POTTERY PRODUCTIONS, CIRCULATION AND

NEOLITHIZATION OF THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN: POTTERY
PRODUCTIONS, CIRCULATION AND RECOMBINATION
Claire Manen*, Fabien Convertini**
Abstract: During the 6th millennium cal. BC, the western Mediterranean is progressively settled by the first farmers according to various mechanisms. We propose to observe the question of circulation of raw materials, products and practices in this specific chrono-cultural context. Two scales of observations are considered in this paper. In the first one, the
macro regional scale, we’ll examine the question of circulation of Neolithic practices between Italy and South of France.
In the second scale of observation, the regional scale, we will focus on the Languedoc area in order to present some of our
results on circulation of potteries.
Keywords: Early Neolithic, Western Mediterranean, Pottery production, Raw material, Circulation
Resumen: Durante el 6º milenio cal. BC, se produce en el Mediterráneo occidental el progresivo establecimiento de los primeros
agricultores, a partir de diversos mecanismos. Nosotros queremos examinar la cuestión de la circulación de materias primas, productos y prácticas en este contexto crono-cultural específico. En este trabajo se considerarán dos escalas de observación. En primer
lugar, a escala macro-regional, examinaremos la cuestión de la circulación de las prácticas neolíticas entre Italia y el sur de Francia. En segundo lugar, a escala regional, nos centraremos en la zona del Languedoc para presentar algunos de los resultados que
hemos obtenido sobre la circulación de cerámicas.
Palabras clave: Neolítico antiguo, Mediterráneo occidental, Producción cerámica, Materia prima, Circulación
Introduction
During the 6th millennium cal. BC, the western
Mediterranean is progressively settled by the first farmers according to various mechanisms, which imply adaptation of their technical, economic and social components (Guilaine 2001; Guilaine and Manen 2007). The
aim of this paper is to observe the question of circulation of raw materials, products and practices in this specific chrono-cultural context and from the ceramic
point of view. Two scale of observation will be considered. In the first one, at a macro-regional scale, we will
examine the question of circulation of practices and
standard of production between Italy and South of
France and the hypothesis that one can propose to
characterize the process of Neolithization. In other
words, as the process of Neolithization must be, partly,
understood by movement of populations, we will consider the question of circulation of “way of doing” and
their possible transformation. What are they telling us
about mechanisms and rhythms of Neolithization? In
the second scale of observation, the regional scale, we
will underline the Languedoc area and present some results on circulation of potteries.
Macro regional scale
One of the lessons learnt from research over the past
twenty years is that the development of the Cardial Neolithic, previously considered to be the earliest Neolithic
culture of the Southern France, had been preceded by
small settlements with a clearly Italian origin. This anteriority is confirmed by the radiocarbon data witch converge around 5800-5600 cal. BC (Manen et Sabatier
2003; Manen in press). Two sites located in Languedoc
are more specifically involved in this process: Pont de
*CNRS – UMR 5608 TRACES – CRPPM. Université de Toulouse
2 Le Mirail. [email protected]
** INRAP Méditerranée – UMR 7269 LAMPÉA
[email protected]
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Claire Manen, Fabien Convertini
Roque-Haute and Peiro Signado, Portiragnes, Hérault
(Guilaine et al. ed. 2007; Briois et al. 2009). The activities of the inhabitants of Pont de Roque-Haute were
clearly organized around a food-producing economy,
largely based on sheep-keeping (Vigne 2007). Due to the
scarcity of seed remains, agriculture is poorly known but
einkorn and emmer have been identified. Macro-tools attest to cereal grinding. On the contrary, at Peiro Signado
(Briois and Manen 2009), seed remains are plentiful
(einkorn and emmer) while faunal remains are very poor
(bad preservation). Among the ceramic production (Manen 2007), one can observe “a way of doing” very similar to those of the origin area. At each step of the chaîne
opératoire a norm is respected. For the settlement of
Peiro Signado, we find the same characteristics on the site
of Arene Candide (Liguria): grog is added in clay, fine and
coarse wares are present with same morphological characteristics. Organization and techniques of decoration are
identical: covering structure, geometric vocabulary and instrumental techniques of decoration. For Pont de RoqueHaute, the links are stronger with South of Italia: covering but no geometric structure and vertical layout of the
shell decoration with separate impressions. The lithic industries are also very close from the Italian area: bladelets
production and symmetric trapezoids by bitruncation
(Briois 2007). Finally, the presence of obsidian from Sardinia and Palmarola points to contacts with islands in the
Tyrrhenian Sea (Briois et al. 2009).
