Céramique, environnement et chronologie du monde égéen et balkanique du 7e au 2e millénaire av. J.-C

Since I obtained my PhD in 1999, my research activities evolved along three main axes. The first, pottery, continues the issues and research opportunities that arose during my PhD years. The other two, chronology and environment, were added along the way. Many threads link these three research areas together: evolution and sequence building, access to resources and raw materials, formation of territories… In my case, however, an additional connecting thread is obvious: Dikili Tash. This is the name of the site in Northern Greece, a tell settlement mainly occupied during the Neolithic and Bronze Age, where I am working since thirty years now, co-directing research for the last twelve years. Dikili Tash is the keysite for almost all my scientific projects and main ground for my training activities, as well as for activities of promotion and knowledge dissemination. Its place in my career is so important that it has to be considered as a fourth, transversal axis.Axis 1: PotteryMy first research activities were carried out in the continuity of my thesis, which concerned pottery from the beginning of the Late Neolithic period (5400-4800 B.C.) in Macedonia. Many of them were launched or completed during the years that I spent as a member of the French School at Athens (1999-2001), such as the publication of two substantial articles deriving from my thesis, the launching of a research programon the production of Neolithic pottery with painted « black-on-red » decoration in Northern Greece, and the study of pottery from the 1986-1996 French excavations at Dikili Tash (unpublished).Concerning pottery typology, I defended the idea that study should concentrate on complete or well preserved vessels, rather than fragments, and analysis should be based on the association of characteristics (technological, morphological, aesthetic), instead of favoring one or the other of those characteristics, such as fabric, shape or decoration. Types, when defined in this way, are based on vases that really exist and can, for this reason, be subjected to functional analysis. Regarding this last aspect, I was one of the first, at least in my chronogeographical domain, to speak of the distinction between function and use, and to propose a series of steps that would lead the archeologist to identify one or the other. The adoptedapproach led me to formulate a series of propositions concerning the multiple roles of the vessels under study, in terms of both their utilitarian use (conservation, consumption, cooking,etc.) and their position in the social life of the Neolithic populations (individual or shared, ineveryday or socially valued contexts).My appointment in the Laboratory of Archaeometry and Archaeology at Lyon, following my recruitment by the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 2004, was for me the opportunity to initiate new projects in the field of pottery studies. Among the investigated topics were: vessels with legs, graphite-painted Neolithic pottery, emergence and uses of the first Early Neolithic ceramic vessels, Neolithic “lamps”. Some ofthese projects were carried out and led to publications, others were abandoned or postponed.Subsequently, even though other subjects took up my attention, pottery has always held an important place in my activities. I implemented and directed the processing, recording and studying of ceramic material collected at Dikili Tash since 2008. On that occasion, I carried out the training of students, teaching “good practice” to the young members of our team and the participants to a doctoral on-site training course organized in 2010, with the support of the French School at Athens. Concerning more specific topics, I led the study and publication of the finds from the Final Neolithic/Final Chalcolithic level (end of 5th-early 4thmill. B.C.) at Dikili Tash, a major discovery of the 2013 campaign, and that of twopottery fragments decorated with gold, identified during the 2016-2017 study campaigns, whose best parallels are found in the necropolis of Varna (late 5th mill. B.C.). Such discoveries renew our knowledge on crafts and society during these periods, and invite us to reconsider some well-established schemes, for example about the distinction between lowland tell sites and the others, or between rich necropolises and “ordinary” settlements.Between 2016 and 2021, I have been member of the ERC program PLANTCULT. Investigating the food cultures of ancient Europe: an interdisciplinary investigation of plant ingredients, culinary transformation and evolution through time, in charge of the coordinationof studies on cooking vessels. Two important papers are already produced, one on cooking dishes in the prehistoric Aegean, the other on experiments aiming to the reproduction and use of Neolithic prototypes; three more are submitted or in press.Axis 2: ChronologySince my PhD thesis, I have been confronted with the