L’activité métallurgique à l’abbaye de Morimond (Haute-Marne) : nouvel éclairage de la fouille à partir de l’analyse archéomagnétique de deux foyers

Une étude archéomagnétique à des fins de datation a été menée sur deux foyers en carreaux de terre cuite mis au jour sur le site de l’ancienne abbaye cistercienne de Morimond (Haute-Marne). La désaimantation thermique complète des échantillons prélevés a permis de définir pour chacun des deux foyers une direction archéomagnétique moyenne précise, acquise lors de leur dernière utilisation. Pour dater cet instant, les directions archéomagnétiques ont été comparées à une courbe des variations directionnelles du champ géomagnétique construite à partir de données obtenues en France et dans des pays voisins. Nous obtenons, à 95% de confiance, une datation comprise entre 1585 et 1615 après J.-C. pour le premier foyer et entre 1525 et 1605 après J.-C. pour le second foyer. Bien que leurs deux intervalles d'âge se recouvrent partiellement, les deux directions archéomagnétiques moyennes ne sont pas compatibles à 95% ce qui indique que les arrêts de fonctionnement des deux foyers ne sont pas contemporains. Ces résultats archéomagnétiques confirment deux phases métallurgiques observées indépendamment lors des fouilles. Ils précisent les datations issues des radiocarbones qui ne permettaient pas de discriminer chronologiquement les deux phases. Les datations envisagées se calent avant l’abandon du bâtiment suite à plusieurs saccages évoqués dans les sources écrites.This paper presents the archeomagnetic dating results obtained from two brick fireplaces excavated inside the ancient Cistercian Abbey of Morimond (Haute-Marne). Complete thermal demagnetization of the collected samples allowed us to define a precise mean archeomagnetic direction acquired during the last cooling of each of the two structures. The dating of the last use of the two fireplaces was derived from the statistical comparison between a reference geomagnetic field directional variation curve constructed using the available French data set together with other data from nearby countries and the two directions obtained in this study. The two dating results lie, with a 95% confidence level, between 1585 and 1615 AD and between 1525 and 1605 AD. Although these dates partially overlap, the two mean archeomagnetic directions are not compatible at the 95% confidence level, indicating a chronology in the abandonment of the two structures. These archeomagnetic results therefore confirm the existence of two metallurgical phases, which were independently observed during the excavations. They further refine the radiocarbon dating unable to discriminate the two phases. The two time intervals defined by archeomagnetism pre-date the abandonment of the building due to severe damages mentioned in written sources

Anatomy of a pressure-induced, ferromagnetic-to-paramagnetic transition in pyrrhotite: Implications for the formation pressure of diamonds

Meteorites and diamonds encounter high pressures during their formation or subsequent evolution. These materials commonly contain magnetic inclusions of pyrrhotite. Because magnetic properties are sensitive to strain, pyrrhotite can potentially record the shock or formation pressures of its host. Moreover, pyrrhotite undergoes a pressure-induced phase transition between 1.6 and 6.2 GPa, but the magnetic signature of this transition is poorly known. Here we report room temperature magnetic measurements on multidomain and single-domain pyrrhotite under nonhydrostatic pressure. Magnetic remanence in single-domain pyrrhotite is largely insensitive to pressure until 2 GPa, whereas the remanence of multidomain pyrrhotite increases 50\% over that of initial conditions by 2 GPa, and then decreases until only 33\% of the original remanence remains by 4.5 GPa. In contrast, magnetic coercivity increases with increasing pressure to 4.5 GPa. Below ∼1.5 GPa, multidomain pyrrhotite obeys Néel theory with a positive correlation between coercivity and remanence; above ∼1.5 GPa, it behaves single domain-like yet distinctly different from uncompressed single-domain pyrrhotite. The ratio of magnetic coercivity and remanence follows a logarithmic law with respect to pressure, which can potentially be used as a geobarometer. Owing to the greater thermal expansion of pyrrhotite with respect to diamond, pyrrhotite inclusions in diamonds experience a confining pressure at Earth’s surface. Applying our experimentally derived magnetic geobarometer to pyrrhotite-bearing diamonds from Botswana and the Central African Republic suggests the pressures of the pyrrhotite inclusions in the diamonds range from 1.3 to 2.1 GPa. These overpressures constrain the mantle source pressures from 5.4 to 9.5 GPa, depending on which bulk modulus and thermal expansion coefficients of the two phases are used

