Chap. 13
Remarkable deposits: caches and hoards
Les dépôts remarquables : caches et réserves
p. 235-239
Résumés
The characterization and analysis of 91 remarkable deposits, located in almost all the buildings, indicate that the large majority were caches relating to foundation rituals or, more rarely, to the closure of structures. These caches were mostly located in foundation trenches or earthen wall bases, in pits excavated into the floor, beneath entrance structures or in hearth pits. They were composed of isolated objects or groups of objects: flint lithics (blades, tools, arrowheads), macro-tools (hammers, handstones, spheres, retouchers), ornaments (pendants, beads, cone figurines, ochre) or animal bones (mandibles with tusks, scapulae, bone tools). The types of deposited objects seem to vary according to the archaeological context. Similarly, important differences are noted between the deposits in the diverse buildings (“flint building”, “spondylus building”, “animal bone building”), raising the question of an individual or collective dimension.
Les dépôts qualifiés de remarquables sont caractérisés par leur localisation dans un contexte archéologique clos, la qualité exceptionnelle des objets concernés ou leur regroupement inhabituel, autant de critères signalant une intentionnalité. Au nombre de quatre-vingt-onze, de tels dépôts ont été observés dans tous les secteurs de fouille et dans la plupart des bâtiments. Leur recension et l’analyse de leurs caractéristiques montrent que la très grande majorité d’entre eux étaient des caches réalisées dans le cadre de rituels de fondation ou de condamnation. Un seul d’entre eux peut être considéré sans conteste comme une réserve d’outils et de matière première (bâtiment B17). Les catégories d’objets les plus fréquentes sont, par ordre décroissant, le silex (lames, outils, pointes de flèches), les parures (picrolite, coquillages) puis les macro-outils (percuteurs, molettes, sphères, retouchoirs). Les ossements de sanglier ne sont présents que dans 10% des caches, souvent sous forme de portions symphysaires de mandibules portant les défenses, parfois sous forme d’outils ou d’ébauches. Dans la moitié des cas, les objets, de types différents ou non, ont été déposés en amas ou dispersés au fond des tranchées de fondation, tandis qu’un tiers concerne des objets isolés. Ces dépôts remarquables sont le plus souvent situés à la base des murs de terre ou des banquettes, où ils sont caractérisés par une grande variété d’objets. La quasi-totalité des dépôts de pointes de flèches en silex, souvent de grande taille, a été trouvée dans ces contextes. Un tiers des caches est localisé dans des fosses excavées dans les sols des bâtiments, où le silex et le macro-outillage sont dominants. Pendentifs et perles, le plus souvent en picrolite, dominent quant à eux dans les dépôts dissimulés sous toutes les rampes d’entrée ou les pierres de seuil des bâtiments. Des dépôts de condamnation affectent également une partie des fosses foyères. Le nombre et la composition des caches varient en fonction des bâtiments. De ce point de vue, le Bâtiment communautaire ne diffère pas significativement des bâtiments résidentiels, sauf peut-être par une diversité maximale des types d’objets déposés (pierre et ossements). Parmi les bâtiments résidentiels, plusieurs groupes émergent : « Bâtiment à spondyles » (B17), « Bâtiments à os de sanglier » (B09, B10, B25‑27), « Bâtiments à silex » (B04, B07, B18, B800), « Bâtiments à macro-outillage » (B08, B28). Cela suggère que ces caches avaient une certaine valeur de différenciation individuelle ou collective, mais le nombre de bâtiments étudiés et de caches recelées par chacun d’eux est trop faible pour qu’on soit en mesure de confirmer cette hypothèse. La fréquence et la diversité de ces pratiques dépositionnelles soulignent l’importance, pour les villageois de Klimonas, de la dimension symbolique et probablement sociale des outils comme des bâtiments. Leur caractère répété, au gré d’épisodes de construction, de réfection ou de condamnation, témoigne de l’affirmation collective et régulièrement renouvelée du rapport au lieu. En cela, elles s’inscrivent parfaitement dans la tradition pré-céramique.