terminological inconsistencies of the chronological schemes of the Aegean and Balkan prehistory and intrigued by the multiple “readings” of past events. As a young researcher I had the opportunity to carry out, thanks to a funding from the French National Research Agency (ANR) between 2007 and 2011, a multidisciplinary research project dealing with the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in Greece and Bulgaria, a period that provided contradictory clues on cultural evolution. Radiocarbon dates produced in the last decades had seriously tipped the scales in favor of a break in the biggest part of the territory, since they showed that, at the sites whereboth periods were present, many centuries separated the levels of the last Neolithic/Chalcolithic stages from the first levels of the Bronze Age. Depending on the sites and the precision of the measurements, the gap stretched from c. 4300/4000 to 3400/3000 B.C., i.e. practically one millennium. Despite that, cultural continuity was claimed by a majority of scholars in Greece. Research conducted in the framework of the “Balkans 4000” project followed two axes: one strictly archaeological, through a reexamination of existing data and producing of new 14C dates from a large number of sites in the two countries; the other paleoenvironmental, comprising geomorphological investigations in selected “environmentally sensitive” zones in Northern Greece. In both cases, we adopted a multi-scalar approach, allowing to investigate local, regional and supra-regional phenomena. The results confirmed an abandonment of Neolithic/Chalcolithic sites at a moment largely predating the start of Early Bronze Age, butwhich was not the same everywhere. In fact, it has been possible to distinguish several chronological “thresholds”: around 4350, 4300/4250, 4000/3900, 3800/3700 B.C., without any obvious progress or patterning, indicating that the reason of the abandonments could not be unique as sometimes suggested (e.g. invasions or a major climatic change). At regional scale, almost no part of the territory was totally depopulated during the major part of the “lost millennium”. These results have been presented in a book, The Human Face of Radiocarbon: Reassessing chronology in prehistoric Greece and Bulgaria, 5000-3000 cal BC, published in 2016 under my direction.The “Balkans 4000” program created, where it did not already exist, or strengthened, where it existed, a trusting relationship among the collaborators. It also demonstrated the potential of the approach – favor the quality of contexts rather than the quantity of measurements – by providing finer and sounder results. The dynamic created from all this was expressed through a high interest in 14C dates and many collaboration proposals in Greece and Bulgaria during the following years, and until today. In addition of producing new data, I chose to get more familiar with the principles and tools of chronological statistics modeling, also known as Bayesian. I was trained more specifically to the Chronomodel software program and used it in many occasions, mainly for the analysis of the c. 140 14C and TL/OSL dates presently available at Dikili Tash (OS-1:chapter 9), for the study of Bronze Age chronology in South Bulgaria and neighboring areas and, lastly, in the unpublished manuscript The time and its names: constructing a new chronology in the Aegean-Balkan area from the 7th to the 4th millennium B.C., included in the present file (HDR vol. 2). Instead of proposing yet one more periodization scheme that would recycle commonplace but ambiguous qualitative terms (Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Early, Middle, Late, Final), I elaborate in this book a neutral common reference system, based on our latest knowledge of stratigraphic sequences and absolute dates from a number of wellinvestigated sites. For the synthesis I assemble 2000 dates, mostly 14C, collected from the archaeological literature or produced under my responsibility during the previous years. They come from more than a hundred sites in Greece and Bulgaria, the two countries on which my research has focused, but also from sites in Asia Minor and European Turkey.Axis 3: Relationship between environment and societiesEnvironmental aspects were included in the research topics and concrete actions of the “Balkans 4000” program. The results suggest that the abandonment of Neolithic sites in Northern Greece and, extrapolating, the abandonment of Chalcolithic sites in Bulgaria is the result of local choices, which might not be totally independent though from one another. The triggering factors might be looked for in the domain of climate, which seems to turn more humid around the end of the 5th millennium B.C. Nevertheless, these factors would not have had such an impact on settlement, if the societies had not declined. These results, without denying the very important role of climate, contradict thus the current deterministic theories.I further actively collaborated in