Present-day France Research Articles

II. Loi de Beaumont 1182

Summary The Law of Beaumont, established by a charter issued in 1182, was granted over a period of about 150 years for up to 700 villages in present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. It seemingly was to provide incentives to settle or stay in such villages. Based on an analysis of the Latin text (provided with a German translation) the paper questions that the focus of the charter was accurately described in older literature and common handbook entries. In those, the impression is given that the focus was on liberation from serfdom, tax relief and municipal self-government. The paper concludes that a high degree of self-government was indeed an outstanding feature, although it remains unclear whether the citizens originally had the right to elect mayor and jurors. Particularly favourable tax burdens could not be substantiated. There is no mentioning at all of any liberation from serfdom and burdens associated with it. The focus of the charter is on a precise definition of tax burdens and of penalties for crimes and their distribution, and on rules of legal process. Legal certainty in these regards must have been the core of its attractiveness both for citizens and lords and explain its popularity.

Jernlænken fra Fæsted

Jernlænken fra Fæsted

Neolithic genomic data from southern France showcase intensified interactions with hunter-gatherer communities

Archaeological research shows that the dispersal of the Neolithic took a more complex turn when reaching western Europe, painting a contrasted picture of interactions between autochthonous hunter-gatherers (HGs) and incoming farmers. In order to clarify the mode, the intensity, and the regional variability of biological exchanges implied in these processes, we report new palaeogenomic data from Occitanie, a key region in Southern France. Genomic data from 28 individuals originating from six sites spanning from c. 5,500 to c. 2,500 BCE allow us to characterize regional patterns of ancestries throughout the Neolithic period. Results highlight major differences between the Mediterranean and Continental Neolithic expansion routes regarding both migration and interaction processes. High proportions of HG ancestry in both Early and Late Neolithic groups in Southern France support multiple pulses of inter-group gene flow throughout time and space and confirm the need for regional studies to address the complexity of the processes involved.

La Cuisine Pied Noir: wandering in “nostalgia-scape”

ABSTRACT The year 1962 marked the end of the colonial occupation of Algeria by France after more than 130 years. In the wake of a bloody war of independence, nearly 700 000 former European settlers left their old homeland under dramatic circumstances. Most of them ended up in the port of Marseille to find a new livelihood in their motherland France. After their exodus from French Algeria, a state which was doomed to failure, the “Pieds-noirs” developed a multilayered culture of remembrance. Their specific food culture — La Cuisine Pied Noir — emerged as an essential part of their heritage. An interdisciplinary academic approach to this cuisine allows for a deeper understanding of culinary cultural transfer in the context of colonialism and decolonisation. “La Cuisine Pied Noir” highlights the importance of food as a cultural companion and as a guardian of social identity. The drama of the Algerian–French history is still discussed in present-day France. Finally, the archives in both countries are opened to historical studies. This article invites researchers in the field of food culture to participate in a stimulating discussion.

Negotiating Borders in Anna Seghers’ and Christian Petzold’s Transit

This paper focuses on the negotiation of borders in Anna Seghers’ novel Transit (1944) and Christian Petzold’s film of the same name (2018). Inspired by the German-Jewish communist writer’s own experience of traversing borders, Seghers’ Exilroman describes the torment of a nameless refugee from Germany waiting to escape Marseille, one of the last open frontiers in a Europe ravaged by National Socialism. 70 years later, the Berlin School director’s multilingual film delves into the history of displacement and nationalism in Europe by setting the 1940s fascist persecution amongst the refugee crisis in present-day France. Petzold’s distinctive trans-period approach gives a voice to the marginalized and displaced in two centuries and from two continents, making it impossible to separate ‘old’ from ‘new’ Europe. Presenting expulsion and migration as timeless phenomena, Petzold speaks to the historical fluctuation of borders and movement of populations. Both authors construe the crossing of borders as loss of identity and alienation, but offer different solutions, if any, to what they perceive as an existential as well as political predicament.

Origin and mobility of Iron Age Gaulish groups in present-day France revealed through archaeogenomics

SummaryThe Iron Age period occupies an important place in French history because the Gauls are regularly presented as the direct ancestors of the extant French population. We documented here the genomic diversity of Iron Age communities originating from six French regions. The 49 acquired genomes permitted us to highlight an absence of discontinuity between Bronze Age and Iron Age groups in France, lending support to a cultural transition linked to progressive local economic changes rather than to a massive influx of allochthone groups. Genomic analyses revealed strong genetic homogeneity among the regional groups associated with distinct archaeological cultures. This genomic homogenization appears to be linked to individuals’ mobility between regions and gene flow with neighbouring groups from England and Spain. Thus, the results globally support a common genomic legacy for the Iron Age population of modern-day France that could be linked to recurrent gene flow between culturally differentiated communities.

