The first Early Neolithic settlements in northwest France

Abstract

Recently, several sites dating from the Early Neolithic were discovered in the extreme North of France, in a region where this period had been unknown up until now. The ten sites presented here all date from the Blicquy/Villeneuve-Saint-Germain (BVSG) chrono-cultural horizon, in a geographic sector located between the Oise valley to the east, the Somme valley to the south and the shores of the Channel/North Sea to the northwest. These sites are rather late for an Early Neolithic, compared to the more imposing Linear Pottery Culture settlements in Belgian Hainaut or the Paris basin, which are several centuries older. The synopsis of these studies defines the typo-chronological framework of these settlements, in parallel with the radiocarbon results and a techno-functional approach to the different objects. Comparisons with Early Neolithic sites from the Paris basin and Belgium contribute to the discussion on the links between the different regions and the broader question of regional axes of Linear Pottery Culture and BVSG.