Partir, caboter, revenir : comprendre la mobilité maritime dans la France atlantique durant le Mésolithique

Abstract

During the first half of the Holocene, rising sea levels forced major reconfigurations of European Atlantic coastlines: drastic reductions in certain areas, creation of islands and flooding of prolific ecosystems (estuaries, coastal marshes). Direct archaeological evidence of settlements dating from the 7th and 6th millennia B.C. in Brittany reveals lifestyles combining land and marine resources, interwoven with several natural cycles (seasons, tides). How can archaeology restore the mobility practices that animate these occupation networks? Can we understand their changes over time? Navigation techniques occupy a central position in this investigation. Given the scarcity of preserved boats on a European scale for these periods, we propose an indirect method of analysis, combining ethnographic references, functional analyses in the broad sense and experiments. The perception of the rhythms of habitat occupation is another aspect of our research, which combines geoarchaeology, isotopic dating, sclerochronology and archaeozoology, with their respective temporal scales of resolution. As an impalpable research object, maritime mobility in prehistory can only be understood through such disciplinary confrontations.