Heterogeneous Hunter-Gatherer and Steppe-Related Ancestries in Late Neolithic and Bell Beaker Genomes from Present-Day France

The transition from the Late Neolithic to the Bronze Age has witnessed important population and societal changes in western Europe.1 These include massive genomic contributions of pastoralist herders originating from the Pontic-Caspian steppes2,3 into local populations, resulting from complex interactions between collapsing hunter-gatherers and expanding farmers of Anatolian ancestry.4-8 This transition is documented through extensive ancient genomic data from present-day Britain,9,10 Ireland,11,12 Iberia,13 Mediterranean islands,14,15 and Germany.8 It remains, however, largely overlooked in France, where most focus has been on the Middle Neolithic (n= 63),8,9,16 with the exception of one Late Neolithic genome sequenced at 0.05× coverage.16 This leaves the key transitional period covering ∼3,400-2,700 cal. years (calibrated years) BCE genetically unsampled and thus the exact time frame of hunter-gatherer persistence and arrival of steppe migrations unknown. To remediate this, we sequenced 24 ancient human genomes from France spanning ∼3,400-1,600 cal. years BCE. This reveals Late Neolithic populations that are genetically diverse and include individuals with dark skin, hair, and eyes. We detect heterogeneous hunter-gatherer ancestries within Late Neolithic communities, reaching up to ∼63.3% in some individuals, and variable genetic contributions of steppe herders in Bell Beaker populations. We provide an estimate as late as ∼3,800 years BCE for the admixture between Neolithic and Mesolithic populations and as early as ∼2,650 years BCE for the arrival of steppe-related ancestry. The genomic heterogeneity characterized underlines the complex history of human interactions even at the local scale.

Characterization of tertiary flints by geochemistry: application to the French territory

In present-day France, tertiary flints have played an important part in the supply of prehistoric populations, due to their abundance, quality and presence in areas without marine flint. From the Upper Paleolithic until the end of the use of flint, they were transported over far distances, especially in the center of the Central Massif. In this article the geochemical method is preferred for attributing of precise geographical origin to an archaeological artifact. To form the geological repository, a very large geographical field was taken, encompassing a large part of France, from the Marne county to the Gard county, and most of the major French sedimentary basins (Bassin Parisien, Cantal, Gard). The archaeological corpus includes pieces from sites of the Upper Paleolithic and the Epipaleolithic of Auvergne. The geochemical study does not provide a comprehensive answer to the question of the geographical origin of tertiary flints, but nevertheless allows for certain and significant advances in knowledge.

Breaking bad? Discarding the solutrean norms: Chronology, evolution and geographical extent of the badegoulian phenomenon in Western Europe

The Badegoulian technocomplex holds a special place among the West European Upper Paleolithic (UP) cultural traditions. Often understated or even bypassed by the main prehistorical overviews, caught between the fascinating Solutrean and the “classic” Magdalenian technocomplexes, it nonetheless probably marks a turning point in the evolving trajectory of hunter-gatherers in present-day France. The deep typo-technological changes, traditionally noted through lithic equipment, have recently been examined in the framework of interdisciplinary programs centered on several key-stratigraphic sequences located in south-west France. The combined analyses of flint, bone and antler assemblages, ornaments and faunal remains, together with the implementation of systematic archaeostratigraphic reassessment and radiometric dating, serve to confirm the speed and the strength of these changes ca. 23 cal ka BP. Without going into detail into the Solutrean-Badegoulian transition issue, the present paper provides a synthetic overview of the main Badegoulian characteristics—and their known variability—on the basis of the lithic and osseous equipment that guided the original identification. Following a three-step structure successively exploring the “when”, the “what” and the “where” questions, we will look at the current challenges in LGM chronocultural research, between (false) consensus and (true) sticking points.

