Navigation – Plan du site

AccueilNuméros6Session « des techniques aux terr...The Mesolithic, a Green Revolutio...

Session « des techniques aux territoires »

The Mesolithic, a Green Revolution in the Heart of Forested Europe? First Reflections on this Question

Nicolas Valdeyron
Cet article est une traduction de :
Le mésolithique, une révolution verte au cœur de l’Europe des forêts ? Éléments pour une amorce de réflexion [fr]

Résumé

As an introduction, this short article raises the question of the role of vegetal resources in the dietary economy of the Mesolithic. For many years, this role was seen as a given even if there was no significant archaeological evidence to support it. Meanwhile, during the last decade, reliable observations have led to new discussions and the recording in Western Europe of intensive nuts (mostly hazelnuts) gathering, along with practices associated with storage and differential consumption.

Haut de page

Texte intégral

1The Mesolithic covers only a short period of European Prehistory, the first five or six thousand years of the Holocene. It is thus wedged between the Late Paleolithic, a much longer period correlated with the arrival in Europe of Anatomically Modern Humans, the supposed creators of the first art forms, and the Neolithic, a slightly shorter period nonetheless tied to, with the beginning of agricultural economies, the irreversible acceleration of the complexification of human societies. Lacking, a priori, an attribute bestowing it with such a clear identity, the Mesolithic can by comparison appear dull, with no specific interest or consistency. And yet, the challenges involved in its study, related to the dialectic of a completely new Human-Environment relationship, are at least as important as those underlying the originality and reputation of the two periods between which it is framed: the Mesolithic is the moment during which post-glacial Europe was reconquered by vegetation, with the gradual development of a large, continental primary forest, little by little dominated by oak. Those who occupied and travelled across these territories, likely forgetting even the memory itself of the vast Paleolithic spaces and being unaware of the agricultural revolution to come, invented new ways of life founded on a predation and storage economy in which the intensive gathering and collecting of vegetal resources undoubtedly played an economic, as well as social, role that was both new and emblematic.

2This innovative contribution of plants to the Mesolithic diet was considered long ago, and more recently, as a given (Clarke, 1976), or at least a high probability (Barbaza, 1999; Ghesquière, 2012). This position is fully justified by both the environmental context, of course potentially and eminently favorable to its development, and by the ethnographic examples of populations evolving in forested spaces more or less similar to what must have been the great primary forest of Europe. However, until recently, convincing archaeological evidence for food collection and storage was inexistent and the reality of this contribution thus remained (almost) purely speculative because it was archaeologically (almost) silent. Indeed, though charred edible vegetal remains are common at European Mesolithic sites, including the most southern ones (Antolín et al., 2013), direct evidence of the anthropogenic origin of their presence, preparation, and / or consumption, differential or not, by humans seemed impossible to find. This is no longer entirely true and a few recently published examples highlight the reality of this double practice (i.e. intensive collection and storage) in which it is now tempting to see an element that is specifically and authentically Mesolithic.

3One piece of evidence is provided by the site of Staosnaig, located on the Scottish island of Colonsay (Mithen et al., 2001). Occupied at around 6 500 cal BC, it yielded six structures piled with the remains of charred hazelnuts: one large pit, 5 m in diameter, alone yielded 16 kg of shells corresponding to 30 to 40 000 hazelnuts! The authors demonstrated that this pit was the discard zone for the overly grilled contents of an oven, which could have processed between 120 and 330 000 hazelnuts, equaling the accumulated production of several thousands of trees. Another example is provided by the 7 500 hazelnut shells extracted from a sedimentary sample of only 250 liters, at the Irish site of Derragh Island (Bunce, 2011). An analysis of them showed that they were subject to a slight, homogeneous charring similar to that reproduced during torrefaction.

Figure 1 - Duvensee (Germany)

Figure 1 - Duvensee (Germany)

WP6. Close-up of the excavated zone, with grilling hearths, pine boards, charcoal, and hazelnut shell concentrations

CAD: N. Valdeyron, after D. Holst, 2011

4Even more convincing are the “roasting structures” of locations 8 and 6 of Duvensee in northern Germany (Holst, 2010, 2011), at short-term occupation sites specialized in the hazelnut processing and occupied during the early and middle phases of the Mesolithic. Constructed in an artificial sand level forming a sort of screed and itself resting on a layer of pine and birch bark, these complex structures (figure 1), measuring 6 to 0.2 m², were organized in a group and the largest ones were protected by wooden cases. They attest to what must have been a frequent and intensive practice of hazelnut grilling, phenomenal quantities (several tens of thousands) of which were found.

5In France, no find of this type has been clearly identified or described for the Mesolithic, except for some pits at the site of Auneau interpreted as shelled fruit storage features (Verjux, 2000, 2004, 2006). The sites of Escabasses (Thémines) and Cuzoul de Gramat in the Lot Department could nonetheless represent the same types of behaviors as those described above, involving the collection and processing of large quantities of hazelnuts (Valdeyron, 2013). At Escabasses, a hearth feature (US 14) dated to the 8th millennium cal BC the strongly resembles a “roasting pit” in its morphology (deep, oblong pit with partially rubifi walls) and contents (a very large quantity of wood charcoal). As for Cuzoul de Gramat, intact concentrations of several dozens of hazelnut shells contained within an ashy mass were observed (figure 2) in a level attributed to the first half of the 6th millennium cal BC: the aim of ongoing research at this site is to explain this unusual configuration by testing the hypothesis of a functional link between the ash accumulations and hazelnut processing for storage.

