laure-Minervois, Aude) is one of the most emblematic and famous megalithic monuments in the southern part of France. It is part of the group of elongated galleries (or «alleys») with circular mounds that develop from the Minervois to Catalonia. Partially excavated between 1924 and 1928, it was the subject of extensive research between 1990 and 1994, which revealed its complex architecture, with the tomb inserted into a large mound with four concentric walls.

This book describes all the excavation and restoration campaigns carried out on this monument and presents a series of detailed studies on the archaeological artefacts that come from it. Ten radiocarbon dates assign it a construction in the second half of the 4th millennium but its use continued until the beginning of the Bronze Age. Partially preserved, the anthropological documentation is considered under various aspects: osteological, odontological, palaeopathological, palaeogenetic. Synthesis chapters place the monument in its architectural and cultural context of the Western Mediterranean.

November 2019

During the mid-third millennium BC, people across Europe started using an international suite of novel material culture including early metalwork and distinctive ceramics known as Beakers. The nature and social significance of this phenomenon, as well as the reasons for its rapid and widespread transmission have been much debated. The adoption of these new ideas and objects in Ireland, Europe’s westernmost island, provides a highly suitable case study in which to investigate these issues. While many Beaker-related stone and metal artefacts were previously known from Ireland, a decade of intensive developer-led excavations (1997-2007) resulted in an exponential increase in discoveries of Beaker pottery within apparent settlement contexts across the island. This scenario is radically different from Europe where these objects are found with Beakers in funerary settings, stereotypically with single burials.

Using an innovative approach, this book interlinks the study of the pottery and various object types (that have traditionally been studied in isolation) with their context of discovery and depositional treatment to characterise social practices within settlements, funerary monuments, ceremonial settings and natural places. These characterisations deliver rich new understandings of this period which reveal a much more nuanced narrative for this international phenomenon.

Significantly, this integrated regional study reveals that the various Beaker-related objects found in Ireland were all deposited during a series of highly structured and rule-bound activities which were strongly influenced by pre-existing Irish traditions. This is a departure from previous interpretations which incorrectly attributed the adoption of Beakers to large-scale immigration or a prestige goods economy. Instead, these new international ideas, objects and practices played an important role in enabling people in Ireland to perform and negotiate their personal and group identities by using this new suite of object to frame and maintain their social relations with other groups across Europe.

Despite Sardinia’s extraordinarily rich Neolithic record, very little of it has made its way into the general European discourse. Written as a companion to G. Webster and M. Webster, Punctuated Insularity. The Archaeology of 4th and 3rd Millennium Sardinia. Oxford: BAR International Series 2871, 2017, the present volume addresses the omission by offering a synthesis of an archaeological corpus still little known outside the island. It covers in detail the evidence of colonisations and subsequent adaptations to the Sardinia’s diverse environments in terms of settlement patterns, craft industries, subsistence economies, mortuary and non-mortuary cult expressions, imagery, art and extra-insular relations with special emphasis of neighbouring Corsica, while offering interpretive suggestions. As a study of the frequentation and settling of Sardinia as a locale, a large, insular, west-Mediterranean landmass, by people with non-indigenous heritages, it furthermore locates the island’s cultural modalities within the so-called neolithisation of the broader Tyrrhenian region during the sixth and fifth millennia BCE.

Gary Webster is a retired Associate Professor of Anthropology (Penn State University) and Docent in Archaeology (Umeå University). He has published widely on theoretical issues, as well as archaeological fieldwork and interpretive problems, especially relating to Sardinian prehistory.

October 2019

LAROCHE M., BRUXELLES L., GALANT P., AMBERT M. (Dir.) - Paysages pour l'Homme. Actes du colloque international en Hommage à Paul Ambert, Cabrières, Hérault, 15-19 octobre 2019, Cabrières, Association Culturelle des Amis de Cabrières.

Déjà paru, bientôt disponible

The problem of the social dimension of technology and transformation seen in the perspective of the habitus has been repeatedly undertaken in various works. However, the complexity of these phenomena causes subsequent attempts to be presented and explained again in new contexts, bringing interesting observations. The edited volume aims to contribute to our better understanding of a system of embodied dispositions hidden under the term ‘habitus’. This will be achieved by presenting the latest studies in the social dimension of technology and transformation. These studies mainly cover the areas of Europe from Scandinavia to Italy and to the Balkans and from the British Isles to the Ukraine and to the North Caucasus. In one case, ethnoarchaeological field studies were conducted in distant Indonesia, but they are used to interpret the Hallstatt Culture in Europe. In the chronological dimension, they include the time from the Neolithic to the beginning of the Iron Age. Among the topics discussed are rock art, Trypillian megasites, stone axes and adzes, metallurgy, wagons, archery items, pottery produced on a fast wheel, mechanisms of cultural genesis, dualistic social systems and comments on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, including the concept of habitus. The volume Habitus, the social dimension of technology and transformation is intended for international academia, representing an important set of information and interpretations for all archaeologists and readers interested in European prehistory.

La callaïs désigne les pierres vertes dont sont faites les remarquables parures découvertes dans plusieurs sites néolithiques d’Europe occidentale. Terme utilisé au début de notre ère par Pline l’Ancien et repris par les premiers archéologues du début du XXème siècle lors des premières fouilles des grands tumulus de la région de Carnac (Morbihan), la callaïs regroupe plusieurs espèces minérales, surtout la variscite et la turquoise, tous deux des phosphates d’aluminium hydratés de couleur verte à bleue. Les perles et pendeloques en cette matière précieuse, associées à d’autres objets tels que haches en jade alpin, en fibrolite, perles en ambre ou en jais, provenant de sources parfois très éloignées, étaient déposés auprès des défunts, témoignant de leur haut rang au sein des premières sociétés agropastorales, ou « sacrifiées » sous forme de dépôts. La question de la nature et de l’origine de ces perles et pendeloques en callaïs a été maintes fois abordée durant le siècle dernier par les minéralogistes et les préhistoriens. Depuis les premières découvertes sur cette gemme, de nombreuses recherches ont été menées tant sur le terrain qu’en laboratoire afin d’élucider ce que certains avaient baptisé « les mystères de la callaïs ». Ce volume, préfacé par Yves Coppens, Professeur honoraire du Collège de France, regroupe les contributions des meilleurs spécialistes européens de la callaïs, variscite et turquoise, qui sont intervenus lors d’un colloque consacré à cette gemme ancienne qui s’est tenu en avril 2015 à Carnac. L’objectif de cet ouvrage est de divulguer le fruit des dernières recherches relatives à ces bijoux en balayant de multiples domaines : géologie de la variscite, gemmologie, exploitations néolithiques mais aussi romaines, caractérisation chimique, production des objets et leur diffusion, inventaire, datation, place de ces bijoux au sein de sociétés agropastorales qui occupaient une partie de l’Europe du 5ème au 3ème millénaire.

September 2019

Megaliths of the Vera Island in the Southern Urals presents the results of the study of the largest megalithic complex in the Urals, located on Vera Island. The complex is represented by three chambered megaliths and sanctuaries dated to the Eneolithic period (mid-4th - 3rd millennium BC). The book discusses the features of the architecture and building technologies, their astronomical orientation, chronology, religious context, and explores their relation to social organisation and the possible migration of peoples. Small finds – especially the ceramic assemblages – are presented. The authors discuss problems associated with the origin of megaliths, the approaches of European researchers and the possibilities of applying these approaches to the Ural megaliths. Against the background of the lack of agriculture – in contrast to Europe – there was no demographic basis in the Urals for the emergence and existence of the megalithic phenomenon.

In addition to the megalithic complex, there are many unexplored objects on the island, the purpose of which remain, as yet, unclear. Ancient settlements of the same period have also been discovered on the island. The complex on Vera Island is unique precisely due to the combination of objects with so many different functions found within a relatively small area (6 ha).

About the Authors

Stanislav Grigoriev graduated from Chelyabinsk University in 1982. He began his scientific career at the same university, and since 1989 has been working at the Institute of History and Archaeology, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences. He studied ancient metallurgy and the Bronze Age, and for many years participated in the excavations of such famous settlements as Sintashta and Arkaim. Since 2004, he has headed the research project of the megalithic complex on the Vera Island. His books Ancient Indo-Europeans, Metallurgical Production in Northern Eurasia in the Bronze Age and Holy Lalish are published in English.

Julia Vasina graduated from Chelyabinsk Pedagogical University, Faculty of History. Since 2003, she has led archaeological expeditions studying archaeological sites in the Urals. She is a leading expert in archaeology of the Ural cities and is the author of 38 works on archaeology, the history of the Urals and cultural studies. In 2004-2007, she was one of the leaders of the archaeological team on Vera Island. Based on this research, the island obtained the status of an object of cultural heritage. In 2014-2015, she was the scientific leader of the project for the restoration of the megalithic monuments of Vera Island.

The 5th and 4th Millenia BCE saw the emergence of monumental architecture in Neolithic and Chalcolithic contexts throughout different parts of Europe. Current research implements a set of diverse methodologies and produces multilayered interpretations in order to create multi-faceted narratives on this phenomenon.

international conference “Megaliths – Societies – Landscapes. Early Monumentality and Social Differentiation in Neolithic Europe” brought together researchers working in various regions and contexts, thus providing an up-to-date perspective on prehistoric monumental architecture. In addition, the conference provided an opportunity to present the results of the DFG-Priority Program 1400 “Early Monumentality and Social Differentiation. On the origin and development of Neolithic large-scale buildings and the emergence of early complex societies in Northern Central Europe”, which focused on the appearance of monumentality in the context of Neolithic Funnel Beaker communities.