So, these two sites, and others located in Provence
(Binder et Sénépart 2010), show that the first step of Neolithization of Southern France may be linked with a pioneer process carrying the Neolithic economy. In this
process, technical traditions are very similar to those of
the origin area. In the examples of Peiro Signado and
Pont de Roque-Haute, technical and economic systems
appear to be little recombined compared to the region of
Central-Southern Italy. While maintaining their original
way of life, these Neolithic pioneers successfully adapted
their activities to the regional environment and made use
of the range of locally available resources. The future of
these human groups and their impact in the global Neolithization process of Southern France and perhaps
Western Spain (Bernabeu Auban et al. 2009) remain difficult to consider.
On the contrary, in the second step of Neolithization,
when the Cardial Culture expands in all the Mediterranean shore, one can observe that technical systems
show a lot of differences (Manen and Perrin 2009). For
example, the Cardial in Southern France differs from that
of the Tyrrhenian region by several aspects and two of
them seem to be important to our point of view. First, one
can observe a halt in obsidian imports. This fact suggests
a new configuration of networks of circulation of raw material or finished products perhaps replaced by others. Another important transformation concerns the ceramic
production. In the “French Iberian Cardial” one can observe the abandonment of flat-based pots and that the
decoration on pottery is restricted to the cardium shell
alone. Indeed in the Tyrrhenian area potters use diverse
shells to decorate their ceramic: Cerastoderma, Chlamys,
Glycymeris… Nevertheless, these shells were available in
the French shore and sometimes used for adornments objects. This is a very eloquent technical choice which is also
accompanied of others changes in the forming techniques, the morpho-functional types and the structure of
decoration (loss of geometrism).
And if we focus on the Southern France, regional specificities can be pointed out (Manen and Guilaine 2010).
It shows that we are in front of a different process much
closer to a progressive demographic expansion marked by
technical reorganization and evolution.
These observations show that the circulation of technical
traditions and their recombination could help us to characterize the Neolithization process. But we have to go
ahead on this lead by using quantified data in order to estimate the level of recombination of technical systems.
Regional scale
Concerning the regional scale, we will focus on the
Languedoc area and consider the question of circulation
of potteries during the Early Neolithic. Main results concerning this question become from an ACR research
program called “Organization and development of first
farmer societies. Structure of ceramic productions from
Liguria to Catalonia (Manen et al. ed. 2010). In this program we studied about forty settlements, mainly located
in South of France but also in Liguria and Catalonia, and
more than 800 ceramics/sherds. From a methodological
point of view (Binder et al. 2010), we tried to have the
most global observation of ceramic productions but we
were sometimes limited by the characteristics of ours assemblages: for example the problem of fragmentation
hampers the observations of forming and organization of
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the decoration on the pot. Questions of raw materials
management, modification of clay and structure of decoration were more detailed. The raw materials management was studied by petrography analysis of thin sections.
The location of origin of raw materials was searched
with a specific protocol which also implies geomorphologic analysis around settlements and studies of natural
soil samples.
From a geological point of view, the Languedoc area is
very complex: all the main rock families are present and
represented by various types (Convertini 2010). Furthermore same types of rock are present in different areas. These similarities prevent sometimes the identification of circulation of raw materials or potteries.
Fortunately, some specific markers allow locating pre-
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NEOLITHIZATION OF THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN:
POTTERY PRODUCTIONS, CIRCULATION AND RECOMBINATION
cisely the area of provenance of ceramics. So, thanks to
the easy identification of volcanic components, we
could observe the circulation of ceramics on very long
distances during the Early Neolithic. This is the case of
the right bank of the Hérault River sites (fig. 1). There,
the clays contain a specific mix with inclusions of quaternary basaltic rocks, noduls of permian rocks and triassic quartz. So, it was possible to identify that potteries were made with this clay containing this specific
composition. In our studied area, 23 potteries made
with this specific clay were found on 8 different sites
(fig. 1). They are located in various geological contexts,
sometimes very far from the source: some kilometers for
La Resclauze; but over 100 km for Aspre del Paradis.
We must underline that various types of clay are locally
available around these sites and all these sites delivered
a local production. What about potteries made with
this clay coming from the right bank of Hérault river?
It does not possess specific features that can explain it
use. These potteries do not show specific morphology
FIGURE 1. Localization of the Languedoc area and of the sites mentioned in the text. In all these sites potteries made with clay coming
from the right bank of the Hérault river were found. From Convertini 2010 modified.
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Claire Manen, Fabien Convertini
or decoration. However some of these pots contain specific temper “grog” which is not used in the local production.
All these facts plaid in favor of the circulation of finished
products. But we may wonder if these ceramics travel for
themselves or for their contents. In that case we would
have to understand in which network of circulation these
contents would be involved. Data are still too scarce to go
ahead on this point. Indeed, it is surprising to note that
in the region of the right bank of Hérault river we know
very little about Early Neolithic.