Figure 2 - Le Cuzoul de Gramat (Lot, France)

Figure 2 - Le Cuzoul de Gramat (Lot, France)

Close-up of an ash concentration in the process of excavation in a level from the end of the Mesolithic, containing whole or almost whole hazelnut shells

Photo: M. Miesch

Haut de page

Bibliographie

Antolín F., Piqué R., Ballesteros A., Burjachs F., Buxo R., Mensua C., Edo M., 2013 - Changes in the interaction from the Mesolithic (10300-8500 cal BC) to the Early Neolithic (C. 5400 cal BC) in Can Sadurní cave (Begues, Barcelona province, Sapin). A view from the archaeobotanical data, in Damblon F. (ed.), Proccedings of the Fourth International Meeting of Anthracolocy, Brussels, September 2008, (« BAR International Series » 2486), 19-29.

Barbaza M., 1999 - Les civilisations postglaciaires. La vie dans la grande forêt tempérée, Édition la Maison des roches, Paris, Histoire de la France préhistorique, 127 p.

Bunce A., 2011 - An accident of surplus or deliberate subsistence? The hazelnuts from Derragh Island, Ireland. Article en ligne sur le site The Discovery Programme, http://www.discoveryprogramme.ie/environmental/plant-remains/148-hazelnutprocessing-on-derragh-island.html

Clarke D. L., 1976 - Mesolithic Europe: the economic basis, in Sieveking G., Longworth I. H., Wilson K. H., Problems in Economic and Social Archaeology, Duckworth, London, 448-481.

Ghesquière E., 2012 - Le Mésolithique en Basse-Normandie, Thèse de doctorat, EHESS, Université Toulouse 2- Le Mirail, 2 vol., 848 p.

Holst D., 2010 - Hazelnut economy of early Holocene hunter-gatherers: a case study from Mesolithic Duvensee, northern Germany, Journal of Archaeological Science, 37, 11, 2871-2880.

Holst D., 2011 - Spatial organization and settlement dynamics of Mesolithic nut processing sites in the Duvensee Bog (Northern Germany), in Gaudzinski-Windheuser S., Jöris O., Sensburg M., Stret M., Turner E. (eds.), Site internal spatial organization of hunter-gatherer societies: case studies from the European Paleolithic and Mesolithic, papers submitted at the session C58, 15th UISPP conference in Lisbon, September 2006, Verlag Römisch- Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Tagungen, 12, 187-212.

Mithen S., Finlay N., Carruthers W., Carter S., Ashmore P., 2001 - Plant Use in the Mesolithic: Evidence from Staosnaig, Isle of Colonsay, Scotland, Journal of Archaeological Science, 28, 223-234.

Valdeyron N., 2013 - Of Men and Nuts. Essai sur le Mésolithique et sur la place qu’y tient le végétal, Mémoire d’habilitation à diriger des recherches, Université Toulouse 2-Le Mirail, 169 p.

Verjux C., 2000 - Les fosses mésolithiques d’Auneau (Eure-et-Loir - France), in Crotti P. (dir.), Méso ‘97, Actes de la Table ronde « Épipaléolithique et Mésolithique », Lausanne, 21-23 Novembre 1997, Lausanne, Cahiers d’archéologie romande, 81, 129-138.

Verjux C., 2004 - Creuser pour quoi faire ? Les structures en creux au Mésolithique, in Bodu P., Constantin C. (dir.), Approches fonctionnelles en Préhistoire, Actes du XXVe Congrès préhistorique de France, Nanterre, 24-26 Novembre 2000, 239-248.

Verjux C., 2006 - Trous de combustions, fosses dépotoirs et autres structures en creux antérieurs au Néolithique en Europe, in Frère-Sautot M. C. (dir.), Des trous… Structures en creux pré- et protohistoriques, Actes du Colloque de Dijon et Baume-les-Messieurs, 24-26 mars 2006, 457-471.

Haut de page

Table des illustrations

Titre Figure 1 - Duvensee (Germany)
Légende WP6. Close-up of the excavated zone, with grilling hearths, pine boards, charcoal, and hazelnut shell concentrations
Crédits CAD: N. Valdeyron, after D. Holst, 2011
URL http://journals.openedition.org/palethnologie/docannexe/image/1366/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 248k
Titre Figure 2 - Le Cuzoul de Gramat (Lot, France)
Légende Close-up of an ash concentration in the process of excavation in a level from the end of the Mesolithic, containing whole or almost whole hazelnut shells
Crédits Photo: M. Miesch
URL http://journals.openedition.org/palethnologie/docannexe/image/1366/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 352k
Haut de page

Pour citer cet article

Référence électronique

Nicolas Valdeyron, « The Mesolithic, a Green Revolution in the Heart of Forested Europe? First Reflections on this Question »Palethnologie [En ligne], 6 | 2014, mis en ligne le 10 février 2014, consulté le 16 avril 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/palethnologie/1366 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/palethnologie.1366

Haut de page

Auteur

Nicolas Valdeyron

Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès. Traces (UMR 5608) 5 allée Antonio Machado 31 100 Toulouse, France
valdeyro[at]univ-tlse2.fr

Articles du même auteur

Haut de page

Droits d’auteur

CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

Haut de page
Rechercher dans OpenEdition Search

Vous allez être redirigé vers OpenEdition Search