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Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2023

Envisioning Territories and Networks in the Middle Palaeolithic: What Data, What Possibilities?

Envisager les territoires et les réseaux au Paléolithique moyen : quelles données, quelles possibilités ?

Résumé

Approaches aimed at identifying and studying the networks of human groups in the Palaeolithic, a major issue in the study of past societies, are still mainly the prerogative of the “recent’ periods” (from the Late Palaeolithic onwards). Although the transition from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Late Palaeolithic is no longer perceived as a clear break but as a succession of innovations (art, ornaments, bone industries), the questioning of the relations, real or supposed, between human groups within chrono-culturally coherent spaces remains rare for the Middle Palaeolithic period. This contribution proposes to reexamine these considerations for the Late Middle Palaeolithic, via the study of three contexts (fig. 3): Le Rescoundudou (Aveyron), Combe-Grenal (Dordogne) and Baume-Vallée (Haute-Loire). It is based on a double approach (fig. 2). On the one hand, a petro-techno-economic approach (PTE), referring to the interaction and integration, for each archaeological artefact, of petro-archaeological and typo-technological data (Caux, 2015; Vaissié et al., 2021). On the other hand, a travel modelling approach (based on a “least-cost path” analysis) to express in a quantified way the investment (in time and energy) necessary for the group to visit defined points of interest (Vaissié, 2021a and 2021b). Coupling this approach with the division put forward by A. Tomasso (2018) allowed us to re-discuss the definitions of lithic material supply areas within the site territory and the extended/social territory. On the basis of the ethnographic frame of reference, a distinction was thus made between daily space (within a day’s walk there and back), restricted logistical space (up to three days’ walk), extended logistical space (up to seven days’ walk) and the extended/social territory beyond this limit. The data from these joint analyses allow us to propose a new perception of the circulation of materials and spatial organisation for the Mousterian groups of the Late Middle Palaeolithic (tables 1 to 3; fig. 4 and fig. 7). On a regional scale, the three sites show a tripartite organisation of Mousterian territories between daily space, restricted logistical space and extended logistical space. The first two constitute the core of the spaces frequented during the occupations, through the regular implementation of logistical expeditions to areas of activity with an apparently specialized and/or mixed status. The last one constitutes a form of limit of what is perceptible to us in “normal” contexts (meaning within the territory of use of a given group), the duration of seven days constituting a sort of threshold of conservation of the lithic tools beyond which they are completely replaced. These results allow us to broaden the scales of mobility usually documented in the Middle Palaeolithic, as well as to document the relatively intensive frequentation of several poles within the restricted logistical space in ways that are probably related to (at least) partially specialised supply, in parallel with other subsistence activities. The area delimited within the logistical space is comparable to the annual territory of nomadic groups as it can be documented in the ethnographic record (which varies between 3,000 and 10,000 km² on average; Binford, 1982; Kelly, 2013). In this perspective, and at least for the Rescoundudou and Combe-Grenal contexts, the groups seem to organise their nomadic cycles according to a low residential mobility (few changes of residential camps during a year/season?), but with large amplitudes between two base camps/residential camps (of the order of a hundred kilometres and the equivalent of a week’s walk - with no major intermediate stages). The low representation of material from the intermediate spaces between two residential camps nevertheless points to short journeys (in terms of duration), without major occupation stages. This indicates a planning of journeys that integrates the constitution of stocks in anticipation of the journeys (distant materials better represented, both in terms of numbers and in terms of stages in the chain of operations, than materials from the intermediate spaces), the knowledge of the routes limiting the duration of the group’s journey, and the certainty of the abundance of resources (at least lithic resources) in the destination zone. For the Baume-Vallée context, on the other hand (table 3; fig. 7), the limit of perception of the logistical territory disappears, and illustrates the movement of materials over several hundred kilometres, representing the greatest amplitudes known in Western Europe for the Middle Palaeolithic. The supply territory highlighted is