Titre : Building a monumental enclosure in the Late Neolithic: resources, forest exploitation, and the transportation and use of oak logs (La Villeneuveau- Châtelot, Aube) 

Auteurs : Delphine Ravry
, Sandy Poirier
, Willy Tegel
, Jérôme Brenot,  

Revue : Archaeology, Society and Environment 

Numéro : Issue 1 

Volume : 3 

Date : 2023/11/30 

DOI : 10.21494/ISTE.OP.2023.1026 

ISSN : 2752-4507 

Résumé : During the Late Neolithic, the construction of a monumental palisaded enclosure marked the landscape of the Seine valley in the vicinity of La Villeneuve-au-Châtelot (Aube). With remarkable preservation, more than 500 oak planks have been preserved in large part due to an important capping layer of alluvial sediments. This assemblage offers an exceptional data set detailing the environment in which this development was built in 3232 BCE. Detailed paleoenvironmental studies provided data showing that the alluvial environment was dominated by a stable palustrine wetland for over three millennia, from the Early Neolithic to the Bronze Age. Dendrochronological studies show that the wood used to construct the palisade was growing in primary forest, raising the question of the origin of the trees and the distance over which they were transported. In particular, the data suggest that firstly, the timber were floated to the site using the Seine river: there are numerous notches on the base of the logs, which may suggest the method of transport and/or a method of placing the timber in the narrow ditches. Well-preserved tool marks showing how the wood was processed. These environmental and dendrochronological studies shed an unprecedented light on the history of the forest and provide a deep understanding of the relationship between humans and the environment, including detailed chronological and typological questions. 

Éditeur : ISTE OpenScience