Abstract
AbstractIn the western Mediterranean, the question of the settlement patterns of the first farming communities remains a much debated issue. Frequently compared with the LBK model, based on hundreds of well-documented villages, the settlement organization of the Impressed Ware complex is still poorly characterized and highly diversified. New data obtained in Southern France (Languedoc) may shed light on this matter, based on new excavations, revised data, and a multi-proxy perspective (site type, domestic area, food supply strategies, activities, spheres of acquisition of raw material, and so forth). Rather than reproducing a pattern of site locations and settlement structuring, it seems that these Early Neolithic groups sought to optimize the location and structuring of their settlements in relation to the specific characteristics of the surrounding environment and available resources. We therefore propose that the diversity observed in the settlement organization of these first farming communities is a reflection of a social organization well-adapted to the diversity of the ecosystem.
Highlights
In the western Mediterranean, the question of the settlement patterns of the first farming communities remains a much debated issue
In the western Mediterranean, agro-pastoral techniques first arose among communities whose economic and cultural expressions can be grouped under the term “Impressed Ware complex”
At the site of Ripa Tetta (Lucera, Puglia), for example, the hypothesis has been put forward of a ditch marking out a much larger area than that strictly reserved for the domestic structures, which could have been used for keeping animals and the most sensitive crops (Cipolloni Sampò, Tozzi, & Verola, 1999)
Summary
In the western Mediterranean, agro-pastoral techniques first arose among communities whose economic and cultural expressions can be grouped under the term “Impressed Ware complex”. The lakeside site of La Draga, where hundreds of posts have been found driven into the ground, seems to have been divided into two areas: an area dedicated to economic and artisanal activities and an area used as a domestic space containing several rectangular dwellings (between 10 and 12; Bosch Lloret, Chinchilla Sánchez, & Tarrus Galter, 2011) Once again, it is the polymorphous nature of the settlements (Figure 2) that emerges from the research on this subject (Gómez Puche, 2008; Mestres Mercadé & Tarrús Galter, 2009). This brief overview shows us that the available data present a wide variety of situations (whether at the scale of the strictly domestic unit or that of the network of settlements; ranging from the large sites of La Marmotta and La Draga to rock shelters in karst cliffs) While this may be a reflection of the current state of research, in our view, it denotes a certain archaeological reality regarding the economic, social, and structural dimensions of Neolithic groups. To examine this question in more detail, we will consider the specific case of the south of France, where the development of the first farming communities took place in two stages involving an initial pioneering coastal process followed by a large geographical expansion of the Neolithic economy
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