Traitement des plantes textiles à Maurecourt « la Croix de Choisy » (Yvelines) au Néolithique ancien

Abstract

The site of « La Croix de Choisy » in Maurecourt (Yvelines department) included 24 pits. The archaeological goods and 14C dating constitute a coherent unity enabling to determine that the occupation of the site dates back to a recent phase of the Blicquy – Villeneuve-Saint-Germain group. The pits are mainly detritic, and four of them have been described as “specific” as far as their morphology and filling properties are concerned. Starting from the work hypothesis saying that these “specific” pits would have been used for the treatment of textile plants, the analysis of phytoliths and seeds was carried out, and showed the presence of stinging nettle and flax; flax being so far unknown during the Early Neolithic period in Northern France. Retting, one of the phases of the treatment of these plants, can be noticed in these “specific” pits thanks to the presence of humidity indicators such as sponge spicules and charophytes gyrogonite; the first being associated to stinging nettle’s phytoliths. The rarity of carpological characteristics of the culture of flax during the Neolithic period in Northern France and their strict association with archaeological evidence of its treatment as a textile plant entices us to allude to the hypothesis of a specialisation of some villages in the transformation of this plant. The studies of the traceology of bone tools and of the lithics seem to meet this assumption.