Texte intégral
Introduction
1In the descriptions of the numerous structures found in the Klimonas PPNA Communal and residential buildings, some deposits of flint, stone, shell or bones were described as remarkable. The attributes defining this appellation are: the location of the deposit in a seemingly closed archaeological context (pit, pole hole, foundation trench), the exceptional quality of the object(s) or the grouping of many objects of the same type or of different types. When one, two or sometimes three of these criteria were observed, the interpretation of intentional deposition was retained. According to Astruc et al. (2003), the objects could be interpreted either as tool or raw material hoards for future technical use, or as symbolic deposits. The latter are often foundation or closure deposits.
2This chapter aims to document and characterize all these remarkable deposits according to their location (type of building, structure) or the number and nature of the deposited items. These descriptive data will be analysed in order to assess whether or not repetitive technical and symbolic practices can be discerned. In other words, were the type and composition of deposits random or were there any differences between the archaeological contexts and (types of) buildings?
1. Methods and data
3The descriptive criteria for the 91 remarkable deposits mentioned in chap. 5 to 7 were the location (building), the type of structure (bench, entrance, foundation trench or wall base, pit, pole hole), the degree of closure and dissimulation of the archaeological context, the number and nature of deposited items (flint, macro-tool, ornament, shell, shaped stone, ochre, bone), and an appraisal of the degree of intentionality of the deposit (appendix 13-1).
2. Intentionality; reserve, caches
4Ninety percent of the deposits were in secure closed archaeological contexts and 71% were unquestionably dissimulated at the base of a wall, in a foundation trench, under a bench or entrance ramp, or in a pit sealed by a constructed floor. Only one deposit (St 6633B), lying on the floor of B17, was clearly not closed and not hidden. This accumulation of 20 flint tools, 18 blades, three large flakes and a bone awl can be considered as a hoard (chap. 14, appendix 14-3). All the other deposits can be considered as caches, with the exception of a possible post wedging (St 898-899), a potential reserve of two handstones (St 6761) and a possible ochre reserve (St 6056). This makes a minimum of 87 caches.
3. Nature of the objects deposited in the caches
5Altogether, the 90 possible or secure caches grouped more than 310 items, mostly composed of flint blades, large flakes and tools (37.5%) and symbolic objects (30%: pendants, beads, fossil shells, cone figurines, ochre; see chap. 17). Macro-tools represented 23%, with two main groups, hammerstones and spheres (51%), and handstones (41%). The sporadic presence of retouchers (6%; see chap. 16) should also be mentioned. Bones accounted for less than 10%. They were mostly composed of wild boar bones, some of which were tools or even blanks (see chap. 18), aside from one human skull fragment and one dog mandible, both in the Communal building. Some clear arrangements were observed, such as the radial organization of flint blades (see chap. 14, appendix 14-3), the association of two spheres with a retoucher or of three spheres (see chap. 7, fig. 7-44), or the pseudo-anatomic reconstruction of a wild boar muzzle with foot bones in the mouth (see chap. 31).
6Most of the time, the deposits contained several types of different objects either grouped in pits, post holes or wall bases (49%), or scattered in foundation trenches (14%). However, one third of them were deposited isolated in small pits.
4. Cache locations and archaeological contexts
7The Central Sector yielded 20 deposits, all in the first (16) or second phase (4) of the Communal building. B800, the sole excavated building of F Sector, also yielded 20 deposits. Sixteen of the 23 buildings excavated in Sector B contained the 51 other caches at a rate of 1 to 8 per building, that is on average much less than for building B800 – although the former are not as well preserved as the latter (B800 is actually quantitatively comparable to the richest buildings of Sector B, such as B10 or B18). Fig. 13-1 and fig. 13-2 provide a summarized overview of the spatial distribution of the deposits in the residential buildings of Sectors F and B (for their distribution in the Communal building, see chap. 5, fig. 5-14).
