Outils de mouture et de broyage d'époque tibérienne : la fouille préventive de la rue Paille Maille à Metz (Moselle)

International audienceBei einer Rettungsgrabung in der Rue Paille-Maille in Metz wurden vier aus Basalt hergestellte handbetriebene Rotationsmühlen ausgegraben, die anhand der keramischen Beifunde nach zu urteilen in der Zeit zwischen 15 und 40 n. Chr. weggeworfen wurden. Der frühe Kontext liefert wertvolle neue Erkenntnisse zu den römischen Mahlsteinen – eine Fundgattung, die in Lothringen bisher noch kaum untersucht wurde.A pair of rotary querns, a single millstone, and a stone mortar, all of basalt, were brought to light during archaeological work at « Rue Paille-Maille » in Metz, France. These finds, dated between 15 and 40 AD by pottery, provide new data on the different types of grinding tools in Lorraine, a subject that is poorly known in the region.La fouille préventive de la rue Paille-Maille à Metz a livré un dépotoir contenant trois meules rotatives et un mortier en basalte. La constitution de ce dépôt est fixée entre 25 et 45 ap. J.-C. grâce à la céramique. Ce contexte apporte des données nouvelles sur le matériel de mouture, qui est encore peu documenté en Lorraine

Outils de mouture et de broyage d'époque tibérienne : la fouille préventive de la rue Paille Maille à Metz (Moselle)

International audienceBei einer Rettungsgrabung in der Rue Paille-Maille in Metz wurden vier aus Basalt hergestellte handbetriebene Rotationsmühlen ausgegraben, die anhand der keramischen Beifunde nach zu urteilen in der Zeit zwischen 15 und 40 n. Chr. weggeworfen wurden. Der frühe Kontext liefert wertvolle neue Erkenntnisse zu den römischen Mahlsteinen – eine Fundgattung, die in Lothringen bisher noch kaum untersucht wurde.A pair of rotary querns, a single millstone, and a stone mortar, all of basalt, were brought to light during archaeological work at « Rue Paille-Maille » in Metz, France. These finds, dated between 15 and 40 AD by pottery, provide new data on the different types of grinding tools in Lorraine, a subject that is poorly known in the region.La fouille préventive de la rue Paille-Maille à Metz a livré un dépotoir contenant trois meules rotatives et un mortier en basalte. La constitution de ce dépôt est fixée entre 25 et 45 ap. J.-C. grâce à la céramique. Ce contexte apporte des données nouvelles sur le matériel de mouture, qui est encore peu documenté en Lorraine

Coastal landscape evolution of Corsica island (W. Mediterranean): palaeoenvironments, vegetation history and human impacts since the early Neolithic period

International audienceA multi-proxy investigation of sediment cores has enabled us to reconstruct the coastal environmental evolution of East-Central Corsica (the sites of Saint Florent, Piantarella-Bonifacio and Palo-Solenzara) for the last 8000 years. The analytical methods comprise pollen (five original pollen diagrams), weight loss on -ignition measurements, laser granulometry, and ostracod identification. In addition, 26 radiocarbon dates are used to provide a robust chronostratigraphy for the sedimentary sequences. The assessment of coastal landscape dynamics enables us to define the major morphological changes and to evaluate the complex interplay between climatic forcing and anthropogenic activity on the vegetation history of Corsica, within an archaeological context, since the early Neolithic period (similar to 7.4 cal kyr BP). The major findings are that the first farmers reached Corsica by sea, and they encountered a coastal environment mainly composed of freshwater ponds located close to the shoreline. This specific paleoenvironmental feature offered a favourable location for agriculture and for the development of permanent settlements where a subsistence economy was developed. Since the Middle Holocene, postglacial sea-level rise has caused major changes in local coastal environments, often characterized by salt intrusion into freshwater bodies. At the transition between the Mid and Late Holocene (similar to 4.0 cal kyr BP), an increase in both salinity and aridity caused substantial landscape changes, mainly characterized by a further expansion of saline marshland, mainly occupied by Chenopodiaceae. The results also provide new insights into the role of Erica in the original Holocene vegetation of Corsica. Our data clearly indicate that an Erica - arborea Quercus ilex forest transition occurred before 6.3 cal kyr BP, significantly earlier than previously proposed. Finally, the earliest evidence of cereal cultivation is at similar to 7350 cal kyr BP, and in addition we are better able to constrain the role of humans in the landscape dynamics of Corsica since the early Neolithic. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Coastal landscape evolution of Corsica island (W. Mediterranean): Palaeoenvironments, vegetation history and human impacts since the early Neolithic period

