Documents found
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161.More information
We would like to discuss here the implications of the discovery of an early Neolithic round house at Les Ouchettes (Plassay, Charente-Maritime). It is the first example of such a house discovered to date for this period in central-western France and, more generally, on the Atlantic coast of France. The opposition between round and quadrangular house plans is an important cultural element. The circular form presumed for Mesolithic dwellings seems to be much more due to present beliefs concerning hunter-gatherer communities than based on archaeological data. This short article does not enable us to define the characteristics of indigenous dwellings, thus unfortunately restricting our demonstration. Circular and quadrangular house plans are both attested at a very early date in Neolithic settlements near the north Mediterranean coast, whereas only quadrangular plans are attested for the houses of the LBK cultures. We have to confess that the former are much less well documented than the latter. The circular construction at Les Ouchettes, associated with artefacts indicating quite strong southern characteristics, could be part of the diversity of house plans connected with the different early Neolithic groups producing impressed ceramics found near the north-western coast of the Mediterranean. We cannot fail also to discuss the possibility of a relationship between this type of domestic architecture and the funerary architecture with round chambers contained within a circular mound so frequently found in this region.
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162.More information
Abstract The significance and chronology of hoards of polished stone axes in France appear difficult to understand unless they are placed in context, especially with regard to an important phenomenon of social evolution during the Neolithic in western Europe : the circulation of polished axes made of Alpine rocks (jadeite, eclogite...) from the inner Alps right to the veiy edge of the Atlantic façade (Portugal, Brittany, Ireland, northern Germany and Denmark). On the basis of an inventory of 730 polished stone blades (axes and adzes over 15 cm in length) and their own field work in the Alps, the authors put forward a well-argued interpretation of the transition from tool to social symbol during the 5th millennium cal. ВС and of the consequences of this on the exploitation of local types of rock in the Vosges and the Paris Basin.
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164.More information
The archaeological site of Ambet in Southern Ethiopia and the rediscovery in Rome of three Ethiopian steles from Soddo The archeological site of Ambet in southern Ethiopia is rich in carved steles of various kind : one stele " with sword", one anthropomorphic stele and three " masked" steles. This site was documented successively first by Alfred Ilg (1886), by Azaïs and Chambard (1923-26), and then by Francis Anfray in the 1970s. Anfray notes the disappearance of one of the carved steles from the site. The archives of Father Azaïs in Rome mention that he moved 13 monoliths from Gurageland to Addis Abeba in 1932. During a visit at Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente in Rome the author of this article managed to find not only the missing stele from Ambet but also two other carved Ethiopian steles, one of which has never been edited.
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169.More information
The statistical analysis of 151 megalithic graves spread over the European Atlantic coast reveals that the Neolithic builders chose among exactly 10 directions defining 20 circular sectors each 18° wide. The symmetries with respect to the local meridian imply that this system was based on astronomical considerations. A discussion of the knowledge of astronomy that might have been familiar to the Neolithic people suggests that only the solstices were determined directly by visual means and that the other directions were derived by observing particular configurations of the sun’s shadow cast by a gnomon.
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