Fig. 13-1 – Distribution of the remarkable deposits in B800 (Sector F).

Répartition des dépôts remarquables dans le bâtiment B800 (Secteur F). Relevé Y. Franel, Inrap, DAO Y. Franel, Inrap, et J.‑D. Vigne, CNRS.
Plan Y. Franel, Inrap, CAD Y. Franel, Inrap, and J.‑D. Vigne, CNRS.
Fig. 13-2 – Distribution of the remarkable deposits in Sector B.

Répartition des dépôts remarquables dans le Secteur B. Relevé et DAO J.‑D. Vigne, CNRS.
Survey and CAD J.‑D. Vigne, CNRS.
8The distributions of the caches in the different types of archaeological contexts do not differ between the Communal and the residential buildings. Most of them (51%) were found in foundation trenches, earth wall bases and peripheral benches, in the form of isolated items, small groups (possibly sometimes deposited in a perishable bag or box) or scattered items (fig. 13-3, A). Thirty percent came from small pits or reused post holes (dozens of objects generally in groups of three); they were rarely isolated (18.5%). Remarkable deposits were almost systematically found under earthen entrance structures, in doorframe post holes or under the earthen ramp or stone threshold. They represent 14.4% of the remarkable deposits. Almost half of the hearth pits contained remarkable deposits (see chap. 12). Some deposits were located in post holes or in open pits excavated in the building floor. These represent closure deposits. However, the latter were much less frequent than foundation deposits.
Fig. 13-3 – A, Relative frequency of the different archaeological contexts of the 90 caches. B, Distribution of the different types of objects by context type. In number of occurrences.

A, Fréquence relative des différents contextes archéologiques des 90 caches. B, Répartition des différents types d’objets entre ces types de contextes. En nombre d’occurrences.
9Fig. 13-3, B clarifies that the nature of items varies according to the different deposit contexts. Bones were absent from the, admittedly small number, of hearth closure deposits. Ornaments (namely picrolite pendants or beads) and flint were dominant in entrance deposits. Pit caches comprised mostly flint and macro-tools. Foundation trench deposits were dominated by flint, especially arrowheads (15 out of 17 were found in these contexts), though all the object types were found here, including most of the animal bone deposits.
5. Deposit as a social identity marker?
10Different types of composition could also be related to the different buildings (fig. 13-4, A). Principal component analyses of the categories of items deposited in the 10 buildings with five or more caches evidenced clear tendencies (fig. 13-4, B), even though they were not statistically significant (Kruskall-Wallis, p = 0.06). The first component opposes flint (0.5) to animal bones (-0.8) and the second defines a secondary opposition between flint (-0.6) and macro-tools (0.7). The hierarchical clustering of the same 10 buildings revealed three groups. Buildings B09, B10 and B25-27 clearly diverge from the others due to the high occurrence of wild boar bones and bone tool deposits. Buildings B08 and B28 appear to be especially rich in macro-tools. Buildings B04, B07, B18 cluster together alongside B800, with high occurrences of flint deposits. The Communal building deposits are plotted at an intermediate position between the first and third groups.
Fig. 13-4 – Analyses of the occurrence of different types of objects deposited in the caches of the different buildings: A, Proportion per building for each object; B, Principal component analyses for the 10 buildings with five or more caches; C, Hierarchical clustering of the same buildings according to Euclidian distances.

Analyses des occurrences des différents types d’objets déposés dans les caches des bâtiments : A, proportion par bâtiment pour chacun d’entre eux ; B, analyses en composantes principales pour les 10 bâtiments ayant livré 5 caches ou plus ; C, analyse hiérarchique ascendante des mêmes bâtiments en fonction des distances euclidiennes.