Gravettian and Solutrean in the Basque Crossroads: Climate changes and human adaptations in the western Pyrenees

The so-called Basque crossroads constitutes a small region disposed on both slopes of the western Pyrenees, with one part on the north of the Iberian Peninsula and another, on the southwest of present-day France. Throughout the Pleistocene, it has been the main path for human populations to transit between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Europe, given that the orography and the presence of a vast frozen steppe in the current region of the Landes set the human mobility through known corridors. On the other hand, in the last two decades, it has been proven that this is the only area of the Cantabrian region with high permeability to other regions of the Iberian Peninsula, such as the Ebro Valley, or the Castile northern Plateau. Both findings require to modify the previous vision of the Upper Palaeolithic in the area.From a geographical and palaeoenvironmental point of view, this characterisation as a crossroads region has relevant implications. Despite its small dimensions, there are numerous climatic nuances between very close areas in space. All this variability increases in exponential terms when we also value a broad range time scale.

Ancient genomes from present-day France unveil 7,000 years of its demographic history

Genomic studies conducted on ancient individuals across Europe have revealed how migrations have contributed to its present genetic landscape, but the territory of present-day France has yet to be connected to the broader European picture. We generated a large dataset comprising the complete mitochondrial genomes, Y-chromosome markers, and genotypes of a number of nuclear loci of interest of 243 individuals sampled across present-day France over a period spanning 7,000 y, complemented with a partially overlapping dataset of 58 low-coverage genomes. This panel provides a high-resolution transect of the dynamics of maternal and paternal lineages in France as well as of autosomal genotypes. Parental lineages and genomic data both revealed demographic patterns in France for the Neolithic and Bronze Age transitions consistent with neighboring regions, first with a migration wave of Anatolian farmers followed by varying degrees of admixture with autochthonous hunter-gatherers, and then substantial gene flow from individuals deriving part of their ancestry from the Pontic steppe at the onset of the Bronze Age. Our data have also highlighted the persistence of Magdalenian-associated ancestry in hunter-gatherer populations outside of Spain and thus provide arguments for an expansion of these populations at the end of the Paleolithic Period more northerly than what has been described so far. Finally, no major demographic changes were detected during the transition between the Bronze and Iron Ages.

Situations Come Together

Situations Come Together Jay N. Shelat (bio) Serotonin Michel Houellebecq Farrar, Straus and Giroux https://us.macmillan.com 320 Pages; Cloth, $24.30 Michel Houellebecq’s reputation precedes him. The French author is subject to controversy because his novels seem to unfortunately coincide with major acts of terrorism. For example, his 2015 novel Submission was released the same day of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, and the magazine serendipitously printed a caricature of Houellebecq on its cover the very day of the terrorist attacks. More contentious than the strange connection between his novels and political disruptions, however, are the novels themselves. Crass and politically incorrect, these books oftentimes disparage religion, women, and governments, and they are rife with vulgar violence and sex. Yet, Houellebecq remains one of the most popular authors in France, and he certainly maintains his position as one of the most disputed authors writing in the twenty-first century with his newest novel. Though subdued compared to his other works, Serotonin is akin to Houellebecq’s oeuvre in many ways. Sex and drugs abound, the narrator is severely depressed, and the West is on a downward spiral toward calamity. Yet, Houellebecq’s eighth novel, wonderfully translated by Shaun Whiteside, Serotonin differs from the rest of his works in its attention to the agriculture crisis and its relation to labor unions; this thematic focus, furthermore, violently presents itself late in the novel. Houellebecq makes clear that the action takes place in present-day France: “It was early summer,” the narrator explains early in the novel, “probably about mid-July, sometime toward the end of the 2010s — I seem to remember that Emmanuel Macron was the President of the Republic.” The narrator is Florent-Claude Labrouste, a forty-six-year-old agricultural scientist whose profound depression leads him to take “a small, white, scored oval tablet;” the new antidepressant is called Captorix, and it increases the level of serotonin in the blood and does “not encourage suicidal tendencies or self-harm.” This drug, Florent’s doctor makes clear, will not cure depression and comes with a few serious side effects, namely impotence and the loss of libido. This is one of the novel’s main contestations: Florent needs this medicine, but at what cost? He is forced to sacrifice his sex life and the one true pleasure he has. Florent’s depression worsens because of his impotency, and he chooses to go “voluntarily missing,” forgoing his career at the Ministry of Agriculture, his comfortable Paris apartment, and his indifferent Japanese girlfriend Yuzu to venture the French countryside. This voluntary exodus from society reifies Florent as alone in his struggle; indeed, he notes this loneliness to justify his decision. He ruminates, I too would become someone voluntarily missing, and my case was especially simple as I didn’t have to escape a wife, a family, a patiently constructed social environment, but merely a simply foreign live-in girlfriend who had no right to pursue me. Florent’s choice to abandon his life catalyzes the novel’s temporal disjunction as his long drives and [End Page 7] isolation spur remembrances of the bygone eras of his youth. Florent’s narration switches from key moments in his past to different places he visits while on Captorix in the present. The protagonist emphasizes the deluge of memories, “You plunge into the past, you begin to plunge into it and then it seems as if you’re being engulfed by it, and nothing can put a limit on that engulfment.” As with all of his novels, Houellebecq deftly weaves the narrative past and present together and presents their various players, characterizing the protagonist as a man defined not just by his past and present decisions but also by those who play key roles in shaping his worldview and understanding of himself. More specifically, these people are his numerous exgirlfriends (one of whom he meticulously stalks toward the end of the novel) and his best friend from college, Aymeric, a divorced milk farmer who struggles against the EU-sanctioned milk quotas in an attempt to curb the rising production across Europe. Interestingly, Houellebecq introduces this subplot with Aymeric and the EU quotas comes...