The proceedings resulting from this conference cover topics, such as monuments made of stone, wood and earth, as well as interpretative aspects, including the importance of monumentality for landscape construction and the social significance of monumentality. Wide-ranging case studies with a continental scope illustrate the manifold implications and manifestations of monumentality. They also demonstrate the need for holistic approaches and the integration of diverse data sets in order to understand a phenomenon of such complexity. Furthermore, ethno-archaeological studies on megaliths from other continents were also integrated to reach a wider understanding of varying forms of monumentality.

The conference proceedings show that the construction of monuments may have been driven by very different factors and was embedded in diverse contexts of social organisation, thus being a highly variable and transformative phenomenon.

El tercer volumen, con un total de 388 páginas y 466 ilustraciones, forma parte de una gran obra que nace como resultado de cuatro años de investigación desarrollados bajo el proyecto «Aproximación a las primeras comunidades neolíticas del NE peninsular a través de sus prácticas funerarias» (HAR2011-23149), financiado por el Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. Un amplio equipo, formado por 95 investigadores procedentes de diversas universidades, empresas privadas de arqueología y centros de investigación, abordan de manera conjunta las prácticas funerarias de los grupos de agricultores y pastores del Neolítico que habitaron el noreste de la península ibérica entre inicios del V y mediados del IV milenio a. de C.En este tercer volumen han participado 40 investigadores que han aportado abundantes datos inéditos y analizan los enterramientos neolíticos de 12 yacimientos del área de Barcelona: Pou Nou 2, Els Cirerers, Mas Pujó, La Serreta, Eix Digonal, Pujolet de Moja, Mas d’en Boixos-1, Els Garrofers del Torrent de Santa Maria, Hort d’en Grimau, Can Tintorer, Minas 83 y 94 de Gavà y las fases del Neolítico antiguo cardial y Neolítico medio de la Cueva de Can Sadurní.

This volume presents the results of a long study begun in 2004 within the framework of the Archaeological Mission in the Farafra Oasis of Egypt directed by Barbara Barich and Giulio Lucarini, of the Sapienza University of Rome (now under the auspices of ISMEO). The book focuses on the features known as “Steinplatz-type hearths” and their role in the settlement patterns of the human groups living in the Egyptian Western Desert during the middle and late Holocene. Steinplätze are concentrations of burned and fire-cracked stones that vary in shape and size, and have often been slightly elevated above the present ground level by post-depositional erosion processes. Occurring both as isolated features and in clusters, they are often the only visible structures – or even traces – of ancient settlements. The study of these features is closely interconnected with the mobility strategies of the communities that inhabited this desert region during a period of higher average rainfall than at present but also characterised by significant climate fluctuations, with humid periods interrupted by dry spells and eventually ending in an overall trend towards greater desertification. The use of the Steinplatz-type hearths was most widespread in the second half of the sixth millennium BC, when mobile occupation strategies replaced a more sedentary model. An analysis of the Farafra Oasis Steinplätze is coupled with a general reassessment of the subsistence and mobility models hitherto proposed for the Eastern Sahara, suggesting an integrated occupation system for Farafra itself. The economy of the forager-herders of the middle Holocene, during the climate optimum (6900-5550 cal BC), seems to have relied significantly on herding small livestock, but also on hunting, and likely concentrated on the gathering of wild cereals such as sorghum. During the climate optimum, forms of seasonal stabilisation of the settlement strategy seem to emerge, with the alternating occupation of two different winter and summer villages consisting of clusters of stone-slab huts; short-term task-specific camps, using Steinplätze, logistically completed the system. After this phase, only short-term camps with Steinplätze were occupied. These were probably directly dependent on the wettest areas at the centre of the oases and made use of a tethered exploitation strategy, with brief movements from the central oasis (“daisy-chain” movements). The use strategies of the Steinplatz-type hearths within the mobile settlement system are outlined adopting a clear and immediately assessable model. “Yet although they are among the most distinctive of the Sahara’s archaeological features, Steinplätze have received little systematic attention in recent decades. Marina Gallinaro’s work thus marks a new phase in their study, one that draws them back into discussions of how early livestock-keeping populations in Northeast Africa used the resources and landscapes to the west of the Nile along a trajectory of increasing aridification that eventually culminated in the desert we see today (…) Lucidly written, Gallinaro’s volume will, I believe, help inspire individuals to take up the research agenda she sets out. At a time when so much of the Sahara is off-limits to archaeological fieldwork, it is deeply gratifying to see here yet more evidence of the thoroughness and high quality that have characterized the work of Italian archaeologists in this region of Africa over many decades. The continuing publication of their research, Marina Gallinaro’s included, in the Arid Zone Archaeology monograph series will surely help sustain widespread interest in Saharan archaeology until it becomes possible to excavate and survey again free of current geopolitical restrictions. May that day come soon!” Prof. Peter Mitchell, University of Oxford, UK.

Après le premier volume traitant du Paléolithique, ce second volume sur le Néolithique se développe en neuf chapitres abordant les questions d'environnement, de populations, mettant en relief les diverses expressions matérielles et spirituelles du nouveau mode de vie. Le dernier chapitre évoque les premières grandes concentrations humaines qui ont conduit aux organisations urbaines et le rôle des deux grands fleuves africains, le Nil et le Niger.

Tracing Pottery-Making Recipes in the Prehistoric Balkans 6th–4th Millennia BC is a collection of twelve chapters that capture the variety of current archaeological, ethnographic, experimental and scientific studies on Balkan prehistoric ceramic production, distribution and use. The Balkans is a culturally rich area at the present day as it was in the past. Pottery and other ceramics represent an ideal tool with which to examine this diversity and interpret its human and environmental origins. Consequently, Balkan ceramic studies is an emerging field within archaeology that serves as a testing ground for theories on topics such as technological know-how, innovation, craft tradition, cultural transmission, interaction, trade and exchange. This book brings together diverse studies by leading researchers and upcoming scholars on material from numerous Balkan countries and chronological periods that tackle these and other topics for the first time. It is a valuable resource for anyone working on Balkan archaeology and also of interest to those working on archaeological pottery from other parts of the world.

Las sepulturas Campaniformes de Humanejos es el resultado de la colaboración de distintas instituciones públicas y privadas implicadas en la conservación, investigación y difusión del rico patrimonio arqueológico de la Comunidad de Madrid. El asentamiento y necrópolis de Humanejos es uno de los más importantes que se han descubierto y excavado en los últimos años en toda España, ya que ofrece una enorme riqueza de hallazgos habitacionales y funerarios sobre uno de los periodos más interesantes de la Prehistoria reciente peninsula y europea.

Este volumen aborda, el estudio de uno de los momentos más apasionantes de la Historia de Europa, que transcurre durante la segunda mitad del tercer milenio a.C. Una etapa de intensos contactos y relaciones, que crearon un fenómeno tan singular como el Campaniforme, testimonio de profundas transformaciones económicas, sociales e ideológicas, de las que la necrópolis de Humanejos es un magnífico reflejo.

La legislación sobre Patrimonio Histórico de la Comunidad de Madrid y las distintas áreas de protección arqueo-paleontológicas inventariadas por la Dirección General de Patrimonio Cultural en todo el territorio madrileño hicieron necesario, previa a la urbanización de los terrenos, una serie de trabajos preventivos que culminaron con el descubrimiento de este importante enclave arqueológico en 2006. Varias campañas de excavación, la creación de un valiosísimo equipo multidisciplinar, formado por investigadores de prestigiosas instituciones científicas y académicas nacionales e internacionales a lo largo de más de una década han hecho posible que se materialice parte de la investigación científica que se está desarrollando sobre el yacimiento de Humanejos en esta monografía.

Gracias al marco legal e institucional vigente es posible compatibilizar la actividad económica de una región tan próspera y dinámica como Madrid, que se traduce en numerosas obras de construcción, con la salvaguarda de los yacimientos arqueológicos que se descubren en el desarrollo de muchas de ellas.

Dada la relevancia del yacimiento y del equipo de investigación, la Dirección General Patrimonio Cultural decidió participar de forma muy directa en esta investigación promoviendo los estudios analíticos, básicamente de Carbono14 y ADN, que eran ineludibles en una investigación puntera como la que aquí se presenta. Además de comprometerse con la publicación de esta monografía con un doble objetivo: por un lado, que la investigación científica conozca de forma exhaustiva estos nueve enterramientos, a través de una publicación en la que se diera gran relevancia a la documentación gráfica, dado lo excepcional del registro arqueológico y por otro, que sirviera para que los ciudadanos, conocieran y valoraran su patrimonio cultural. En suma, este libro está dirigido tanto a la comunidad científica como a todos los ciudadanos interesados en conocer su propia historia a través de datos e imágenes que la Arqueología, va desvelando poco a poco.

En sus casi 400 páginas, divididas en cuatro capítulos, está recogida la detallada descripción y análisis de los espectaculares materiales arqueológicos recuperados en la excavación de este yacimiento único, así como el contexto en el que aparecieron. Nueve tumbas han proporcionado una concentración de ajuares funerarios de una abundancia y calidad extraordinarias, que convierten a Humanejos en una referencia ineludible en la Prehistoria peninsular y europea.

