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Actes du colloque Arkéaube; International audience; This jointly authored paper encompasses several contributions which highlight new issues in environmental archaeology and incorporate palaeo-environmental data from preventiveexcavations. More specifically, it broaches three questions:-The evolution of the environment from the Late Glacial to the present day is analysed using faunal remains (malacofaunae—molluscs, etc.) and botanicalremains (pine trunks) preserved in the alluvial deposits of the river Seine;-Riverside occupations based on reconstructions of the hydrography and hydrographic functioning of the channels documented in the Pont-sur-Seine sector and in Bassée;-The marshes assume their full significance within alluvial landscapes occupied or managed by Iron Age and Roman communities. The discovery of a human skeleton is remarkable evidence of specific Latenian (La Tène) practices. The people of Troyes, the Troyens, whose city was constructed in a marsh, had to adapt to the river’s spates and the rising water table. To conclude, the status of the princely Hallstattian site of Vix is re-examined, in relation to the size of the marshes and their location in the landscape;-The matter of the role of climate in cereal production and the dynamics of occupation is examined for the plain of Troyes between 400 BCE and 1000 CE.These approaches underscore that the hydrography and hydrology of the Petite Seine profoundly changed during the Holocene. The course of the Seine today presents a single channel, deep and graded downstream of Troyes, which has made navigation easier since Modern times. This was not previously the case because many channels, which flowed around the gravel domes on which settlements were built, kept the same courses throughout the Holocene. Re-creations of the vegetation and the degree of water saturation of the alluvial soils suggest that the rhythms of flooding have been very different, depending on the recurrence and intensity of spates. If the Seine rarely overflowed during the Neolithic, at least in the Pont-sur-Seine sector, floods seem to have been more frequent during Late Prehistory. What is more, it has been possible to show nothing less than an avulsion (detachment of land) of the Seine in the sector of Vimpelles, which very probably altered navigation, fishing and the spatial organisation of dwellings. The marshy areas were much more extensive in the alluvial plain (sector of Vix, Troyes…) during the Neolithic and Metal Ages. Their ubiquity raises the question of how these areas were used. Lastly, the graph of occupation density for the Troyes plain between 400 BCE and 1000 CE shows no obvious link with climatic parameters. The links between climate and agricultural production on the one hand, and agricultural production and rural settlement density on the other are complicated: the agricultural production of rural areas cannot therefore be deduced just from the calendar of climatic conditions. Finally, if we wish to understand more globally how hunter- gatherer, agro-pastoral and then urban societies developed in the Aube landscape around the Petite Seine, it is necessary to firstly understand on different spatial levels, the way in which the environment has interacted with the economic, political, religious and social systems. These systems all condition the development of societies in the long term. In this light, the findings of the many preventive excavations combined with palaeo-environmental investigations provide the data to write an archaeology of these territories, in an interdisciplinary manner.

Archaeological and historical data to do with the movement of populations and goods in the Seine catchment area have not yet been overviewed for the Roman period. The Arkéaube conference offers an opportunity to present research on this subject. We can observe that, during the Roman period, the Seine valley was a major thoroughfare located downstream from the confluence of the Seine and the Yonne. Upstream, the Yonne gradually replaced the Petite Seine as a major route across the south-east of the Paris Basin.

Archaeological and historical data to do with the movement of populations and goods in the Seine catchment area have not yet been overviewed for the Roman period. The Arkéaube conference offers an opportunity to present research on this subject. We can observe that, during the Roman period, the Seine valley was a major thoroughfare located downstream from the confluence of the Seine and the Yonne. Upstream, the Yonne gradually replaced the Petite Seine as a major route across the south-east of the Paris Basin.

The geographical situation of Troyes, in the alluvial Seine plain hewn from Turonian and Cenomanian chalk, meant that the hard limestone required for the construction of monumental edifices was supplied from outside of the area. The proximity of chalk quarries made this a quintessential material for the building of Troyes. The volumes of chalk used were considerable, be it in the walls, the foundations, the vaults, or as a wall filler.Hard limestone quarries were located near to Chaource and Bar-sur-Seine. They supplied the building sites of Troyes in the 13th and 14th centuries, before being abandoned. Limestone was once again used at the end of the 15th century, and on a massive scale for the building of the city’s fortifications in the 16th century.It was also necessary to use better quality stone, which had to be brought in from faraway quarries.“Tonnerre stone” came from two adjacent quarries, close to the hamlet of Angy, a few miles from Tonnerre (Yonne). This white limestone was used as dressed stone, for pillars,windows and rose windows, as well as for statues. It was predominantly used in the monumental construction of Troyes from the 14th to the end of the 15th centuries.Savonnières stone was extracted in the quarries of Savonnières-en-Perthois and Aulnois-en-Perthois in the Meuse. We find references in the accounts of the cathedral and the fortifications at the end of the 15th century. Like “Tonnerre stone”, masons used Savonnières stone for cladding and windows.According to written sources, stone was mainly transported over land over short distances but also to supply stone from the quarries at Tonnerre and Savonnières. It was time-consuming—the carters often lived halfway between the quarries and Troyes—and expensive—transport costs could account for 80% of the total cost of the stone. It was of course possible to use forced labour, as the cathedral chapter did in the 16th century. The stones removed from the quarries located on the Seine upstream of Troyes were also delivered by cart, up until the 16th century.With the fortification works, there was a change in transport methods. Faced with the considerable volumes necessary for the re-construction of the city wall, river transport grew. A royal text of 1510 planned for the river Seine to be made navigable, between Bar-sur-Seine and Troyes. From then on, deliveries of stones fromBourguignons and Courteron were only made by boat. Two ports were located upstream of Troyes, in front of the “prey aux toilles” and at the porte de Croncelz. The port of Saint-Jacques served points downstream from the city. Transport over long distances—either overland or by river, and sometimes at high prices—did not seem to be an obstacle in the choice of the stone used in military, civil and religious monumental constructions.

The archaeological data compiled over the past thirty years or so in Normandy, in particular in the Seine valley, have helped to clarify our knowledge about the Viking phenomenon. Studies of artefacts, and excavations of settlements, or, more rarely, of funerary complexes have shed light on the remarkable potential of certain sites, such as Rouen, Pîtres and Pont-de-l’Arche, whose historical importance has long been known about, where outstanding discoveries have been made, connected with the earliest Scandinavian installations in Normandy.

National audience