7000 years of the peopling of present-day France revealed by paleogenomics

7000 years of the peopling of present-day France revealed by paleogenomics

French Architects, Builders, Stone Masons and Sculptors in Latin Europe in the latter Thirteenth Century

The article concerned the issue of French architects, builders, stone masons and sculptors in Latin Europe in the latter thirteenth century. The authors presented the travels and activities in Europe of Pierre d’Angicourt, Pierre de Chaule, Jean de Toul, and Étienne de Bonneuil. The heart of the analysis conducted in the article is an attempt to state the extent of the participation of architects, builders, stonemasons and sculptors from the territory of present-day France in the process in the latter half of the thirteenth century. It is worth noting that the topic is analyzed in view of written sources from the epoch, which are often disregarded in similar studies.

An application of hierarchical Bayesian modeling to better constrain the chronologies of Upper Paleolithic archaeological cultures in France between ca. 32,000–21,000 calibrated years before present

Investigations of chronology play a key role in the majority of archaeological research endeavors and are particularly pertinent to examinations of culture-environment relationships, especially during periods characterized by rapid and marked climatic variability and environmental reorganization. Rigorous evaluations of available data and robust methods are required if one wishes to reconstruct reliable chronologies, and this is especially the case when examining periods that are associated with a relatively few radiometric measurements. Such is the case for the Upper Paleolithic archaeological record documented in present-day France from 32,000 to 21,000 calibrated years BP. We take into account critically examined radiocarbon measurements from contextually secure archaeological contexts and employ a recently-developed method of Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling to reconstruct the chronology of archaeological cultures from the Middle Gravettian to the Badegoulian. The calculated chronological intervals for each typo-technologically defined culture phase are compared to the Greenland ice core climatic record and a terrestrial paleoenvironmental record from Bergsee Lake (Southern Germany)—itself expressed in calendar years calculated with the same calibration curve employed in our age model—thereby permitting each archaeological culture to be correlated accurately with documented paleoclimatic variability.

Aspectos lúdicos de lo cotidiano en el Arte Paleolítico

Las sonrisas, risas y caricaturas que se han detectado en grafías humanas del arte paleolítico permiten investigar aspectos lúdicos de lo cotidiano en la Prehistoria. La definición, clasificación y análisis de estas grafías demuestran que este fenómeno lúdico, basado en la exageración de las formas y las expresiones alegres, se manifestó en diversas zonas de la región francesa durante el Magdaleniense. Estos documentos son interpretados como la prueba gráfica de un sentido del humor prehistórico.

Destruction of Cultural Heritage in 19th-Century France: Old Stones versus Modern Identities by Michael Greenhalgh