Los autores del libro son Rafael Garrido-Pena, profesor del Departamento de Prehistoria y Arqueología de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Raúl Flores Fernández, arqueólogo, director de las excavaciones del yacimiento y Ana Mercedes Herrero-Corral antropóloga, del Departamento de Prehistoria de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Índice del Libro

CAPÍTULOS DEL LIBRO

1. INTRODUCCIÓN: CARACTERÍSTICAS DEL YACIMIENTO.

1.1. Localización y descubrimiento.

1.2. Marco geográfico.

1.3. La excavación arqueológica.

2. LAS SEPULTURAS CAMPANIFORMES.

2.1. Distribución y características generales.

2.2. La cronología absoluta.

2.3. Las tumbas.

2.4. La disposición de los cuerpos y los ajuares.

3. ANÁLISIS DE LOS MATERIALES ARQUEOLÓGICOS.

3.1. La cerámica campaniforme.

3.2. Los ajuares metálicos.

3.3. Otros elementos.

4. LAS SEPULTURAS CAMPANIFORMES DE HUMANEJOS EN SU CONTEXTO.

4.1. El contexto regional: el Campaniforme en la cuenca media del Tajo.

4.2. Estatus, ostentación y conflicto social en el III milenio cal AC del interior peninsular.

ANEXOS

Anexo I. Informe antropológico de los individuos de la necrópolis campaniforme de Humanejos (Parla). Ana Mercedes Herrero Corral.

Anexo II. Reevaluación de las lesiones observadas en el Individuo 1 (UE 4552) de la necrópolis de Humanejos (Parla, Madrid) ¿Lesión inciso-contusa o trepanación? Manuel Campo Martín, Óscar Cambra-Moo y Armando González Martín.

Anexo III. Estudio genómico de los individuos de Humanejos. Íñigo Olalde.

Anexo IV. Metales en las tumbas campaniformes de Humanejos (Parla, Madrid). Ignacio Montero Ruiz y Óscar García Vuelta.

Anexo V. Los ajuares metálicos de las tumbas campaniformes de Humanejos: estudio funcional. Pedro Muñoz Moro, Carmen Gutiérrez Sáez y Mª Cristina López Rodríguez.

Anexo VI. Los brazales de arquero de Humanejos: estudio funcional. Pedro Muñoz Moro.

Anexo VII. “Tiempos” de Campaniforme: análisis cronométrico de las dataciones radiocarbónicas procedentes de contextos con cerámica campaniforme en el yacimiento de Humanejos (Parla, Madrid). Íñigo García-Martínez de Lagrán y Cristina Tejedor-Rodríguez.

BIBLIOGRAFÍA

May 2019

El dolmen de Soto es uno de los mayores monumentos megalíticos de Europa. Fue publicado por H. Obermaier en 1.924 y casi cien años después, este volumen presenta la primera documentación gráfica sobre sus soportes, incluyendo análisis de pigmentos y dataciones del contexto arqueológico interno y externo del sepulcro. Su arquitectura es el resultado de las transformaciones de un centro ceremonial en un gran monumento megalítico a principios del IV milenio cal B.C. Desde el Neolítico al Bronce Final, generación tras generación, las imágenes de las paredes del dolmen de Soto perpetúan en el sepulcro de los ancestros sus nexos con el pasado.

April 2019

The papers in this special section of Open Archaeology are a selection from the International Obsidian Conference held on the island of Lipari, Italy, in June 2016. With the permission of the Regione Siciliana Assessorato dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana, and thanks to its director in 2016, Maria Amalia Mastelloni, the IOC was hosted at the Museo Luigi Bernabò Brea (Regional Pole of the Aeolian islands for cultural sites, archaeological park and Regional Archaeological Museum “Luigi Bernabò Brea”). Today, we thank the director Rosario Vilardo for adhering to the publication of the conference proceedings. Lipari is located in the center of the Mediterranean, and its own geological obsidian was widely utilized and distributed during prehistory. Obsidian is a volcanic glass that occurs only in certain geological localities around the world, and starting in the 1960s successful chemical studies have been done to identify the sources of obsidian artifacts and reconstruct distribution and trade patterns. The papers included here represent recent studies on the Mediterranean, Africa, Near East, East Asia and South America.

The Beaker People: Isotopes, Mobility and Diet in Prehistoric Britain presents the results of a major project that sought to address a century-old question about the people who were buried with Beakers a – the distinctive pottery of Continental origin that was current, predominantly in equally distinctive burials, in Britain from around 2450 BC. Who were these people? Were they immigrants and how far did they move around? What did they eat? What was their lifestyle? How do they compare with Britain’s earlier inhabitants and with contemporaries who did not use Beaker pottery? An international team of leading archaeologists and scientists, led by Professor Mike Parker Pearson, was assembled to address these questions. Around 300 skeletons were subjected to isotope analysis to explore patterns of mobility and diet, and 150 new radiocarbon dates were obtained. Dental microwear was examined for 64 individuals to provide further information about the food they had eaten, and new information on the sex and age of 201 people obtained. A comparative study was undertaken of the shape and size of Beaker users’ skulls and those of Neolithic people in the Peak District of England, to examine the long-held claim that there was a switch from long-headed to round-headed people with the appearance of Beakers. Tantalising evidence for head-binding among Neolithic people was found. The range of objects found in Beaker graves was reviewed. In addition, the Beaker People Project was able to incorporate the results of another project, focusing on Beaker users in north-east Scotland (The Beakers and Bodies Project) along with other recently obtained data, including ancient DNA results. Overall, new light has been shed on 369 people: 333 Beaker and non-Beaker users from the core 2500–1500 BC period, along with 17 from the Neolithic and 19 from after 1500 BC. While the genetic data provide convincing evidence for immigration by Continental Beaker users, the isotopic data indicate a more detailed picture of movements, mostly of fairly short distances within Britain, by the descendants of the first Beaker users. This lavishly illustrated book presents a body of data that will be vital to studies of Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Britain for decades to come.

Since 2001, archaeological research has been conducted in the Molène Archipelago, an area that is particularly rich in remains from the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, with an exceptional concentration of megalithic monuments. Several settlements are attested by the presence of domestic refuse dumps. At the point of Beg ar Loued (Molène Island), one of those shell middens was the object of an initial sondage in 2003, and that marked the beginning of a long series of excavations. Fieldwork took a decisive turn during the second year with the recognition of the first dry stone walls, belonging to a building preserved within the sand dunes. For nearly a decade, this site has been excavated by an interdisciplinary team. The data that have been obtained from this fieldwork provide information on the chronology of the various periods of occupation of the site and help to document the 3rd–2nd millennium BC transition, a period still largely unknown in the northern half of France. In addition to providing a relative chronology, the architectural approach gives us a better understanding of the choices that governed the different construction phases of the building, which was occupied for over three centuries. The elements of material culture (pottery, lithics, metalwork) also shed light on a period essentially known in Brittany through its funerary monuments. For the first time in this region, thanks to the preservation of organic remains, it is possible to sketch the lifestyle (livestock management, agriculture, fishing, shell gathering, etc.) of the people who occupied the shores of the Iroise Sea. In order to understand better the overall trends in this insular environment, new researches have been carried out on sea level changes in tandem with the study of the palaeoenvironment, geomorphology, geology and wildlife.

Yvan Pailler defended his PhD in 2004 at the University of Western Brittany (UBO, Brest) on the theme of the emergence of Neolithic in Brittany by interrogating especially polished stone objects. From 2005 to 2007, he completed a first post-doctorate at the Department of Archaeology at National Museums Scotland where he worked on the appearance of the Neolithic in Great Britain and Ireland and its links with the continent and is interested in parallel production of polished stone blades socially valued. In 2007, he began a second post-doc (CNRS) of three years as part of the ANR Jade 1 program directed by P. Pétrequin. Since 2010, he has been recruited as scientific officer for archaeological operations at the French National Institute for Rescue Archaeology (Inrap), as Neolithic specialist. He is also a member of the Trajectoires laboratory, UMR 8215 (co-supervised Paris 1 / CNRS). He has directed many archaeological operations (excavations, diagnoses and surveys); he is also involved in several research programs (PCR Bronze in Brittany, ANR Jade 2, etc.). Hosted since 2013 in LETG laboratory (UMR 6554) at the European Institute for Marine Studies (IUEM, Plouzané), he develops interdisciplinary projects around human / environmental relations and teaches Prehistory at UBO.

Clément Nicolas is a postdoctoral researcher at the laboratory UMR 8215 Trajectoires (Nanterre, France). His researches focus on the first metalworking societies during the IIIrd and the IInd millennia BCE in Europe. As lithic specialist, he led studies on productions and functions of fancy archery-related items (arrowheads, bracers and so on) in several countries in order to track their biographies and their relations to social hierarchies: in France, Britain and Denmark during his PhD, in Central Europe as a postdoctoral fellow of the Foundation Fyssen. He works as well on the questions of craftsmanship and Atlantic exchange networks through the studies of a range of grave goods (metal artefacts, jewellery).

In the meanwhile, he developed a field approach in Brittany leading or participating to several surveys and excavations on Neolithic and Early Bronze Age periods. These researches aim to study the territories and the structures of human settings (graves, settlements, field systems…) to provide a better understanding of the rise of highly stratified societies.

Recently with Sidestone Press (2016), he published his PhD on prestigious arrowheads ‘Flèches de pouvoir à l’aube de la métallurgie de la Bretagne au Danemark (2500-1700 av. n. è.).

The discovery in 2001 of an exquisite Early Bronze Age gold cup at Ringlemere Farm in Kent prompted an extensive survey and excavation of the site from 2002–2006. Excavation revealed a site with a long history of use, the most striking evidence being for intensive activity in the third millennium BC associated with a henge monument, the interior of which was later buried beneath an Early Bronze Age mound.