Death and the Societies of Late Antiquity

Ce volume bilingue, comprenant un ensemble de 28 contributions disponibles en français et en anglais (dans leur version longue ou abrégée), propose d’établir un état des lieux des réflexions, recherches et études conduites sur le fait funéraire à l’époque tardo-antique au sein des provinces de l’Empire romain et sur leurs régions limitrophes, afin d’ouvrir de nouvelles perspectives sur ses évolutions possibles. Au cours des trois dernières décennies, les transformations considérables des méthodologies déployées sur le terrain et en laboratoire ont permis un renouveau des questionnements sur les populations et les pratiques funéraires de l’Antiquité tardive, période marquée par de multiples changements politiques, sociaux, démographiques et culturels. L’apparition de ce qui a été initialement désigné comme une « Anthropologie de terrain », qui fut le début de la démarche archéothanatologique, puis le récent développement d’approches collaboratives entre des domaines scientifiques divers (archéothanatologie, biochimie et géochimie, génétique, histoire, épigraphie par exemple) ont été décisives pour le renouvellement des problématiques d’étude : révision d’anciens concepts comme apparition d’axes d’analyse inédits. Les recherches rassemblées dans cet ouvrage sont articulées autour de quatre grands thèmes : l’évolution des pratiques funéraires dans le temps, l’identité sociale dans la mort, les ensembles funéraires en transformation (organisation et topographie) et les territoires de l’empire (du cœur aux marges). Ces études proposent un réexamen et une révision des données, tant anthropologiques qu’archéologiques ou historiques sur l’Antiquité tardive, et révèlent, à cet égard, une mosaïque de paysages politiques, sociaux et culturels singulièrement riches et complexes. Elles accroissent nos connaissances sur le traitement des défunts, l’emplacement des aires funéraires ou encore la structure des sépultures, en révélant une diversité de pratiques, et permettent au final de relancer la réflexion sur la manière dont les sociétés tardo-antiques envisagent la mort et sur les éléments permettant d’identifier et de définir la diversité des groupes qui les composent. Elles démontrent ce faisant que nous pouvons véritablement appréhender les structures culturelles et sociales des communautés anciennes et leurs potentielles transformations, à partir de l’étude des pratiques funéraires.This bilingual volume proposes to draw up an assessment of the recent research conducted on funerary behavior during Late Antiquity in the provinces of the Roman Empire and on their borders, in order to open new perspectives on its possible developments. The considerable transformations of the methodologies have raised the need for a renewal of the questions on the funerary practices during Late Antiquity, a period marked by multiple political, social, demographic and cultural changes. The emergence field anthropology, which was the beginning of archaeothanatology, and then the recent development of collaborative approaches between various scientific fields (archaeothanatology, biochemistry and geochemistry, genetics, history, epigraphy, for example), have been decisive. The research collected in this book is structured around four main themes: Evolution of funerary practices over time; Social identity through death; Changing burial grounds (organisation and topography); Territories of the Empire (from the heart to the margins). These studies propose a review and a revision of the data, both anthropological and archaeological or historical on Late Antiquity, and reveal a mosaic of political, social, and cultural landscapes singularly rich and complex. In doing so, they demonstrate that we can truly understand the cultural and social structures of ancient communities and their potential transformations, based on the study of funerary practices

On the resolution of regional archaeomagnetism: Untangling directional geomagnetic oscillations and data uncertainties using the French archaeomagnetic database for between 1000 and 1500 AD as a guide

