Abstract
p. 471-472
Texte intégral
1The construction of the TGV-Méditerranée high-speed rail link required an extensive archeological rescue operation on a narrow strip of land 260km long. The operation was defined in an agreement between the French Ministry of Culture, SNCF (the French national rail operator), and the AFAN national association for archeological excavations (since replaced by the INRAP national institute for rescue archeology and research). Responsibility for the excavations was devolved to AFAN. The deployment of the scientific programme and the oversight and follow-up of operations were the work of the regional archeology departments of the Rhône-Alpes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Languedoc-Roussillon régional authorities. Three successive phases of research took place over a two-year period, namely a documentary investigation, prospecting, and excavations of various levels of intensity depending on the nature of the sites.
Part One: the sites
2Fourteen medieval sites were identified throughout the length of the central and lower Rhône Valley. These are in a variety of environments due to the nature of the landscape and its history, but ail were located on the banks of the Rhône, enjoyed a warm climate and developed within the Occitan language area. In addition, all the sites are rural. Half of them were occupied between the sixth to eighth centuries CE, while the others (or the resumption of occupation from the former) stretch from the eleventh to fifteenth centuries. As is so often the case, there is scant ninth-century evidence, with only one site being occupied at that date. Although generally modest in size, the sites have supplied data that update the present State of knowledge of the medieval countryside, notably illustrating the architecture, the phenomenon of isolated burial sites, the objects, tools and products of domestic and agricultural life, and the landscape.
3At the northern end of the line, the hamlet of Beaume was built in the twelfth century close to the road from Valence to Romans. It occupies clearing in the forest of Bayanne, which was substantially cleared during the expansion of the monastic orders between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. The hamlet probably belonged to the hospitaliers. A succession of buildings and the cemetery were uncovered. The institution was destroyed by a fire which fossilized the earthen architecture, and was subsequently rebuilt in the fourteenth century.
4In the courtyard of the institution, dating from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the 24 graves excavated form a complete, singular burial ground. The archeological and anthropological study carried out highlighted the use of simple and relatively unvarying funeral practices applying to individuals relatively advanced in years showing incapacitating pathologies due to old age or accidents. This specificity suggests that Beaume may have been a centre for the old and infirm.
5At Bourbousson, near Crest, a craftsman’s shop, located close to streams and on the edge of a track, operated in the tenth and eleventh centuries. It consisted of a dwelling, an outhouse which, with its fireplace and anvil rest, was used as a forge, plus a small smithy. This was probably a specialized workshop serving local farmers.
6In the Drôme valley, the habitat at Saint-Martin grew up around the church of the same name and succeeded both a Gallo-Roman villa occupied until the early fourth century CE and a necropolis used between the sixth and eleventh centuries. The area excavated shows an informal grouping of foundations of cabins, ovens, a smithy and food and fodder storage areas, surrounded by a ditch. The remains point to a degree of continuous occupation on a site that was ultimately deserted in the twelfth century due to competition from the neighbouring castrum at the present-day village of Chabrillan.
7A few kilometres further south, the ancient rural site of L’Hortal was reoccupied in the sixth and seventh centuries by a small farm comprising three dwelling and farm buildings. A small burial ground is connected with it or was created subsequently, before the site was again abandoned. It seems to hâve been deserted throughout the ninth century. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, food and fodder storage and gardening activities seem to have been practiced.
8On one flank of the Treilayes plateau, the other side of which is occupied by a medieval castrum, two successive farming occupations were studied. From the first, dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a number of pits and a defensive ditch were excavated. Subsequently, although at an indeterminate date, the slope was terraced, probably for vineyards.
9At Constantin, on the banks of the river Vermenon, two isolated dwellings succeeded each other. The first, dating from the sixth and seventh centuries, stands next to a small food/fodder storage area. The second, dating from the twelfth century, is an excavated house built of wood and earth. A fire fossilized the layer where it collapsed, allowing for detailed study of its architecture and the Personal effects left in place.
10Further south, at Les Ribauds in the Vaucluse département, at Le Porge and at Codoyères in the Gard département, there are tenuous traces of a few developments in fields or on the edges of an inhabited area. At Les Ribauds this consists of a structure for cooking, at Le Porge two ovens and a number of pits, and two pits at Codoyères.
11The remains uncovered at Saint-Gilles le Vieux, a Carolingian villa in the Gard départment, are more substantial and include several parts of a large food and fodder storage area which were excavated. These seem to have been located between the inhabited area, which boasted a church, and the fields. Latterly they were used as a dumping ground and delivered up artifacts illustrative of the crockery, tools, livestock breeding and dietary habits of the site’s occupants, mainly between the tenth and twelfth centuries.