In a more general point of view, and about the management of raw materials, we ranked the resources area in
three types according to the distance of sites where ceramics were left: local (less than 1 km), close (from 1 to
7 km) and allochtonous (over 7 km). For all the sites studied during the ACR research program, clay is in a majority
local; this is the same in all traditional communities of
potters studied by ethnography where clay is collected in
the surrounding of the unit of production (Arnold 2005).
But we must notice that on all ours sites, we also find allocthonous potteries made with clay coming from very
far. So, it is obvious that we are in front of circulation of
potteries rather than raw materials. The quantity of these
non local potteries on each site is always difficult to determine but they are in a minority. And we are not in a
model of circulation of rare raw materials and in this way
we probably can not talk of exchange.
These circulations of potteries probably underline a socio-economic system partly based on mobility. Furthermore, some researches about the organization of Early
Neolithic society puts the accent on the variety of economic systems adopted but also on an organisation based
on a mobile system of resource exploitation. And these
circulations of potteries probably result from movements
that characterize other activities. Some sites could confirm
this assumption because they seem to get a specific function. The existence of hunting halt was well illustrated in
Provence by the site of Grotte Lombard interpreted as a
hunting halt for deer (Binder ed. 1991). In the older layer
of this site, ceramics are all imported. And in Languedoc,
for the site of Jean Cros (Guilaine et al. 1979), we were
showed that among the 7 pots analyzed, 6 were made
with foreign raw materials coming from the Pyrenees area
(Manen and Guilaine 2010). These sites, and others,
should indicate that they were involved in a route as
step-site (hunting halt or pastoral site) where people
brought and left their ceramics. So, with these examples,
it is possible to talk about a specialized management of
spaces during the Early Neolithic. In this way, “each site
must be considered as an element of a network” (Binder
and Perlès 1990).
Other interpretations that we can make on the basis of
our data are about territories. In spite of the diversity of
resources, the similarity of clay located at different places
hampers the lecture of circulation networks. In this context, the permanence of the link with the Hérault valley
makes this link very significant. As we saw previously,
some sites of Western Languedoc present few potteries
made with clay coming from the right bank of Hérault
river. We must point out that these productions, coming
from this place, are always found in the direction of the
Southwest, by going towards the Spanish border. No
potteries made with this specific clay have been found towards the East, near the Rhone valley for example. This
is probably drawing the outlines of territories. Moreover
the same limits are also drawn by the repartition of raw
materials used for flint knapping and axes forming. Analyses made by M. Ricq de Bouard (1996) show for the
Languedoc area two territories. The amphibolite calcique from the Pyrenees is mainly used in the Western
Languedoc. It does not cross the Aude valley. From the
flint point of view F. Briois (2005) observes that Western
Languedoc does not participate to networks of circulation
of raw material on long distances. The acquisition area
seems to not overtake the regional framework. On the
contrary, in the eastern Languedoc and Provence, D.
Binder (1998) shows that sites are involved in the network
of circulation of Bedoulien flint. Glaucophanite and
alpine jadeitite are also used. All these data show a territorial organization and represent probably interactive elements of these territories.
All these observations concern the step of development of
Early Neolithic in Southern France (from 5300 to 5000
cal. BC). But at the end of this period, around 4800 cal.
BC, one can observe another picture. On the one hand,
raw materials used for ceramic productions are less diverse
and it should be interpreted as communities organized on
more little territories. But on the other hand the 5th millennium marks for our region the beginning of diffusion
on long distances: bedoulian flint could spread to western Languedoc; some ornamental standards expand from
the Rhône valley to Andalousia and this period was also
a time when people first mined variscite. All these indications could prefigure the networks which will develop
during the middle Neolithic.
Conclusion
Actual research into the Neolithization process and
the development of farming communities in the Western Mediterranean reveals a diverse and complex cultural landscape. Although during the 1980s it was possible to define the mechanisms of Neolithization and its
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east-west oriented advance, at a steady pace, more recent discoveries allow developing a more detailed and
less restricted scenario wherein the pace and the routes
of Neolithization are thought to be more fluctuating.
Pottery productions, although only partially represen-
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NEOLITHIZATION OF THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN:
POTTERY PRODUCTIONS, CIRCULATION AND RECOMBINATION
tative of the cultural, social and economical system of
the first farming societies, partially mirror the variability of the mechanisms of Neolithization as well as
the multiplicity of regional or extraregional interactions.
The observation of circulation of potteries also underlines a socio-economic system partly based on mobility and a variability for the status of sites involved in a
defined territory.
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