organised on a minimum scale of more than 400 km in Euclidean distance in its longest axis (equivalent to more than thirty days’ walking according to our modelling; Vaissié, 2021a and 2021b). Such magnitudes go far beyond the restrictive framework of the mobility cycle of a single group, and are more in line with the criteria expected for the identification of a social territory. These distant circulations are also systematically associated with the materialisation of spatio-temporal fractures, sometimes important, between the most distant materials and the potential intermediate spaces, implying the question of the existence of transfers between different groups. The Baume-Vallée deposit thus illustrates for the first time “tangible links” (in the form of material flows) between several geographical entities within which groups of archaeological sites are now identified, each presenting a form of internal techno-cultural coherence. These data raise questions about the existence of potential networks between cultural groups that maintain structured relationships according to seasonal cycles of nomadism within more or less vast territories. This scenario, in addition to responding to a biological necessity for human groups in terms of exchanges and circulation of the genome, would explain in part the semblance of cultural uniformity observed at the end of stage 5 by favouring exchanges of goods, people and ideas. By establishing the possible connections that structure and articulate Mousterian territories with similar and chronologically related technical traditions, we could take a great step forward in our perception of Neanderthal humanity. In particular, this would constitute a formidable opportunity to overcome the “glass ceiling” that is the Techno-Complex in the Middle Paleolithic and reach the degree of resolution of the cultural group. This perspective opens up interesting avenues of research, which will have to be confronted with the extensive petrographic and techno-economic revisions of Mousterian contexts. But also rely on an interdisciplinary approach: Data from research on subsistence activities or seasonality, the presence of bone industry, symbolic behaviours and their possible normative criteria, and the whole sphere of anthropology are all fields without which it seems very unlikely to arrive at such a resolution in our understanding of the archaeological fact and of Neanderthal humanity in all its complexity.
Les approches visant l'identification et l'étude des réseaux des groupes humains au Paléolithique, enjeux majeurs de l'étude des sociétés passées, restent encore majoritairement l'apanage de la phase récente de cette longue période. Bien que le passage du Paléolithique moyen au Paléolithique récent ne soit désormais plus perçu comme une rupture franche, mais comme une phase marquée par une diversification (et une complexification) des registres de données relevant notamment des sphères techniques (industries osseuses) et symboliques (arts pariétal et mobilier, ornements, pratiques mortuaires), le questionnement relatif aux relations, réelles ou supposées, entre groupes humains au sein d'espaces chronoculturellement cohérents demeure rare pour la période du Paléolithique moyen. En nous fondant sur une approche couplant pétro-techno-économie et modélisation des déplacements appliquée aux données issues de trois contextes du Paléolithique moyen récent du sud de la France (le Rescoundudou, Baume-Vallée et Combe-Grenal), nous développons ici de nouvelles pistes sur ces questions. La mise en évidence systématique de circulations de matériaux sur une centaine de kilomètres (et une durée estimée à environ une semaine de marche) traduit un premier niveau d'organisation territorial, au sein duquel la mobilité s'organise selon des déplacements saisonniers importants et des stratégies logistiques lors des phases résidentielles. Un second niveau d'organisation traduit des circulations de matériaux sur des distances beaucoup plus importantes, établissant des relations entre plusieurs régions et articulant ces domaines entre eux. Ces niveaux d'organisation conduisent à réinterroger notre perception des possibilités de réseaux de relations socialement structurés entre différentes entités correspondant alors à des groupes culturels dépassant le « plafond de verre » du technocomplexe.
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hal-04454647 , version 1 (13-02-2024)

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Citer

Erwan Vaissié, Jean-Philippe Faivre. Envisager les territoires et les réseaux au Paléolithique moyen : quelles données, quelles possibilités ?. Hiatus, lacunes et absences : identifier et interpréter les vides archéologiques, Actes du 29e Congrès préhistorique de France, 31 mai-4 juin 2021, Toulouse, Session Réseaux de transferts matériels, aires chronoculturelles : le visible et l’invisible, Société préhistorique française, pp.5-34, 2023. ⟨hal-04454647⟩
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