Archaeology, Society and Environment

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This text introduces the publication of the meetings held in November 2022 at the University of Nanterre at the invitation of Professor Christophe Petit and archaeologist Jean-Yves Dufour. 16 papers provided an update on research on animal housing in France. This short introduction uses agronomy treatises to highlight the importance of livestock housing in the climate of our French regions.

A large number of interdisciplinary studies (archaeology, geoarchaeology and bioarchaeology) have focused on the study of the sedimentary record of Neolithic and protohistoric sheepfold caves in the South of France, contributing to characterizing zootechnical practices relating to herd management. The presence of specialized sheepfold cave-type sites, exclusively intended for penning, seems to characterize the Chasséen of the Mediterranean hinterland and the Rhone Valley. On the other hand, if sheepfold caves were still used in the Late Neolithic, they were no longer used exclusively for penning. Archaeozoological studies carried out in Provence and Languedoc also highlight the functional diversity of open-air habitat sites within the pastoral area, both for permanent and seasonal use. On the sites of La Capoulière and Ponteau, geoarchaeological studies have made it possible to characterize the sedimentary record of the penning areas and to identify 1) areas dedicated solely to the breeding of domestic caprines (sheep/goats) within the village area of La Capoulière, and 2) mixed areas combining stabling areas for domestic animals and human habitation areas on the Ponteau site. This research makes it possible to specify the role of open-air settlement within the pastoral area in Languedoc and Provence at the end of the Neolithic, and to better qualify herd management strategies and the use of livestock buildings.

The identification of the animal housing from the instrumentum is difficult because the metallic furniture related to the breeding and management of animals is particularly few. For example, the frequent discovery of bell trees is an illustration of the animal outside and raises the question of the type of housing, sheltered, open or mixed. Concerning housing directly, the elements discovered in rural settlements, doorframes, reinforcements of chests or chains, illustrate the building in a generic way. Only the attachment rings seem specific to the animal world. Some tools like the fake are related to animal feed. However, the limited use of this tool is a debate among archaeologists, even if mentions are known in several ancient texts. Consideration should also be given to objects intended to manage manure, namely forks, the two known forms of which, made of wood and iron, may correspond to two different uses. Animal care can be studied. They are essentially instruments intended to maintain the coat and to avoid diseases such as the stirrups. The tools associated with the veterinarian are more problematic to discover, because the objects are identical to those used in medicine.

Parasitic markers are among the direct clues used in archaeology to highlight the presence of animals. As such, they contribute to characterizing the animals present on the sites, as well as their state of health. Some parasites, associated with specific hosts, can lead to precise identification of the animal presence (pig, horse, poultry, etc.). Other, more general parasites only identify the category to which they belong, essentially carnivores and herbivores. The study of ancient parasites also helps to characterize the function of remains associated with animal housing (stabling area, drinking trough, etc.). A number of examples from paleoparasitology analyses will illustrate the contributions of this discipline to the study of animals present on sites and their living environment.

Fanum Martis is located on the border between the Nervian and Atrebat territories. The first traces of ancient occupation date back to the middle of the 1st century AD, although a few clues suggest that it may have been inhabited at the beginning of that century. At its height, in the 3rd century AD, it covered more than 200 hectares. During the third quarter of the 1st century AD, an agricultural settlement developed on the outskirts of the urban center, which would become part of the town a few decades later. Horse stalls were identified on this site. They were housed in a vast building designed to accommodate several species of animal. Their layout and the traces left behind are similar to those found in the military camps of the Limes. This type of layout, rarely identified during archaeological operations, could serve as a model for future excavations in Gaul.

While the geoarchaeological approach of a settlement usually focuses on sedimentary storage areas such as dry valleys or anthropogenic structures to understand the soil archives, roadways or natural thermokarst-type depressions can also be a source of information for pedologists and geomorphologists. Thus, the Faux-Fresnay site “Le Haut des Taupinières,” excavated by the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Researches (INRAP) in 2019 over an area of 10 hectares, offers new perspectives for documenting the major phases of pedogenesis and soil truncations, particularly through the presence of a medieval road axis that has preserved the Holocene rendosol horizons. This rendosol, also preserved within a dry valley and thermokarst depressions inherited from the Pleistocene, has been occupied by human societies since the Bronze Age and, like the rest of the site, has undergone multiphase and diachronic erosion. The colluvium stored in the thermokarst depressions regularly undergo renewed pedogenesis, suggesting a rhythmicity of erosion/sedimentation processes and a succession of periods of soil stability and instability. To characterize Holocene pedogenesis and to evaluate the different phases of erosion at the site, the geoarchaeological study is based on pedostratigraphic transects, geochemical analyses (measurement of organic matter and carbonates), and relative dating provided by anthropogenic structures, whether excavated or not, preserving these soil horizons as soil archives. Those anthropogenic structures and the relative dating they provide highlight, in particular, an initial phase of erosion following the Late Bronze Age occupation at Faux-Fresnay, followed by an acceleration of erosion processes during the second half of the Subatlantic period, linked to mechanized agriculture. The use of an ancient roadway as evidence of periods of erosion/sedimentation on a regional scale can also be extended to other archaeological, geomorphological, and pedological contexts. Thus, it is possible recontextualize these events at regional scale through other examples of more recent, sometimes modern to contemporary, roadways that have preserved ancient soils and bear witness to accelerated colluvial morphogenesis over more than half a century.

