The Limpets and Winkles’ Enigma. Premier aperçu sur la malacofaune marine des occupations mésolithiques et néolithiques de la colline Saint-Charles à Marseille (VIIIe millénaire-IVe millénaire av. J.-C.)

Abstract

Saint-Charles hill in Marseille was the subject of preventive archaeology operations from 2000 to 2008 prior to a real estate rehabilitation project. The preliminary evaluations showed that it was partially occupied during the Mesolithic I and the Early Neolithic (8th-6th millennia BC) and probably completely during the Middle and Recent Neolithic (4th millennium BC). However, only four ‘ prehistoric sites’, defined artificially by the different areas covered by the rehabilitation project and for which the stratigraphic levels were well preserved, were excavated. At the top of the hill, on the Bernard-du-Bois site, the stratigraphy yielded coherent archaeological assemblages and the levels, about one metre high, covered periods from the Mesolithic I to the Early, Middle and Recent Neolithic with a hiatus for the Mesolithic II. Lower down, the sites of Nédelec, Voie Nouvelle and Rue Longue-des-Capucins corresponded to an extension of the Bernard-du-Bois site during the Middle Neolithic. At Nédelec too, the stratigraphy was over a metre thick and delivered, in the best preserved plots of the site, nine accumulated levels of archaeological structures (postholes, pits) dating from the Middle and Recent Neolithic. Structures of various types (postholes, pits, open-air dwelling floors, house plan, earth walls, probably a kiln) and material (lithic artefacts, ceramics) on all the sites showed successive occupations of this portion of the hill. One of major characteristics of these occupations and the subject of this article is the presence of marine malacofauna in all the archaeological levels on the hill, without any other remains of wild or domestic terrestrial fauna or wild and cultivated plants. Their number is however relatively small, just under 4 000 individuals for all four sites for the whole period. The study allows hypotheses to be proposed regarding the reasons for this exclusive presence. The study highlights an evolution over the long term of the different species present. After limpets (Patella sp.) and winkles (Phorcus turbinatus) consumed during the Mesolithic I, cockles (Cerastoderma sp.), clams (Ruditapes decussatus) and winkles (Phorcus turbinatus) follow in the Early Neolithic, then cerithes (Cerithium vulgatum) and winkles (Phorcus turbinatus) in the Middle Neolithic and finally murex (Hexaplex trunculus) and triton or trumpet shell (Charonia lampas and C. variegata) in the recent Neolithic. This succession is particularly represented on the Bernarddu-Bois site where all these periods are stratigraphically accumulated. The various choices of gathering allow us to estimate the way the occupants of the hill exploited the surrounding environments, particularly in the Neolithic where several biotopes were accessible (rocky shore, sandy beach, brackish water lagoon, posidoniae). The choice of the species and habitat seems to have been deliberate for every period and allows us to presume preferential options in connection with an evolution of taste and gathering-collecting techniques throughout the period the hill was occupied. In the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic, the small proportion of shells and their dispersal on the archaeological ground levels on the Bernard-du-Bois site lead us to favour the hypothesis of a deposit rather than that of a midden. Gathering or collecting of the main marine mollusc species of these periods seems to have been integrated opportunistically into the territorial exploitation strategy and they could have been brought back onto the hill during seasonal movements as a supplement to some other type of diet. In the Middle and Recent Neolithic, there were still shell deposits. However, gathering strategies turned towards shellfish with higher energy efficiency, the consumption of which could partially compensate a meat-based diet of terrestrial origin. In addition, during the Middle Neolithic, due to the effects of higher sea levels, the hill moved from the status of a hinterland site to that of a coastal site. The hill was frequented by more people, over longer periods. This raises questions about the change of status of these various occupations and about their place in the economy of coastal resources in chrono-cultural contexts of the Mesolithic and Neolithic in the northern Mediterranean. During the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic, the presence of marine malacofauna on coastal sites and on the hill suggests complementarity, within the Marseille basin. In the Middle Neolithic, the hill was integrated into the raw materials circulation networks (Bedoulian flint, greenstone) of southern France but the nature of the exchanges with the inland sites remains unknown. This study thus contributes information on the apparently varied economic strategies organized by human groups of the southern Mesolithic and Neolithic for the management of the coastal environment in relationship with inland sites at the time of the passage to the Holocene. In general, the composition of the Early Neolithic diet was still based on the exploitation of wild fauna and plants in addition to agro-pastoral production (Courtin, 2003 ; Binder and Sénépart, 2004 ; Sénépart, 2007). During the Middle and Recent Neolithic this tendency seems to have decreased considerably, and even to have disappeared. The situation of the sites on Saint-Charles hill, where the diet was still based on this type of foodstuffs, is thus paradoxical.