Reviews 247 la Méditerranée,voici une lecture qui s’impose et que les esprits curieux ne manqueront pas d’applaudir. Auburn University (AL) Samia I. Spencer Greenhalgh, Michael. Destruction of Cultural Heritage in 19th -Century France: Old Stones versus Modern Identities. Boston: Brill, 2015. ISBN 978-90-04-28920-8. Pp. xii + 427. Greenhalgh surveys the vast array of antiquities sacrificed to the cause of modernization in nineteenth-century France, a significant loss for French architectural identity. The work is “an essential antidote to the official narrative, which proclaims that France generally treasured and conserved her important monuments” (353– 54). Today little remains of the Gallo-Roman structures which were scattered over all of present-day France, including fortifications, amphitheaters, arenas, temples, sarcophagi, villas, baths, and aqueducts. In the succeeding centuries, these structures fell into ruin or were pillaged as sources of building materials for later purposes. Rapid modernization in the nineteenth century accelerated the process of destruction to the point of almost complete eradication of most remains. The central government, commercial interests, and the military all rushed to expand cities, provide modern conveniences, and connect the country through roads and railways. Today the antiquities which remain are located mostly in Provence, the last region reached by industrialization. The dilemma was that“preservation and modernization were simply irreconcilable opposites” (7), and no adequate policy existed to control the process. The population, most of whom were “indifferent to any sense of national memory” (121), accepted the destruction without protest. Important losses occurred in every province. Paris lost almost all of its antiquities, as did the northern towns of Beauvais and Évreux. Reims was more concerned about its historical treasures, yet it lost an ancient triumphal arch to the railway. In Soissons, no trace remains of a Roman theatre or a Gallo-Roman palace. Merovingian cemeteries outside the walls of Rouen,Angers, and Nancy disappeared. Lyon and Toulouse lost all of their standing ancient monuments . A few cities fared somewhat better. Nîmes saved the Maison Carrée, and Narbonne managed to preserve parts of significant structures, but these were the exception. The chief defenders of the antiquities were newly-established sociétés archéologiques, created in dozens of cities and supported by the work of Prosper Mérimée, Inspector-General of historical monuments (1834–1852). Although the preservation societies were no match for the impatient forces of modernization, they deserve great credit for the documents they left behind. Their publications and annals form a major source of information about the structures which were lost. Unfortunately, there were surely others about which no knowledge remains. The acts of destruction impeded the emerging work of France’s archaeologists and permanently diminished the country’s cultural heritage. Greenhalgh is also critical of restoration projects which imposed the restorer’s ideas onto ruins in an implicit attempt to improve on the original. Comparing before-and-after views of Viollet-le-Duc’s restoration of Carcassonne, he laments that “Disneyland starts here.” Readers can get a visual sense of the destruction in the fascinating appendix of 135 annotated illustrations and photographs of lost structures. Written in English with abundant French quotations, this superb study presents an enormous amount of information in a lively and humorous manner. It convincingly challenges the view that the nineteenth century showed great concern for the past. The work belongs in every collection of French history and culture. Southeast Missouri State University Alice J. Strange Knox, Katelyn E. Race on Display in 20th - and 21st -Century France. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2016. ISBN 978-1-78138-309-4. Pp. 229. The book inscribes itself in the panoply of texts that aim at bringing France to forcibly exorcise its past. It is a work about Black presence in French collective memory. Through a combination of several art forms, Knox re-investigates and broadens the matter in addressing it as a central tension that fluctuates between race, ethnicity, immigration, and national identity. The readers will discover through archival inquiry (from various genres starting from art exhibition, children’s comic strips, novels of the Francophone world, African pop songs, to fashion and dance) how the notion of Black as other is produced...

Fixed abodes: Urban emplacement, bureaucratic requirements, and the politics of belonging among West African migrants in Paris

Foyers, housing facilities for male migrants, are well-known institutions of postcolonial France and critical nodes in West African migratory networks. A nationwide plan to renovate the foyers presents distinct challenges to the arrangements established by the generations of migrants who live in them, arrangements that have long sustained the social reproduction of transnational migration. In response, residents foreground their long-established presence in Paris to stake claims in the renovation process. Their stories of urban dwelling are punctuated by postal addresses, bureaucratic tokens of identification that play a pivotal role both in migrants’ historical imagination and in the administrative modes of granting residency rights. The foyers are sites of emplacement, albeit fragile, and spaces from which West African migrants contest their political exclusion in present-day France

Diderot’s Battle against Books : Books as Objects during the Enlightenment and Revolution

Diderot against books ? The idea may seem surprising, considering the popular assumption that the Enlightenment, in which Diderot played a leading role, had always advocated education for all, and education necessarily required literacy and access to books. This optimistic vision reflects the desire of our contemporaries to see a linear progression from the eighteenth century to the Revolution and ultimately to the Republican values of present-day France. In fact, Diderot and his fellow philo...

On the Origin of Hagionyms in North American French Surnames

AbstractMost surnames of French origin in North America were borne by migrants from various parts of France, so it is hardly surprising that the two sets should share many commonalities. One of these involves the existence of hagionymic family names, for example, Saint-Pierre, Saint-Jean, Sainte-Marie, and the like. A significant difference between them, however, is that the ones in present-day France invariably stem from surnames that were taken directly from hagiotoponyms, of which there were a great many, whereas the majority of those in North America originate from nicknames — the so-called dit names — of various types. Prominent among these were the numerous noms de guerre that discharged soldiers passed on to their descendants.