A multi-proxy investigation of sediment cores has enabled us to reconstruct the coastal environmental evolution of East-Central Corsica (the sites of Saint Florent, Piantarella-Bonifacio and Palo-Solenzara) for the last 8000 years. The analytical methods comprise pollen (five original pollen diagrams), weight loss-on-ignition measurements, laser granulometry, and ostracod identification. In addition, 26 radiocarbon dates are used to provide a robust chronostratigraphy for the sedimentary sequences. The assessment of coastal landscape dynamics enables us to define the major morphological changes and to evaluate the complex interplay between climatic forcing and anthropogenic activity on the vegetation history of Corsica, within an archaeological context, since the early Neolithic period ( 3c7.4 cal kyr BP). The major findings are that the first farmers reached Corsica by sea, and they encountered a coastal environment mainly composed of freshwater ponds located close to the shoreline. This specific paleoenvironmental feature offered a favourable location for agriculture and for the development of permanent settlements where a subsistence economy was developed. Since the Middle Holocene, postglacial sea-level rise has caused major changes in local coastal environments, often characterized by salt intrusion into freshwater bodies. At the transition between the Mid and Late Holocene ( 3c4.0 cal kyr BP), an increase in both salinity and aridity caused substantial landscape changes, mainly characterized by a further expansion of saline marshland, mainly occupied by Chenopodiaceae. The results also provide new insights into the role of Erica in the original Holocene vegetation of Corsica. Our data clearly indicate that an Erica arborea - Quercus ilex forest transition occurred before 6.3 cal kyr BP, significantly earlier than previously proposed. Finally, the earliest evidence of cereal cultivation is at 3c7350 cal kyr BP, and in addition we are better able to constrain the role of humans in the landscape dynamics of Corsica since the early Neolithic

Optimizing multiple non-invasive techniques (PXRF, pMS, IA) to characterize coarse-grained igneous rocks used as building stones

We present a workflow to conduct a full characterization of medium to coarse-grained igneous rocks, using portable, non-invasive, and reproducible approaches. This includes: (i) Image Analysis (IA) to quantify mineral phase proportions, grain size distribution using the Weka trainable machine learning algorithm. (ii) Portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (PXRF, Bruker Tracer IV) to quantify the whole-rock's chemical composition. For this purpose, a specific calibration method dedicated to igneous rocks using the open-source CloudCal app was developed. It was then validated for several key elements (Si, Al, K, Ti, Ca, Fe, Mn, Sr, Ga, Ba, Rb, Zn, Nb, Zr, and Y) by analyzing certified standard reference igneous rocks. (iii) Portable Magnetic Susceptibilimeter (pMS, Bartington MS2K system) to constrain the mineralogical contribution of the samples. The operational conditions for these three methods were tested and optimized by analyzing five unprepared surfaces of igneous rocks ranging from a coarse-grained alkaline granite to a fine-grained porphyric diorite and hence, covering variable grain sizes, mineralogical contents, and whole-rock geochemical compositions. For pMS and PXRF tools, one hundred analyses were conducted as a 10 cm × 10 cm square grid on each sample. Bootstrap analysis was implemented to establish the best grid size sampling to reach an optimized reproducibility of the whole-rock signature. For PXRF analysis, averaged compositions were compared to PXRF analysis on press-pellets and laboratory WD-XRF analysis on fused disk and solution ICP-OES (for major) and solution-ICPMS (for trace element concentrations). Ultimately, this workflow was applied in the field on granitoids from three Roman quarrying sites in the Lavezzi archipelago (southern Corsica) and tested against the Bonifacio granitic War Memorial, for which its provenance is established. Our results confirm this information and open the door to geoarchaeological provenance studies with a high spatial resolution.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe