Une maison à absides sur l'oppidum de Gailhan (Gard) au milieu du V s. avant J.-C. La question du plan absidial en Gaule du Sud

Abstract

A mid 5th century house, built on an apsis plan, has been excavated on the Plan de la Tour oppidum, near Gailhan. The walls were partly made of mud, supported by stakes, and partly of stone. A partition divided the inside into two rooms and the northern room was used as a store-room (crushed vases, burnt grains of cereals). Until today, the presence of the apsis plan, in prehistoric South Gaul, had only been attested on coast sites, precociously and intensively exposed to Hellenic influence, associated to the use of raw brick (La Monédière, near Bessan, Hérault, and Saint-Blaise, near Saint-Mitre-les-Remparts, Bouches-du-Rhône, 6th or early 5th century B.C.), thus pleading in favour of a Hellenic origin. But, possibly, the Gailhan house, located in the inland of Languedoc, in an indigenous society, within the reach of the Massaliete market stream, and built according to a technology traditional of that area, has been built on an indigenous plan which was already known in Eastern Languedoc during the Chalcolithic Age, and in the inland of Gaul since the Bronze Age. That hypothesis remains to be confirmed by future excavations in South Gaul, where our knowledge of the plans of early Iron Age perishable houses is very limited, whereas the plans of Bronze Age houses are still totally unknown.