11The three buildings in the “animal bone” group were located very close to each other (fig. 13-2). As these buildings were occupied successively (see the Harris matrix in chap. 7), this particular cache composition signature could have persisted throughout the successive generations of buildings, used or occupied by the same group, and may have represented a distinctive marker for the building itself or its inhabitants. This interpretation may be strengthened by building B17, with a small number of caches (therefore not represented in fig. 13-4, B, C), but a unique and overwhelming predominance of fossil Spondylus pebble deposits in the foundation trench, together with a stone shaped in the form of a Spondylus pebble. However, caution is called for as there is no clear connection between the buildings containing the two other groups (“flint” and “macro-tool”), and several groups of successive buildings built at the same place did not show any clear similarities in cache composition (B13-B14, B18-B28). It is also possible that the deposit only differentiated the structure (or its users or occupants) in the case of more unusual types of objects (as flint and macrotools are ubiquitous and therefore non-differentiating).
12These caches may also be indicative of many other functions. Equivalent deposits have been found at numerous other Southwest Asian archaeological sites from different periods. There are also many ethnographic mentions of such caches, e.g., when contemporary Maya populations build new homes, they perform ritual practices in the architecture itself, burying offerings at each stage of architectural construction (Stross 1998, p. 32). At Klimonas, the presence of intentional deposits incorporated into architectural features in both domestic and non-domestic structures (Communal building) is relatively consistent throughout the duration of the village, indicating that the practice persisted over many generations. The deposits are composed of widely available materials used on day-to-day basis by the inhabitants of the village, suggesting that they may have been hidden without the assistance of specialists. However, this is not the case for the blades in the St 6818 deposit (post hole in building B07), which were organized and wedged into the cramped volume and were thus most probably deposited by the knapper who produced them. In all probability, these deposits result from a combination of varied and multiple gestures which, we must modestly admit, will always escape us. Nevertheless, the diversity of cache deposits at Klimonas and their wide distribution correspond to a shared and common belief within the community that buildings had an intangible attribute extending beyond their inherent architectural function.
Conclusion
13Ninety-one remarkable deposits were observed in all excavation sectors and in most of the buildings. The survey of these deposits and the analysis of their characteristics showed that the vast majority of them were caches deposited as part of foundation or closure rituals. Only one of them could be unquestionably considered as a reserve of tools and raw materials. The most frequent categories of objects were, in descending order, flint (blades, tools, arrows), ornaments (picrolite, shells) and macro-tools (hammerstones, handstones, spheres, retouchers). Wild boar bones were only present in 10% of the caches, sometimes in the form of tools. In half of the cases, similar or different types of objects were deposited in clusters or scattered at the base of foundation trenches, but a third of the deposits contained isolated objects.
14The remarkable deposits were mainly located at the base of earthen walls or benches, where they were characterized by a wide variety of object types. Almost all the flint arrowhead deposits, often large in size, were found in these contexts. One third of the caches were located in pits dug into the buildings’
floors. In these contexts, flint and macro-tools were predominant. Pendants and beads, mostly made of picrolite, were abundant in all the deposits hidden under entrance ramps or threshold stones. Closure deposits were also made for some of the hearth pits.
15The number and composition of caches varied according to the building. In this respect, the Communal building did not differ significantly from residential ones, although it contained the most diversified types of deposited (stone and bones). For the residential buildings, several groups emerged: “Spondylus building” (B17), “Boar bone buildings” (B09, B10, B25-27), “Flint buildings” (B04, B07, B18, B800) and “Macro-tool buildings” (B08, B28). This suggests that these caches had some socially differentiating value, although the number of buildings studied and the number of caches sealed by each is too small to be able to confirm this hypothesis.
16The frequency and diversity of these depositional practices underline the importance of the symbolic and probably social dimension of tools and buildings for the Klimonas villagers. Repetitive deposits, during episodes of construction, renovation or closure, attest to collective and continually renewed relationships with the inhabited place, perfectly in line with the Pre-Pottery tradition.
Annexe
KLIMONAS-Ch13-A01, https://doi.org/10.34847/nkl.0af70b7v
List of the PPNA potentially remarkable deposits of Klimonas • Liste des dépôts PPNA potentiellement remarquables de Klimonas
Jean-Denis VIGNE (CNRS)
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