International audienceA complexity is emphasised in the distribution of the French archaeomagnetic directions during the 13th and the 14th centuries AD. Data uncertainties, and the smoothing introduced when estimating an average secular variation curve prevent scrutiny of the very nature of this complexity. It might correspond to a directional yaw, the nature of which would be compatible with the recent geomagnetic field evolution as traced by the gufm1 model. In order to emphasise this indeterminacy, a reference secular variation curve was constructed for between 1000 and 1500 AD, including the yaw in question, and synthetic databases that mimic the accuracy and density characteristics of the true French archaeomagnetic database were considered for some of these. The synthetic curves hence obtained show that the dating accuracy of archaeomagnetic data is the crucial parameter for constructing a detailed secular variation path. The significant impact of the experimental data accuracy is also illustrated. Even more crucial is the fact that precision of the data dating required to describe the directional variability over the century timescale largely exceeds the precision of the archaeological dates available for the structures generally studied. This highlights the intrinsic limitation of archaeomagnetism for regional reconstruction of century-scale geomagnetic field variations

A reappraisal of instrumental magneticmeasurements made in Western Europebefore AD 1750: confronting historicalgeomagnetism and archeomagnetism

International audienceWe present a new compilation and analysis of historical geomagnetic measurements made in Western Europe beforeAD 1750. The dataset in its ensemble provides a coherent evolution of magnetic field directions. Several data pointsexcluded from previous analyses actually appear very consistent with most of the present compilation. A new averagehistorical curve is computed for Paris, which is in very good agreement with the archeomagnetic data obtained inFrance, while significantly differing from the directional curve expected for Paris before AD 1675 based on the gufm1model (Jackson et al. in Philos Trans R Soc Lond A 358:957–990, 2000). This finding suggests that the older segment ofthe gufm1 model lacks reliability and should be improved. Similarly, the historical part of the regional geomagneticfield model built for Europe by Pavón-Carrasco et al. (Geochem Geophys Geosyst 10:Q03013, 2009) should be revisedbecause it erroneously incorporates directions derived from the gufm1 model

A complementary, two-method spherical approach to direction-based archeomagnetic dating

International audienceWe present a two-method spherical approach to archeomagnetic dating based on directional variations of the geomagnetic field after vector treatment of all data, including individual in situ structure-level data used to calculate the reference variation curve and the archeomagnetic direction to be dated. In this paper, the reference curve for France was determined from a compilation of data acquired from kiln structures using a sliding window technique in which the varying durations and time shifts between windows are fixed according to the temporal distribution of individual reference data, as well as the bivariate extension of Fisher's statistics. The first dating method involves identifying the time interval(s) in which the direction to be dated is closest to the mean directions that define the reference curve. The angles between the direction to be dated and reference curve directions, and the Fisher probability density function allow us to derive a coincidence probability density curve, from which it is possible to estimate a 95% probability level-based dating interval. The second dating method involves the determination of an archeomagnetic date in which the direction to be dated is statistically identical to a dated reference curve direction at the 95% confidence level. This approach is much more restrictive than the previous method because it requires an excellent agreement between the test and reference directions to obtain a dating result, while the first method is only based on relative proximity. Using examples of archeomagnetic dating, we show that these two methods are complementarity and should be applied jointly to account for some of the limitations inherent in archeomagnetic dating, particularly due to the dispersion of the reference structure-level data

High-temperature archeointensity measurements from Mesopotamia

International audienceWe present new archeointensity results obtained from 127 potsherds and baked brick fragments dated from the last four millennia BC which were collected from different Syrian archeological excavations. High temperature magnetization measurements were carried out using a laboratory-built triaxial vibrating sample magnetometer (Triaxe), and ancient field intensity determinations were derived from the experimental procedure described by Le Goff and Gallet [Le Goff and Gallet. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 229 (2004) 31–43]. As some of the studied samples were previously analyzed using the classical Thellier and Thellier [Thellier and Thellier . Ann. Geophys. 15 (1959) 285–376] method revised by Coe [Coe. J. Geophys. Res. 72 (1967) 3247–3262], a comparison of the results is made from the two methods. The differences both at the fragment and site levels are mostly within ± 5%, which strengthens the validity of the experimental procedure developed for the Triaxe. The new data help to better constrain the geomagnetic field intensity variations in Mesopotamia during archeological times, with the probable occurrence of an archeomagnetic jerk around 2800–2600 BC