This volume presents a detailed report on a rich array of structural and artifactual evidence spanning a few thousand years of prehistory, and the site’s subsequent slide into agricultural anonymity. Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age structures include a horseshoe setting, post alignments, hearths, pit clusters and varied small post settings. Evaluation of form and associated material culture steers interpretation away from the purely domestic and contributes to the keen ongoing debate about the place of ceremony in the world of third millennium Britain.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Summary

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: Introduction (Keith Parfitt)

Chapter 2: Pre-mound land surface, associated structures and activity (Stuart Needham and Keith Parfitt)

Chapter 3: Enclosure and Mound (Stuart Needham and Keith Parfitt)

Chapter 4: Post-mound: cultivation, cemetery, land demarcation and warren (Keith Parfitt and Stuart Needham)

Chapter 5: The finds, environmental and dating evidence (Frances Healy, Alex Gibson, Nigel Macpherson-Grant, Gill Varndell, Ralph Jackson, Rob Ixer, Jen Heathcote, Wendy Carruthers, Louise Martin and Paul Linford)

Chapter 6: Phasing the site sequence (Stuart Needham and Keith Parfitt)

Chapter 7: Ceremonial living in the third millennium BC (Stuart Needham)

Bibliography

Index

This volume brings together two groups engaged with understanding the relationships between religion and violence. The first group consists of scholars of the mimetic theory of René Girard, for whom human violence is rooted in the rivalry that stems from imitation. To manage this violence of all against all, humans often turn to violence against one, the scapegoat, thereafter incorporated into ritual. The second group consists of archaeologists working at the Neolithic sites of Çatalhöyük and Göbekli Tepe in Turkey. At both sites there is evidence of religious practices that center on wild animals, often large and dangerous in form. Is it possible that these wild animals were ritually killed in the ways suggested by Girardian theorists? Were violence and the sacred intimately entwined and were these the processes that made possible and even stimulated the origins of farming in the ancient Near East? In this volume, Ian Hodder and a team of contributors seek to answer these questions by linking theory and data in exciting new ways.

The second half of the seventh millennium BC saw the end of the previously affluent and dynamic Neolithic way of life. The period marks significant social and economic transformations of local communities, as manifested in new patterns of architecture and burial practices as well as in chipped stone and pottery manufacture. This volume looks at these issues in the context of the ancient Near East. Changes in different parts of the Near East to putting developments in major areas of the Neolithic occupation into a broader comparative perspective. Social and ideological changes taking place at the end of Neolithic and the beginning of the Chalcolithic periods. Considering these changes, it is possible to explain the emergence of a new social system, as well as consequences of this process for the development of full-fledged farming communities in the region and beyond. Changes in subsistence strategies, exploitation of the environment, modes of procurement, consumption, and distribution of different resources.

“No me cabe duda de que Catálogo de la Exposición ¡UN BRINDIS POR EL PRÍNCIPE! El Vaso Campaniforme en el interior de la Península Ibérica (2500 – 2000 a. C.), está llamado a convertirse en un manual de obligada consulta en ámbitos campaniformes, y que todo anaquel que quiera considerarse atento a las novedades en arqueología prehistórica contara con un ejemplar del mismo.”

Enrique Baquedano. Director del Museo Arqueológico Regional de la Comunidad de Madrid

El relato del presente se construye desde los cimientos de un pasado que en demasiadas ocasiones se sesga y se moldea para acomodarlo a unas determinadas ideas. Pero la Historia tiene la virtud, cuando se aborda desde el rigor y sin prejuicios, de contradecir conceptos, cuestionar lo que creíamos saber y ofrecer nuevas perspectivas sobre nuestra circunstancia. En un tiempo como el que nos toca vivir, donde la crisis en tantos frentes nos lleva a la búsqueda de valores perdurables y de una identidad cada vez más diluida, la Europa de mediados del tercer milenio antes de Cristo nos depara una apasionante sorpresa.

La exposición ¡Un brindis por el príncipe! dedicada a la cultura campaniforme, lejos de mostrarnos una foto fija de pueblos distintos con diferentes idiosincrasias, nos permite descubrir un continente en ebullición, con ricos contactos comerciales y sociales, pero, sobre todo, caracterizado por la implantación de una cultura común entre las élites de lugares tan alejados como Andalucía y Escocia. Estamos, por tanto, con sus peculiaridades, ante una primera koiné de distintos pueblos europeos plasmada en un ritual asociado al enterramiento de miembros prestigiosos de una comunidad y que tiene como representante material al famoso vaso campaniforme.

Más allá de eso, avances que han revolucionado la arqueología como los estudios de ADN nos revelan un mapa genético complejo, donde individuos frecuentemente asociados a los secretos de la metalurgia eran enterrados con honores a miles de kilómetros de sus lugares de origen, al tiempo que su memoria y herencia genética se perpetuaban entre los pueblos de acogida.

En palabras del gran arqueólogo Jean Guiliaine, que inaugura Catálogo de la Exposición ¡UN BRINDIS POR EL PRÍNCIPE! El Vaso Campaniforme en el interior de la Península Ibérica (2500 – 2000 a. C.), “[…] los arqueólogos denominan <<cultura>> a un conjunto de elementos materiales, tipos de emplazamientos de habitación y de enterramiento que aparecen estrechamente relacionados de forma reiterada en un mismo espacio y periodo temporal; esto les confiere una coherencia identitaria y les distingue de otros conjuntos homólogos. Sin embargo, este método de clasificación puede resultar poco eficaz cuando se utiliza para volar el sentido de producciones que transcienden ampliamente dichos conjuntos y, consecuentemente, adquiere un sentido transcultural: el fenómeno de la cultura campaniforme, al menos en sus inicios, responde a este segundo modelo […]”.

Este Catálogo de la Exposición ¡UN BRINDIS POR EL PRÍNCIPE! El Vaso Campaniforme en el interior de la Península Ibérica (2500 – 2000 a. C.) recoge los estudios más punteros y recientes sobre una manifestación cultural que, de nuevo, aúna a investigaciones de la Península Ibérica, Inglaterra o Europa del Este en el esfuerzo compartido de arrojar luz sobre el pasado común.

La exposición, que se centra en los hallazgos realizados en el interior de la Península Ibérica sin perder de vista la naturaleza internacional del fenómeno, es el punto de partida de toda una serie de iniciativas en este ámbito, entre ellas la publicación de este Catálogo de la Exposición ¡UN BRINDIS POR EL PRÍNCIPE! El Vaso Campaniforme en el interior de la Península Ibérica (2500 – 2000 a. C.). La organización de la muestra, comisariada por Germán Delibes, catedrático de la Universidad de Valladolid, y Elisa Guerra, profesora titular de la misma universidad, ha implicado a todo el equipo del Museo en una gestión compleja por el gran número de prestadores de piezas, entre ellos y en especial, los museos de Castilla y León.

Libros como este Catálogo de la Exposición ¡UN BRINDIS POR EL PRÍNCIPE! El Vaso Campaniforme en el interior de la Península Ibérica (2500 – 2000 a. C.) y la exposición de la que surge, se hacen más necesarios que nunca cuando el proyecto de una Europa unida bajo principios supranacionales parece ceder ante lo que nos divide, unas peculiaridades locales enraizadas en la historia nos revelan un sustrato común en los albores de las sociedades complejas. En definitiva, nos demuestran que compartimos mucho más de lo que creemos o nos quieren hacer creer.

Edición Científica: German Delibes y Elisa Guerra

European studies of the Bell Beaker phenomenon have concentrated on burial and artefacts that constitute its the most visible aspects. This volume concentrates on the domestic sphere – assemblage composition, domestic structures (how they differ, if at all, from previous types, legacies), and provides the first pan-European synthesis of its kind. It is a Europe-wide survey and analysis of Bell Beaker settlement structures; this is particularly important as we cannot understand the Bell Beaker phenomenon by analysing graves alone. Neither should we view Bell Beakers in isolation but must consider the effect that they had on already existing Late Neolithic cultures in the areas in which they appear. This volume is therefore intended to view the settlement aspect of Bell Beakers in context throughout Europe. It is the text book for Chalcolithic settlements and society. Contributors to the 19 papers belong to Europe-wide affiliation of experts specialising in Bell Beakers and the Chalcolithic (Archeologie et Gobelets) which addresses common pan-European issues surrounding the appearance and spread of Bell Beakers. This book summarises that data from the UK and many of the continental European countries; an increasingly important element of Beaker studies following recent isotopic and DNA evidence showing that the phenomenon was a result of human migration and not that of cultural ideas, trade and ideology. Each chapter deals with a defined region or country and is fully illustrated, including a corpus of Beaker houses and comparing then with Late Neolithic domestic structures where they are known to exist. The following themes will be addressed: 1. Regional syntheses in the UK and in Europe; 2.What native cultures existed before the arrival of Bell Beakers?; 3. What domestic ceramics were being used before the arrival of Bell Beakers?; 4. What stone and flint types were in use?; 5. What did pre-Bell Beaker houses look like? What size were they?; 6. What (if any) changes to 1–4 above resulted after the appearance of Bell Beakers?

Introduction By Alex Gibson

1. The South Portugal perspective. Beaker sites or sites with Beakers? By Carlos Valera, Rui Mataloto and Ana Catarina Basílio

2. Settlement in the north-west Iberian peninsula in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC By M. Pilar Prieto-Martínez

3. Living with Beakers in the interior of Iberia By Rafael Garrido-Pena

4. Bell Beaker settlements in Andalusia By María Lazarich

5. Beaker settlements in Mediterranean France in their cultural context By Olivier Lemercier, Émilie Blaise, Fabien Convertini, Robin Furestier, Christophe Gilabert and Matthieu Labaune

6. Bell Beaker evidence in the domestic sphere of island contexts: Sardinia and Sicily By Maria Grazia Melis

7. Bell Beaker settlements in northern and central Italy By Marco Baioni, Fabio Martini, Franco Nicolis, Raffaella Poggiani Keller and Lucia Sarti

8. Continuity or rupture? Investigating domestic structures during the Final Neolithic and the Bell Beaker culture in central-eastern France and western Switzerland By Marie Besse, Eve Derenne, Lucas Anchieri, Aude Baumberger and Martine Piguet

9. Bell Beaker settlements in southern Germany By Christian Strahm

10. Late Neolithic and Bell Beaker settlements and houses in (eastern) Austria By Daniela Kern, Günter Morschhauser, Martin Penz and Oliver Schmitsberger

11. Bohemia and Moravia – local and Beaker: Bell Beaker domestic sites in the context of the Late Eneolithic/Early Bronze Age cultural sequence By Jan Turek

12. Houses and settlements of the Bell Beaker groups in the Carpathian Basin: cultural and economical contexts By László Reményi, Anna Endrődi, Ferenc Gyulai and Katalin T. Biró

13. Settlements and social development of the third millennium BC in central Germany By André Spatzier and Torsten Schunke

14. Bell Beaker domestic sites and houses in the Polish Lands: Odra and Vistula catchments By Janusz Czebreszuk and Marzena Szmyt

15. Bell Beaker settlements in Denmark By Torben Sarauw

16. An overview of Bell Beaker house plans in the Netherlands By J.P. Kleijne and E. Drenth

17. Beaker domestic architecture in Britain and Ireland By Alex Gibson

18. The introduction of the Bell Beaker culture in Atlantic France: an overview of settlements By Clément Nicolas, Quentin Favrel, Lolita Rousseau, Vincent Ard, Stéphane Blanchet, Klet Donnart, Nicolas Fromont, Lorraine Manceau, Cyril Marcigny, Pablo Marticorena, Théophane Nicolas, Yvan Pailler and Julien Ripoche

19. Where have all the houses gone? Or times they are a changin’ By Alex Gibson

This volume presents a selection of papers delivered at the Archéologie et Gobelets Bell Beaker workshop “Think global, act local”, held between the 17th and the 21st of May 2017 at Kiel University, Germany. The Archeologie et Gobelets is a research community and network of archaeological specialists from all across Europe who meet every few years, discussing new findings and research concerning the Bell Beaker phenomenon and the wider 3rd millennium BC in Europe.

Jos Kleijne - Editorial: Think Global, Act Local! The Archéologie et Gobelets workshop in Kiel and some future perspectives for research into the 3rd millennium BC DOI: https://doi.org/10.12766/jna.2018S.2

Maria de Jesus Sanches and Maria Helena Barbosa - Campaniforme: chronology, pottery, and contexts of a long term phenomenon in the Portuguese Douro Basin DOI: https://doi.org/10.12766/jna.2018S.3

Miriam Alba Luzón, Gabriel García Atiénzar - Beaker pottery in the Peñón de la Zorra (Alicante, Spain): Change and emergence of social complexity between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age DOI: https://doi.org/10.12766/jna.2018S.4

Olivier Lemercier - Think and Act. Local Data and Global Perspectives in Bell Beaker Archaeology DOI: https://doi.org/10.12766/jna.2018S.5

Jessica Ryan, Jocelyne Desideri, and Marie Besse - Bell Beaker Archers: Warriors or an Ideology? DOI: https://doi.org/10.12766/jna.2018S.6

Jan de Koning, Erik Drenth - Heiloo-Craenenbroeck. A Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age settlement on the western coast of the Netherlands DOI: https://doi.org/10.12766/jna.2018S.7

Ralf Lehmphul - Bell Beaker common ware and Giant Beakers. A Final Neolithic to Early Bronze Age settlement model based on the sequence of site Altgaul, Brandenburg DOI: https://doi.org/10.12766/jna.2018S.8

John Simonsen - Beaker Longhouses: Livelihood Specialization and Settlement Continuity in North Jutland DOI: https://doi.org/10.12766/jna.2018S.9

Jaroslav Bartík, Jerzy Kopacz, Miriam Nývltová Fišáková, Antonín Přichystal, Lubomír Šebela, Petr Škrdla - The Question of Chert Exploitation by Bell Beaker People on Stránská skála Hill (Brno-Slatina,Czech Republic) DOI: https://doi.org/10.12766/jna.2018S.10

Michael Bilger - Der Glockenbecher in Europa – eine KartierungThe mapping of the Bell Beaker in European DOI: https://doi.org/10.12766/jna.2018S.11

The Chalcolithic period in Cyprus has been known since Porphyrios Dikaios’ excavations at Erimi in the 1930s and through the appearance in the antiquities market of illicitly acquired anthropomorphic cruciform figures, often manufactured from picrolite, a soft blue-green stone. The excavations of the settlement and cemetery at Souskiou Laona reported on in this volume paint a very different picture of life on the island during the late 4th and early 3rd millennia BC. Burial practices at other known sites are generally single inhumations in intramural pit graves, only rarely equipped with artefacts. At Souskiou, multiple inhumations were interred in deep rock-cut tombs clustered in extra-mural cemeteries. Although the sites were also subjected to extensive looting, excavations have revealed complex multi-stage burial practices with arrangements of disarticulated and articulated burials accompanied by a rich variety of grave goods. Chief among these are a multitude of cruciform figurines and pendants. This unusual treatment of the dead, which has not been recorded elsewhere in Cyprus, shifts the focus from the individual to the communal, and provides evidence for significant changes involving kinship group links to common ancestors. Excavations at the Laona settlement have furnished evidence suggesting that it functioned as a specialised centre for the procurement and manufacture of picrolite during its early phase. The subsequent decline of picrolite production and the earliest known occurrence of new types of ornaments, such as faience beads and copper spiral pendants, attest to important changes involving the transformation of personal and social identities during the first centuries of the 3rd millennium BC, a topic that forms a central theme of this final report on the site.

This book deals with the question how communities across Europe during the later 3rd millennium BC adopt and transform the Bell Beaker phenomenon differently. By looking at these processes of change from the perspective of settlements and settlement material culture, an interpretation is given to the development of this phenomenon that is alternative to the currently prevailing migration models.

Instead, the author uses social theories on the spread of innovations, the development and functioning of communication networks and the social technologies involved in the production of material culture in his arguments. For the first time, settlements from various regions of Europe are studied at the same level and compared using modern research methods such as aoristic frequency distributions, the Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon dates and network analyses. Temporal and spatial variability in the regional processes that lead to the adoption (and rejection!) of Bell Beaker innovations are described in detail. The regional variability in communication between settlements, and the exchange of ideas and objects and mobility of people are combined with sociological network theories on the spread and adoption of novel ideas. Regional differences in the production of pottery are reviewed by both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Finally, a Bell Beaker network is described in which various processes of innovation adoption and subsequent re-invention, developing communication networks and different forms of mobility take part.

Dr. Jos Kleijne (1987, Beverwijk, the Netherlands) is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC 1266) ‘Scales of Transformation’ at Kiel University in Germany. Between November 2014 and March 2018 he wrote his PhD at the Graduate School ‘Human Development in Landscapes’ at Kiel University.

For many centuries, scholars and enthusiasts have been fascinated by Stonehenge, the world’s most famous stone circle. In 2003 a team of archaeologists commenced a long-term fieldwork project for the first time in decades. The Stonehenge Riverside Project (2003-2009) aimed to investigate the purpose of this unique prehistoric monument by considering it within its wider archaeological context.

This is the first of four volumes which present the results of that campaign. It includes investigations of the monuments and landscape that pre-dated Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain as well as of excavation at Stonehenge itself. The main discovery at Stonehenge was of cremated human remains from many individuals, allowing their demography, health and dating to be established. With a revised radiocarbon-dated chronology for Stonehenge’s five stages of construction, these burials can now be considered within the context of the monument’s development. The different types of stone from which Stonehenge is formed – bluestones from Wales and sarsen silcretes from more local sources – are investigated both at Stonehenge and in its surroundings. These surrounding monuments include single standing stones, the Cuckoo Stone and the Tor Stone, as well as the newly discovered circle of Bluestonehenge at West Amesbury beside the River Avon. The ceremonial Stonehenge Avenue, linking Stonehenge to Bluestonehenge, is also included, based on a series of excavations along its length.

The working hypothesis behind the Stonehenge Riverside Project links Stonehenge with a complex of timber monuments upstream at the great henge of Durrington Walls and neighbouring Woodhenge. Whilst these other sites are covered in a later volume (Volume 3), this volume explores the role of the River Avon and its topographic and environmental evidence.

With contributions by:

Umberto Albarella, Michael Allen, Olaf Bayer, Wayne Bennett, Richard Bevins, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Chris Casswell, Andrew Chamberlain, Benjamin Chan, Rosamund Cleal, Gordon Cook, Glyn Davies, David Field, Charles French, Robert Ixer, Neil Linford, Peter Marshall, Louise Martin, Claudia Minniti, Doug Mitcham, Bob Nunn, Andy Payne, Mike Pitts, Rebecca Pullen, Julian Richards, David Robinson, Clive Ruggles, Jim Rylatt, Rob Scaife, Ellen Simmons, Charlene Steele, James Sugrue, Anne Teather, Sarah Viner, Tony Waldron, Katy Whitaker and Christie Willis

For many centuries, scholars and enthusiasts have been fascinated by Stonehenge, the world’s most famous stone circle. In 2003 a team of archaeologists commenced a long-term fieldwork project for the first time in decades. The Stonehenge Riverside Project (2003-2009) aimed to investigate the purpose of this unique prehistoric monument by considering it within its wider archaeological context.

This is the second of four volumes which present the results of that campaign. It includes studies of the lithics from excavations, both from topsoil sampling and from excavated features, as well as of the petrography of the famous bluestones, as identified from chippings recovered during excavations. Other specialist syntheses are those of the land mollusca. The volume provides an overview of Stonehenge in its landscape over millennia from before the monument was built to the last of its five constructional stages. It concludes with a chapter placing Stonehenge in its full context within Britain and western Europe during the third millennium BC.

With contributions by:

Umberto Albarella, Michael Allen, Richard Bevins, Benjamin Chan, Robert Ixer, Claudia Minniti, Doug Mitcham and Sarah Viner-Daniels

Dolmens are iconic international monumental constructions which represent the first megalithic architecture (after menhirs) in north-west Europe. These monuments are characterised by an enormous capstone balanced on top of smaller uprights. However, previous investigations of these extraordinary monuments have focussed on three main areas of debate. First, typology has been a dominant feature of discussion, particularly the position of dolmens in the ordering of chambered tombs. Second, attention has been placed not on how they were built but how they were used. Finally much debate has centred on their visual appearance (whether they were covered by mounds or cairns). This book provides a reappraisal of the ‘dolmen’ as an architectural entity and provides an alternative perspective on function. This is achieved through a re-theorising of the nature of megalithic architecture grounded in the results of a new research/fieldwork project covering Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia. It is argued that instead of understanding dolmen simply as chambered tombs these were multi-faceted monuments whose construction was as much to do with enchantment and captivation as it was with containing the dead. Consequently, the presence of human remains within dolmens is also critically evaluated and a new interpretation offered.

Western Iberia has one of the richest inventories of Neolithic chambered tombs in Atlantic Europe, with particular concentrations in Galicia, northern Portugal and the Alentejo. Less well known is the major concentration of tombs along the Tagus valley, straddling the Portuguese-Spanish frontier. Within this cluster is the Anta da Lajinha, a small megalithic tomb in the hill-country north of the River Tagus. Badly damaged by forest fire and stone removal, it was the subject of joint British-Portuguese excavations in 2006-2008, accompanied by environmental investigations and OSL dating. This volume takes the recent excavations at Lajinha and the adjacent site of Cabeço dos Pendentes as the starting point for a broader consideration of the megalithic tombs of western Iberia. Key themes addressed are relevant to megalithic tombs more generally, including landscape, chronology, settlement and interregional relationships. Over what period of time were these tombs built and used? Do they form a horizon of intensive monument construction, or were the tombs the product of a persistent, long-lived tradition? How do they relate to the famous rock art of the Tagus valley, and to the cave burials and open-air settlements of the region, in terms of chronology and landscape? A final section considers the Iberian tombs within the broader family of west European megalithic monuments, focusing on chronologies, parallels and patterns of contact. Did the Iberian tombs emerge through connections with older established megalithic traditions in other regions such as Brittany, or whether they are the outcome of more general processes operating among Atlantic Neolithic societies?

Textile production and the manufacture of clothing was one of the most essential daily activities in prehistory. Textiles were significant objects of practical use, and at the same time had cultural, social and symbolic meaning, crucial for displaying the identity, gender, social rank and status, or wealth of their users. However, evidence of ancient clothing is scarce due to unfavourable preservation of organic materials. Only occasionally are prehistoric textiles and associated implements preserved, mainly as a result of exceptional environmental conditions, such as waterlogged contexts like bogs, or in very dry or cold climates. In other cases textiles are sporadically mineralised, carbonised or preserved by metal corrosion. Textiles and leather can also be visible as imprints on clay. The beginning of textile manufacture is still vague, but can be traced back to the upper Palaeolithic. Important developments in textile technology, e.g. weaving, spinning with a spindle, introduction of wool, appeared in Europe and the Mediterranean throughout the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age. This book is devoted to the early textile production in Europe and the Mediterranean and aims to collect and investigate the combined evidence of textile and leather remains, tools, workplaces and textile iconography. The chapters discuss the recent achievements in the research of ancient textiles and textile production, textile techniques such as spinning, fabric and skin manufacture, use of textile tools and experimental textile archaeology. The volume explores important cultural and social aspects of textile production, and its development.

This study explores and demonstrates processes of cultural change in the first half of the 6th millennium cal BC, among the Körös and Starčevo groups of the northern marginal zones of the Balkans. Within this period and zone, which forms the southern part of the Carpathian basin, clay was the fundamental and most abundant building block of material culture, architecture, everyday life and cult practices. Clay walls, furniture, ten thousands of vessels, hundreds of clay figurines and other cult objects accumulated as huge piles of clay debris in every settlement. Traditional system of subsistence patterns ceased to fully function when these first farmers occupied cool and wet hilly forested landscapes: the environmental and cognitive challenges gradually led to the decline of this clay-centred orbit. At the same time, these changes gave birth to a no-less stunning world constructed more of timber and stones, with transformations in subsistence, material culture and rituals. This transition is inextricably bound up with the formation of the first farmers’ communities of Central Europe, the Bandkeramik (LBK). The need for new elements of subsistence involved the increasing significance of cattle over caprinae: this shift infiltrated into ritual activities. The newly identified large horned cattle figurine type, acting as the cornerstone of this study, is an embodiment of the last instance among the South-East european communities of the clay world, while changes in the depictions already reflect the transformation of lifestyles. The role of cattle and their monumental depictions, found in domestic contexts, define methods for unfolding this phenomenon. In this fascinating new study, Eszter Bánffy takes a holistic approach to the definition of monumental early Neolithic clay figurines, analogies over South-east Europe, and the reconstruction of rituals involved in the making and using figurines. She reviews a broad scope of environmental and (social) zooarchaeological analyses to examine the concomitant development and significance of early dairying. The target is to present one possible narrative on the fading of the South-east European ’clayscapes‘, towards the birth of the LBK and the Central European Neolithic.

The social processes involved in acquiring flint and stone in the Neolithic began to be considered over thirty years ago, promoting a more dynamic view of past extraction processes. Whether by quarrying, mining or surface retrieval, the geographic source locations of raw materials and their resultant archaeological sites have been approached from different methodological and theoretical perspectives. In recent years this has included the exploration of previously undiscovered sites, refined radiocarbon dating, comparative ethnographic analysis and novel analytical approaches to stone tool manufacture and provenancing. The aim of this volume in the Neolithic Studies Group Papers is to explore these new findings on extraction sites and their products. How did the acquisition of raw materials fit into other aspects of Neolithic life and social networks? How did these activities merge in creating material items that underpinned cosmology, status and identity? What are the geographic similarities, constraints and variables between the various raw materials, and how does the practise of stone extraction in the UK relate to wider extractive traditions in northwestern Europe? Eight papers address these questions and act as a useful overview of the current state of research on the topic.

Excavations at Chalk Hill, Ramsgate in south-eastern Britain were primarily aimed at investigating the remains of a possible early Neolithic causewayed enclosure visible on aerial photographs. However, the monument could not in fact be categorised as a causewayed enclosure, but instead represented a type of early Neolithic ritual monument unique to the British Isles.

The earliest significant features recorded on the site dated to the early Neolithic (roughly 3700–3600 cal BC). They took the form of three concentric arcs of intercutting pit clusters forming discrete ‘segments’, the fills of which produced rich assemblages of pottery, flintwork, animal bone and other material. Much of this material appeared to have been deliberately placed in the pits rather than representing casual disposal of refuse. There are indications that material placed in different pits at different times may have derived from the same source, a ‘midden’ or some such which was not located during the excavations. The pit clusters appeared to have resulted from repeated pit-digging in the same location over an extended period of time. The site therefore contributes a more nuanced understanding of the heterogeneity of monumental architecture in the early Neolithic of the British Isles.

This report is therefore critical for understanding the early Neolithisation of southern Britain, the relations between Neolithic incomers and indigenous Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, the potential creolisation of different cultural groups and cross-Channel relations in the early 4th Millennium BC.

The site probably went out of use in around 3600 cal BC, and subsequent use of the landscape in the Bronze Age and later periods is evocative of the perception of ‘special places’ in the landscape long after they were abandoned.

With contributions by Enid Allison, Alex Bayliss, Robin Bendrey, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Kate Clark, Alex Gibson, Chris Green, Louise Harrison, Frances Healy, Linda Hurcombe, Rob Ixer, Jacqueline McKinley, Barbara McNee, Ruth Pelling, Nicola Powell, Louise Rayner, Paula Reimer, Johannes van der Plicht, Alasdair Whittle and Tania Wilson

The fifth millennium is characterized by far-flung contacts and a veritable flood of innovations. While its beginning is still strongly reminiscent of a broadly Linearbandkeramik way of life, at its end we find new, inter-regionally valid forms of symbolism, representation and ritual behaviour, changes in the settlement system, in architecture and in routine life. Yet, these inter-regional tendencies are paired with a profusion of increasingly small-scale archaeological cultures, many of them defined through pottery only. This tension between large-scale interaction and more local developments remains ill understood, largely because inter-regional comparisons are lacking.

Contributors in this volume provide up-to-date regional overviews of the main developments in the fifth millennium and discuss, amongst others, in how far ceramically-defined ‘cultures’ can be seen as spatially coherent social groups with their own way of life and worldview, and how processes of innovation can be understood.

Case studies range from the Neolithisation of the Netherlands, hunter-gatherer – farmer fusions in the Polish Lowlands, to the Italian Neolithic. Amongst others, they cover the circulation of stone disc-rings in western Europe, the formation of post-LBK societies in central Europe and the reliability of pottery as an indicator for social transformations.