12At the Southern end of the line, at Pont des Ânes in the municipality of Baillargues (Hérault), an eleventh century habitat, only the dumping ground of which was seen, succeeded a small, sixth-century rural habitat.
Part Two: studies and analyses
13Within the framework of construction work on the TGV, around sixty sedimentary sequences in the middle Rhône valley, dating from late antiquity to the present day, were studied. In conjunction with geomorphology and sedimentology, pedology (and notably soil micromorphology) offers new insights into several periods of morphosedimentary stability by highlighting synchronous regional soil evolution sequences. After assessing the conditions of deposits in the main geosystems traversed between Valence and Orange, a development study of the landscapes, climate, and the possible relationships between humans and their environment is presented in seven main stages. The periods of landscape stability and pedogenesis from the fourth century to the middle of the fifth century, and from the seventh and eighth centuries to the twelfth century, are particularly closely examined. The latter phase, which was particularly long and extensive in the central Rhône valley area, is remarkably illuminated by the systematic approach made possible by these linear studies. The periods of hydrological instability from the end of the fifth to the seventh centuries and in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, are considered as phases of active landscape modification, érosion, and agrological impoverishment of soils. Geoarcheological data often lead to a somewhat different representation of medieval landscapes to that built up using generally-accepted written sources.
14The wood samples collected from sites in the Drôme reveal the preservation of areas of woodland between the tenth and fourteenth centuries. Although clearance did take place, and perhaps in a relatively definitive fashion in the Isère valley, elsewhere it seems to have taken place for temporary cultivation, and was followed by lengthy fallow periods and the reconstitution of woodland.
15The seeds collected on six of the sites show the predominance of bread/club wheat in crops and food. This was grown and consumed alongside rye, barley, oats and millet in proportions that varied from one geographic area to another. Seeds from adventitious plants indicate that winter cereal sowing was a current practice, notably for wheat, perhaps on a two-year crop rotation cycle.
16Livestock breeding involved the traditional species, with the exception of the rabbit, which was restricted to the Mediterranean area, and the duck, which was not found in the médiéval farmyards of south-west France. Food consumption was restricted to domestic species on sites in the central Rhône valley. At Saint-Gilles a few wild species also found their way to the table. Lastly sheep and goats provided, in addition to their meat, horn cores used for casehardening on two smithing sites.
17The rural establishments of the Drôme built between the sixth and fourteenth centuries are found on the hillsides of the Lower Dauphiné in areas favourable to farming and provisioning. They feature buildings whose function, layout and size are variable from one site to another and are always positioned so as to protect them from bad weather. Moreover, they are generally built of earth and wood. These construction methods, which are still in use today, are clearly commonplace in régional architecture from the Middle Ages onwards.
18Three sites in the Drôme are equipped with small forges where the smith worked on the ground, with the possible exception of Bourbousson, where the forge may have been raised off the ground.
19Five small burial areas were studied in association with three others, excavated during construction of the A46-South motorway, to analyze the phenomenon of their isolation. With the odd exception, the sites comprise individual graves in pits, sometimes with a coffer or coffering, a narrow container or one hewed from a single log of wood. On five sites the graves are organized along the same lines as those found in bigger cemeteries. The sites date from the seventh and eighth, and ninth to eleventh centuries, making them chronologically comparable to those of known habitats in the same region, but it is difficult to situate them accurately in relation to contemporary population centres, religious buildings and large cemeteries. It seems clear, in view of the burial methods and the State of health of the subjects, that these are
20not graves of people rejected from society or the resuit of some catastrophic event. On the contrary, their frequency during the Early Middle Ages shows that they corresponded to the burial practices of the period in the same way as the big cemeteries. They are perhaps a heritage of Antiquity, which practiced multiple burial places until around the year 1000, at a time when neitherthe Church nor the parish network were particularly restrictive.
21The ceramic artefacts found on seven sites in the middle Rhône valley were analyzed and compared with regional patterns. They show that supplies came from local manufactures until the thirteenth century, with the use of vessels in the Dauphiné tradition in the northern Drôme, and in the South, pottery where one may recognize a combination of Rhône-Alps and Mediterranean forms. In addition to the ceramics, around one hundred other objects were gathered illustrating daily life in a rural habitat. These are objects for domestic use and ornament, but above all tools, together with a few religious artefacts. Each item is individually catalogued.
Conclusion
22The archeological excavations carried out along the route of the TGV have provided additional knowledge about the médiéval occupation of the sectors traversed by the route. The new data will contribute to updating the geographical picture of the central Rhône valley, as well as that of the human environment, and to further question the existence of a break between late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, as well as to clarify the development of rural organization. In the Languedoc région, the main site excavated again raises the question of the vast food/fodder storage areas organized on farmland near churches. They conjure up images of village communities and are perhaps also a reflection of the generalization of taxation in kind, and of tithing in particular.
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