The characteristics of certain anthrosols are attracting growing interest due to their high carbon (C) stocks. With this in mind, we focused on anthrosols from South America and Central Africa. The South American samples come from three archaeological sites in the Llanos de Moxos region of Bolivia (Isla Manechi, San Pablo, and Isla del Tesoro). In Cameroon, a French-Cameroonian team from the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development collected samples from two types of anthrosols (dark soils, which we have called Dark soils, and archaeological pit fillings, referred to as Refuse pits), as well as from forest soils (Forest soils). The objective of this study was to assess the impact of past human activities on these soils by conducting specific measurements of their organic status (soil organic carbon content and quality – Corg). The originality of this work lies in its empirical approach and the use of a method rarely applied in archaeology: Rock-Eval® thermal analysis, which allows for the quantification and characterization of soil organic carbon. Thermal analyses of soil samples from archaeological sites were compared with one another and against a reference model. The results indicate that in the Cameroonian sites, the measured carbon is of organic origin. In Bolivia, we focused solely on organic carbon forms, although inorganic carbon forms were also present at San Pablo and Isla del Tesoro, which are shell middens. Findings on the thermal stability of soil organic matter (SOM) highlight that soils from natural environments (Forest soils) or abandoned sites (Dark soils) have a signature comparable to a general model based on a set of undisturbed natural soils. In contrast, soils from human occupation sites deviate from this model. Our hypothesis is that this deviation serves as an indicator of ancient human occupation. The magnitude of this deviation could reflect the intensity or type of anthropogenic activities that took place on these intertropical archaeological soils. We propose an integrative parameter to measure the degree of SOM disturbance in relation to human impact on soils. This preliminary study suggests that the method could, in principle, detect the imprint of human activities on archaeological site soils.

From Herodotus and his vision of Egypt as a gift from the Nile to the present day, Egyptian civilization has been examined in many aspects. By observing the Egyptological Bibliography, the perception of the agrarian landscape and its exploitation seem to remain generalist, with imprecise knowledge, although certain geophysical and geological analyzes have been conducted in the plain for ten years. In addition to these geoarcheological approaches, the reading of notarial acts of the Ptolemaic era (4th centuries before J.-C.) makes it possible to discern and reposition precisely in the landscape of the study area (Louxor) of the Topographic elements and types of cultivated fields. The lexicographic analysis of four demotic terms used to qualify the types of land shows not only that the Egyptians distinguished soil by its characteristics (real or potential yield, composition, color) and its location but also shows how an environmental reading of these contracts allows us to advance our knowledge and better understand the nuances of the agrarian landscape.

Particles translocation exists in both subarctic/alpine and sub-arid climate contexts. The geochemical surface properties of the particles (loess, alluvium, fossil beaches or slope deposits) induce a translocation of fine or silty clays under control of the pH. The process of illuviation corresponds to an early and precise period of soil evolution, depending on decarbonization or desaturation. It requires the percolation of a water flash: a meltwater, or a harsh rain in arid context. Any excess cations (Ca++ or Mg++ in alkaline or Al2 O3 in acid context), allows rapid flocculation and locks the leaching process. Several processes can hinder fine illuviation as in acid, calcareous or volcanic palaeoenvironments. The “Zero Point Charge” (ZPC) of the mineral surface or of clay-humic complex regulates the optimum conditions for particle dispersion or flocculation. This implies that illuvial process is an early stage in the soil evolution within a narrow pH window, but it can be reactivated by the chemical rejuvenation of the soil after erosion or by loess deposition as natural or anthropogenic superficial inputs, by burial, by changes in hydrologic functioning or in vegetation cover. The soils of our regions are the result of a complex and cumulative history since at least 50 ka or even 120 ka, modulated by the evolution of the climate and the biosphere. Clay coatings do not necessarily represent Holocene or older interglacials but can attest as well to Weichselian interstadials, even very brief. A rejuvenation or fertilization by a sedimentary contribution or a truncation will allow a very brief return of the illuvial functioning followed by a rapid return to an oligotrophic status of the surface soil. This phenomenon also makes it possible to understand the succession of illuvial phases observed in thin sections. Most Bt horizons are cumulative and often polyphased. This succession of events, in addition to the evolution of the climate and the precipitation regime, makes it possible to understand, the genesis of the current pedocomplex in function of the loessic quaternary inputs. In regions with limited sedimentary input, the soil very early acidifies, degraded and the illuvial horizon no longer evolves since at least the MIS 3, or the Last Interglacial, as in the south-west of France and the margins of the Massif central or the Vosges. An acido-complexolysis of the clays is superimposed on the leaching, especially in the glosses of the inherited fragipan.

In order to gain a more detailed understanding of the interrelations between archaeology and pedology, it is possible to describe in detail the targeted objects and the protocols used by each, by comparing concrete experiments and attempting to make the comparison more general. We have decided to include here a few considerations on the metaphysics of time, because we feel that they are rarely used in the ordinary scientific exercise, and yet are likely to shed new light on the subject. Thus, the fundamental ontological distinction between events and processes seems to us to be particularly fruitful in this debate and allows us to temper somewhat any attempt at fusion (or intersection) between these disciplines.