Ralf Gleser holds the chair of Pre- and Protohistory at Münster University. One of his main research interests is the cultural development of central and south-east Europe in the Neolithic and Copper Age, with a particular focus on identities and material culture, early metallurgy, culture areas and cultural boundaries in the fifth and fourth millennia BC.

Daniela Hofmann is a Junior Professor at Hamburg University, where she teaches and researches chiefly on the Neolithic of central Europe. Her main areas of interest are the application of scientific methods to narratives of prehistoric life, as well as the role of material culture and social practices (burial, structured deposition, figurines, architecture) in bringing about or resisting change.

March 2019

Jean Guilaine is professor emeritus at the Collège de France, academic advisor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and a member of the Institut. Considered one of the preeminent specialists of the Neolithic, he is the author of Les Chemins de la protohistoire and La Seconde Naissance de l’homme.

“I have lived for archeology. I have devoted my energy, my determination to it. I am aware of how privileged I have been to spend all my time exploring, digging, traveling, reporting, writing, teaching, and, of course, learning about that fundamental change that our ancestors undertook in becoming farmers.” J. G.

Having begun in his native Occitania, Jean Guilaine’s passion for archeological research extended to the entire Mediterranean Basin: the Iberian Peninsula, Andorra, Southern Italy, Sicily, Greece, and Cyprus. His focus: the ten millennia that led the last hunter-gatherer societies toward the ancient urbanized world.

Ten protohistoric millennia are thus described and scrutinized here, through the story of a life of science, a story that also describes, not without humor, the path, the vicissitudes, the institutions, and the main characters involved. All of which ultimately culminated in front of an audience at the Collège de France in the teaching of an essential period in the trajectory of humanity, a period whose full significance Jean Guilaine has been able to convey.

With contributions by Lawrence Brown, Sue Colledge, Robert Giegengack, Thomas Higham, Vladimir Hršak, Anthony Legge†, Drago Marguš, Sarah McClure, Carol Palmer, Emil Podrug, Kelly Reed, Jennifer Smith, and Joško Zaninović.

The origins and spread of farming are vital subjects of research, notably because agriculture makes possible our modern world. The Early Farming in Dalmatia Project is investigating the expansion of farming from its centre of origin in western Asia through the Mediterranean into southern Europe. This multidisciplinary ecological project combines comprehensive recovery of archaeological materials through excavation with landscape studies. It addresses several key questions, including when and how farming reached Dalmatia, what was the nature of this new economy, and what was its impact on the local environment. Excavations at Danilo Bitinj and Pokrovnik have demonstrated that their inhabitants were full-time farmers. The two sites were among the largest known Neolithic villages in the eastern Adriatic. A comprehensive program of AMS dating indicates that together they were occupied from c. 8,000 to 6,800 cal BP. Our research has begun to illuminate the details of their farming system, as well as the changes that took place in their way of life through the Neolithic. Their economy was derived from western Asia and it is likely that their ancestors came from there also. It was these people who brought agriculture and village life to the Adriatic and to the rest of the central and western Mediterranean. Once in place, this farming economy persisted in much the same form from the Neolithic down to the present.

About the Authors

ANDREW MOORE’s archaeological interests span the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and Europe. His principal research focus is the beginning of agriculture and sedentary life in the Middle East and their spread to Africa and Eurasia. Moore has conducted field research in Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Croatia and other countries. In the 1970s Moore excavated the site of Abu Hureyra in the Euphrates Valley in Syria threatened by the construction of a new dam. The site was significant because it documented the transition from foraging to farming 13,000 years ago, much earlier than had been suspected. Moore is currently investigating the spread of farming around the Mediterranean and into southern Europe. He is co-director with Marko Menđušić of the Early Farming in Dalmatia Project. The project has demonstrated that agriculture reached the Adriatic region as a mature mixed farming system 8,000 years ago, brought in from farther east by migrating farmers. Moore’s M.A. and D.Phil. degrees are from the University of Oxford. He has taught archaeology at the University of Arizona and Yale University. Past President of the Archaeological Institute of America, Moore is currently Professor and Dean Emeritus at Rochester Institute of Technology.

MARKO MENĐUŠIĆ is a prehistoric archaeologist specializing in the Neolithic of Croatia. He was born in the village of Pokrovnik near Šibenik, in a farming family that traces its roots as far back as the seventeenth century. After graduating from the University of Zagreb he became Curator for Archaeology in the Šibenik City Museum and, in time, head of the Archaeological Department there. Menđušić has excavated numerous prehistoric and later sites in northern Dalmatia and on the offshore islands. He has also organized many exhibitions in museums in Croatia. In 2000 Menđušić invited Andrew Moore to join him in developing the Early Farming in Dalmatia Project, and has been co-director of the project since its inception. Menđušić became head of the Conservation Department of the Ministry of Culture in Šibenik in 2004. His responsibilities included preservation of historic buildings in the region at a time of rapidly increasing development. A long-standing member of the Croatian Archaeological Society, his distinguished service as Vice President and in other capacities was honoured with the Don Šime Ljubić Award. Recently retired, Menđušić continues to participate in excavations while maintaining his family’s farming interests.

The objective of this book is the reconsideration of the practices of personal adornment during the Neolithic period in Greece, through the assemblage, extensive bibliographic documentation, and critical evaluation of all the available data deriving from more than a hundred sites in the mainland and the Aegean islands –an archaeological archive of wide geographical and chronological scope. In addition, a thorough study of the personal ornament corpus from the Middle-Late Neolithic Dispilio in Kastoria, an important lakeside settlement in north-western Greece, was conducted. The book begins with an overview of the anthropological and archaeological literature on theoretical and methodological issues concerning practices of personal adornment. Then follows an examination of the problems and key points of study regarding personal adornment in Neolithic Greece, as well as a critical evaluation of the methodological approaches and classification schemes that have been applied in previous archaeological works. Subsequently, the technologies and processes of production, consumption, recycling, deposition, and distribution of personal ornaments in Neolithic Greece are discussed. Finally, the social correlates of personal adornment are explored, as they are reflected in the choice of different raw materials (shell, clay, bone, stone, and metal) and ornament types (beads, pendants, annulets, and so forth).

With contributions by Zlatko Perhoč and Robert H. Tykot.

While one might say that the prehistory of the Adriatic was always in transition, the rhythm of change was not always the same. On several occasions, a series of changes over a relatively short time period resulted in dramatic transformations. Three crucial episodes of change marked the later Adriatic prehistory. The first one, which took place around year 6000 BC, was a transformation of subsistence strategy, transition from hunting and gathering to farming. The second one was a social transformation that played out in the third millennium BC, when for the first time the power of individuals was clearly expressed by material culture. The third episode, inclusion into the classic Mediterranean civilization, coincided with the end of prehistory in the Adriatic region.

During all of those episodes, travel and connectivity with distant lands played an exceptionally important role, and certain places gained particular importance due to their unique geographic location. Palagruža is among the most prominent such places, its importance being out of all proportion to its physical size. Adriatic prehistory cannot be told without mentioning Palagruža, and prehistory of Palagruža cannot be understood without knowing Adriatic prehistory. Due to its strategic position in the very center of the Adriatic Sea, due to the mystery born of distance and isolation, due to its wild and spectacular landscape, Palagruža indeed is a special place. A reflection of its specialty is an unexpected abundance of high-grade archaeological evidence, dating precisely from the three aforementioned periods marked by radical change.

About the Author

STAŠO FORENBAHER is Senior Research Advisor at the Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb, Croatia. He studied archaeology at the University of Zagreb (Croatia), and received his PhD from the Southern Methodist University in Dallas (TX). His research interests cover Mediterranean Prehistory with a focus on the Adriatic, and include transition to farming, formation of early elites, archaeology of caves, and lithic analysis. He has excavated at many prehistoric stratified cave sites in the eastern Adriatic, including Pupićina Cave in Istria, Vaganačka Cave in Velebit Mountain, Grapčeva Cave on the island of Hvar, and Nakovana Cave on Pelješac Peninsula. His current fieldwork is focussed on the excavation of Vela Cave on the island of Korčula.

L’Anthropocène n’est pas qu’une crise de la nature mais également une crise de l’homme, dans le prolongement d’une interaction continue entre environnement et sociétés depuis les premiers hommes.

L’Anthropocène désigne cette nouvelle époque géologique caractérisée par un impact sans précédent d’une seule espèce, Homo sapiens, sur l’écosystème planétaire depuis les débuts de la Révolution industrielle. Le point de départ de cet ouvrage est de considérer que l’Anthropocène ne désigne pas seulement une crise de la nature comme dans l’interprétation qui en est habituellement donnée, mais aussi une crise de l’homme, les deux crises puisant aux mêmes racines dans une interaction continue entre nature et sociétés.

Sans se limiter à la période industrielle, l’Anthropocène est mis en perspective dans la très longue durée pour suivre les trajectoires croisées des sociétés et de la nature depuis l’émergence de l’homme, soit depuis environ 7 millions d’années. Ce temps long permet de mettre en lumière le changement des forces anthropiques : d’abord sociales, puis politiques et enfin économiques, qui animent ces trajectoires.

Destiné à un large public, cet ouvrage offre une synthèse de toutes les facettes de la crise écologique de l’Anthropocène telles qu’elles sont décrites par la communauté scientifique internationale : réchauffement climatique, explosion démographique, extinction de masse des espèces, artificialisation et pollution des écosystèmes, autant de signes prémonitoires d’un effondrement imminent.

