This type of site, of earth and wood and monumental in nature, raises many questions. Enclosure walls with multiple ditches and palisades appear in western Europe at the end of the 5th millennium BC (around 4400-4300), during a period when the habitat system becomes more complex: differentiated habitat, habitats implanted in valley bottoms, on plateaus, on stone spurs, etc.
Does a wall such as that of Carvin correspond only to a fortified habitat or did it constitute the central space of a group of farms and villages? In other words, what was the function of such a construction? And what was the role of such a site within the habitat system of this period?
The gigantism of such a site, even if realized in several phases, would have required a remarkably perennial collective effort. What thus was the duration of use of such a site?
Given that there is no stratigraphic crossing between the series of ditches, special efforts were made to find traces of reconstruction of modifications to the initial configuration (creation of a passage where the initial trench was continuous, for example), as well as the symmetries/dissymmetries between trenches. A large number of profiles were realized in order to record the filling processes of the ditches. The study of these fillings recounts a long, complex history that varies in the different sectors. The goal of this study is to determine the rhythm of the phases of construction and abandon of the enclosure wall.
A contextual recording of the density of artefacts and especially their nature (refuse or deposit) is aimed at explaining the nature of the site. Analyses of this abundant documentation (plans, profiles, material culture, traceology, anthracology, alimentary deposits in pots, carpology, etc.) are aimed at defining the nature of the site, the evolution of the installation phases, the full use and abandon of the site and to integrate it within the regional chronocultural landscape. The raw material of certain flint tools, for example, originating from the Spiennes mines (in Hainaut, Belgium) 80 km to the east, show the existence of vast exchange network, which permitted the circulation of humans, objects and ideas.
The first observations of ceramic and lithic artefacts place the site of Carvin in the Spiere group (eponymous site located around forty kilometres north of Carvin, in Belgium): this cultural group of the Middle Neolithic II (according to the French chronology) is contemporary with the northern Michelsberg and Chassean cultures and characterizes western Flanders during this period.
Does a wall such as that of Carvin correspond only to a fortified habitat or did it constitute the central space of a group of farms and villages? In other words, what was the function of such a construction? And what was the role of such a site within the habitat system of this period?
The gigantism of such a site, even if realized in several phases, would have required a remarkably perennial collective effort. What thus was the duration of use of such a site?
Given that there is no stratigraphic crossing between the series of ditches, special efforts were made to find traces of reconstruction of modifications to the initial configuration (creation of a passage where the initial trench was continuous, for example), as well as the symmetries/dissymmetries between trenches. A large number of profiles were realized in order to record the filling processes of the ditches. The study of these fillings recounts a long, complex history that varies in the different sectors. The goal of this study is to determine the rhythm of the phases of construction and abandon of the enclosure wall.
A contextual recording of the density of artefacts and especially their nature (refuse or deposit) is aimed at explaining the nature of the site. Analyses of this abundant documentation (plans, profiles, material culture, traceology, anthracology, alimentary deposits in pots, carpology, etc.) are aimed at defining the nature of the site, the evolution of the installation phases, the full use and abandon of the site and to integrate it within the regional chronocultural landscape. The raw material of certain flint tools, for example, originating from the Spiennes mines (in Hainaut, Belgium) 80 km to the east, show the existence of vast exchange network, which permitted the circulation of humans, objects and ideas.
The first observations of ceramic and lithic artefacts place the site of Carvin in the Spiere group (eponymous site located around forty kilometres north of Carvin, in Belgium): this cultural group of the Middle Neolithic II (according to the French chronology) is contemporary with the northern Michelsberg and Chassean cultures and characterizes western Flanders during this period.