Il explore également la crise de l’homme et des sociétés dont l’Anthropocène est le nom. À travers une relecture du récit de la Modernité et de son rôle dans la structuration du système-monde contemporain, il tente d’identifier les ressorts du piège qui peu à peu se referme sur la nature et sur les hommes, et qui nous pose de redoutables questions sur l’essence réelle des processus à l’œuvre. Pour se réconcilier avec la nature, l’homme doit aussi se réconcilier avec lui-même.

Michel Magny est directeur de Recherche émérite au CNRS, spécialiste des changements climatiques et environnementaux et de leurs interactions avec l’histoire des sociétés depuis le Dernier Maximum Glaciaire.

We accomplished our goal to continue the discussions that we started in Marseille during the first Rencontres Nord-Sud de Préhistoire récente with a second meeting whose topic “Dwellings and settlements from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in France and its margins” was immediately agreed upon. This meeting was held in 2015, in Dijon from November 19 to 21 under the patronage of the Société Préhistorique Française. We were also joined by the APRAB “Association pour la Promotion des Recherches sur l’âge du Bronze”, which covers all of France, thus permitting, with the RMPRs and InterNéo, to open the event to all chronological and geographic fields from the Early Neolithic to the Final Bronze Age in France and its margins.

Four topics were addressed during this colloquium. Topic 1 addressed “comparative architectures” and was intended to enable presentations of new information concerning the heterogeneity of settlements in different geographic zones. The aim of Topic 2, entitled “Transient settlements, remains, uses” was to explore a type of settlement whose plans are not readable based on postholes and the remains of temporary occupations. Topic 3 broadened the field of discussion by considering “the living space and its corollaries”. Finally, Topic 4 focused on the notions of “grouped settlements/dispersed settlements”. A total of 55 articles, organized in chronological and diachronic order, thus considered the richness, longevity, breaks, recompositions, and continuity of Neolithic and Protohistoric residence types. They resulted in a general, transcultural synthesis of Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements in the European context, enriched by the multitude of discoveries of settlement and domestic structure plans, especially in recent years, made during preventive archaeology operations.

This new synthesis fundamentally renews our knowledge in this domain. A corpus of 177 interactive site plans completes this monography. Together they constitute, probably for years to come, one of the most complete publications on the settlements of this period.

La découverte récente, dans la plaine d’Alsace, de sept sites néolithiques à enceintes dites de type « Rosheim » a renouvelé l’interprétation de ces vastes ensembles datés du Ve millénaire avant notre ère. Ce type d’enceinte très particulier, dont le site éponyme est localisé à une vingtaine de kilomètres de Strasbourg, est constitué de fossés discontinus, suivant un tracé préétabli et comblés progressivement. La nouvelle analyse de ces monuments s’accompagne d’une réflexion sur la fonction, cérémonielle ou défensive, de ces enceintes. Elle permet de rendre compte de façon cohérente de l’origine et de l’importante extension géographique de ce type d’enceinte que l’on rencontre au sein de nombreux groupes culturels sur plus de deux millénaires de l’histoire de l’Europe, de la Pologne à l’Angleterre et de la Bavière au Danemark.

Philippe Lefranc est archéologue à l’Inrap, rattaché à l’UMR 7044 Archimède.

Avec la collaboration de Rose-Marie Arbogast (CNRS, UMR 7044 Archimède), Christophe Croutsch (Alsace Archéologie, UMR 7044 Archimède), Anthony Denaire (Université de Bourgogne, UMR 6298 ArTeHis), Émilie Guthmann (CNRS, UMR 7044 Archimède), Bertrand Perrin (Antéa-Archéologie, UMR 7044 Archimède).

By organizing the 12th Rencontres Méridionales de Préhistoire Récente at Bayonne in 2016, we wanted to focus on the South-Western France, a region often absent from national syntheses and struggling to attract the attention of researchers.

Contributions to the thematic session, « Entre deux mers », highlight a geographical space between the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, from the Mesolithic to the early Bronze Age, through synthetic studies based on the most recent discoveries. These studies also offer the rare opportunity to put into perspective the data from the to slopes of the Pyrenees. As usual, the thematic session is followed by papers on research news offering a panorama of recent discoveries dated from the Recent Prehistory in Southern France. Theses news are divided into two parts, the first focused on this region and the second on the scale of the Midi.

Les sites fossoyés et palissadés constituent certainement l’une des manifestations architecturales les plus remarquables des populations du Néolithique moyen. L’occupation chasséenne de Château-Percin à Seilh (Haute-Garonne), ceinturée par deux systèmes d’enceintes successifs, a livré plusieurs milliers de vestiges d’un rempart massif élaboré en bois et en terre crue. Un violent incendie est à l’origine à la fois de la destruction et de la préservation partielle de ce témoin exceptionnel qui permet d’appréhender l’architecture et les techniques de mise en oeuvre de ces ouvrages au caractère monumental souvent supposé mais rarement observé.

Fabrice Pons est ingénieur chargé de recherche à l’Inrap et membre de l’UMR 5140 « Archéologie des Sociétés Méditerranéennes ».

Muriel Gandelin est chargée d’opération et de recherche à l’Inrap et membre de l’UMR 5608 « Traces ».

Prehistoric enclosures are certainly one of the most remarkable manifestations of the architectural expressions of Neolithic people. These architectural remains have been the object of many debates. The twelve chapters of the present monograph explore this question on the basis of several recent major discoveries in the field and innovative methodological approaches. The publication results from an international round table organised in 2012 in Carcassonne.

Le site du Champ du Poste a été découvert en 1994, par P. Barthès, dès les premiers travaux archéologiques initiés sur le contournement Est de Carcassonne. Dix ans plus tard, les sondages systématiques réalisés sur le tracé par M. Guillaume ont permis de délimiter précisément l’emprise des vestiges. Fouillé au cours de deux campagnes, en 2005 et 2006, le Champ du Poste s’est révélé être un site important pour plusieurs périodes archéologiques des sept derniers millénaires. Cette monographie ne traite que des o ccupations qui s’échelonnent du début du Néolithique moyen au début de l’âge du Bronze.

Le Néolithique débute par sa phase moyenne pendant la première moitié du Ve millénaire avant notre ère. Vraisemblablement lors de plusieurs séjours de courte durée, les occupants ont construit des foyers à pierres chauffées, dont un de grandes dimensions (plus de 5 m de diamètre). Quelques sépultures sont également présentes. L’extrême indigence des mobiliers n’a pas permis de caractériser la culture matérielle de ces groupes humains et, dans l’attente d’une meilleure définition, cette période a été dénommée Néolithique moyen I.

L’horizon chrono-culturel qui lui succède, sans hiatus semble t-il, est à rattacher clairement au Chasséen ancien qui livre les vestiges les plus abondants de la séquence Néolithique moyen-Bronze ancien. Elle est également bien documentée par une série de datations radiocarbone qui la place dans la seconde moitié du Ve millénaire avant notre ère. Les caractéristiques mises en évidence au cours de la fouille confèrent un statut domestique au site avec des aménagements et des mobiliers relativement abondants, des structures souterraines de stockage, des foyers, des traces d’activités de subsistance, domestiques et artisanales ; un ensemble funéraire leur est associé. La durée de l’occupation pourrait être relativement courte mais les données radiométriques indiquent une durée d’au moins deux siècles.

Le Chasséen se conclut par sa phase évoluée qui se place au début du IVe millénaire avant notre ère. Elle n’est attestée que par quelques structures avec peu de mobiliers qui correspondent à des installations périphériques d’un site détruit se trouvant au nord.

Dans le dernier tiers du IVe millénaire avant notre ère, les occupations du Néolithique final vérazien, qui semblent être de courte durée, se matérialisent par des structures relativement abondantes ayant livré des mobiliers peu caractéristiques.

Un millénaire plus tard, des céramiques véraziennes associées à un tesson du Campaniforme régional datant de la seconde moitié du IIIe millénaire avant notre ère ont été recueillies au cours des investigations de 1994 ; d’autres tessons décorés qui attestent de la présence de vestiges légèrement plus anciens ont été mis au jour dans la fouille de 2006.

Enfin, quelques fragments décorés de vases indiquent la présence d’occupations au début du IIe millénaire avant notre ère. Ils s’ajoutent à ceux présents dans une fosse datant du Bronze ancien découvertes au cours du diagnostic.

The site of Vignely "la Porte aux Bergers" shows a long-lived occupation, domestic in the Early Neolithic then funerary from the Middle Neolithic onwards. The settlement comprises ten house units of which four produced trapezoidal houseplans of Danubian type, accompanied by two graves, although the extent of the site is unknown due to early destruction. The pottery finds, together with radiocarbon dates, enable the occupation to be divided into four phases, from an early phase that can be assigned to final Seine basin Linear Pottery, right up to the last stage of Blicquy/Villeneuve-Saint-Germain. This long occupation and a number of original traits in the finds (high proportion of Cretaceous flint, low representation of craft activities in macrolithic tools, importance of caprines in the final BVSG) give the site a special position within the lower Marne valley. The cemetery, also incomplete, contains twenty-six graves of which twenty-two, corresponding to thirty-two individuals, are attributed to Cerny, and four, corresponding to six individuals, to Middle Neolithic II. Despite characteristics very similar to Passy, Balloy or Gron, the absence of Passy-type monuments distinguishes this group and contributes to the necessary deconstruction of the Cerny funerary system: "Balloy-type" graves are attested from the beginning of this culture and structuring with preeminent individuals is independent of monuments... Although rare, the finds associated with the graves still highlight representations of the wild world: bear, aurochs, wolf and red-deer are used for tools and ornaments. First of a series of similar discoveries, a long monument with two individuals was found for Middle Neolithic II. This period also produced two graves with polished axes, no doubt linked to the mine at Jablines "le Haut-Château".