the paleoenvironmental research conducted at Dikili Tash, around the transition between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age as well as around the start of the settlement, which we have dated back to the mid-7th millennium B.C.In 2013 I integrated the Work Group “Environmental changes and societies in the past” within the Cluster of Excellence Territorial and Spatial Dynamics (Labex DynamiTe) of Paris 1 University, which I coordinate since 2014. Among the various actions organized upon my initiative was a public conference-debate with B. Weninger, adherent of the “climatic archaeology”, and a session on the comparative study of time in intra- and extra-site sequences within the 18th World Congress of the UISPP in 2018. Both actions resulted to publications (ACLN-1; DO-2, 5). More recently (2018-2019), I have supervised a post-doctoral research on environmental evolution and archaeological visibility in Northern Greece and Bulgaria from the 7th to the 2nd millennium B.C., which is part of a broader project to come.Transversal axis 4: Dikili TashDikili Tash is at the root of practically all my other works and projects, by the wealth of its remains as well as by the possibilities of exploration it offers since many decades, thanks to the implementation of an international research frame that is scientifically open and financially solid. For 12 years now, I endeavor to perpetuate the continuity of this frame, and indeed to increase its range in order to include even more participants – students, collaborators, and soon perhaps also the public. As a simple member of the scientific team, until 2007, I worked on issues related topottery, but also on stratigraphy and chronology, and participated to the interpretation of the excavations carried out previously under the direction of R. Treuil and H. Koukouli-Chryssanthaki. Between 2008 and 2018 I co-directed a new program, whose ambition was to reconstruct the entire history of the site, from the first human settlements until the modern era, through a combination of intensive and extensive archaeological research, advanced geomorphological investigation and targeted 14C dates. As early as 2011, we have acknowledged the necessity to publish together (i.e. not as separate research programs) all the works and results of the last thirty years, concerning the tell’s topography and physical environment, the stratigraphy, architectural remains and contexts, as well as the dates. This project required much effort in order to unify all databases and to handle data recording in retrospect. The first version of the manuscript, Dikili Tash, village préhistorique de Macédoine orientale, volume II, 2. Histoire d'un tell : les recherches 1986-2016 (Dikili Tash, a prehistoric village in Eastern Macedonia, volume II, 2. History of a tell), was submitted in June 2018. I am the principal author of four out of ten chapters and co-sign the six others. This monograph, now in press, marked the completion of a cycle and opened the way for the next steps: the publication of detailed thematic studies from the 1986-2016 investigations on one hand, and the resuming of fieldwork on the other. A new cycle of excavations started indeed in 2019, focusing on the transition from the Early to theLate Bronze Age and the investigation of the earliest Neolithic stages. The Greek-French archaeological mission of Dikili Tash was awarded in 2020 the Great prize of Archaeology of the Simone and Cino Del Duca Foundation – Institut deFrance, the most prestigious French award in the domain of archaeology.
Depuis l’obtention de ma thèse de doctorat en 1999, sur les poteries du début du Néolithique Récent (5400-4800 av. J.-C.) en Macédoine, mes activités se sont structurées autour de trois axes principaux. Le premier de ces axes, la céramique, prolonge les préoccupations et les opportunités de mes années de thèse. En tant que membre scientifique de l’École française d’Athènes, entre 1999 et 2001, j’ai publié deux articles de synthèse issus de mon doctorat et achevé l’étude morpho-technologique et fonctionnelle des céramiques issues des fouilles françaises des années 1986-1996 sur le site protohistorique de Dikili Tash, en Macédoine orientale grecque. J’ai coordonné un programme sur les poteries néolithiques à décor peint « noir-sur rouge » et lancé de nouvelles recherches, sur les vases à pieds et sur les « lampes » néolithiques, entre autres. Plus tard, j’ai conçu et piloté la chaîne de traitement, d’enregistrement et d’étude du mobilier céramique mise en place à partir de 2008 pour le nouveau programme de recherches à Dikili Tash ; j’ai également formé des étudiants dans ce domaine. En tant que membre du programme ERC « PlantCult » (2016-2021), j’ai coordonné des recherches sur les récipients de cuisson protohistoriques. Les deux autres axes, la chronologie et l’environnement, sont venus s’ajouter en cours de route. Le projet ANR Jeune Chercheur « Balkans 4000 » que j’ai coordonné entre 2007 et 2011, sur la transition du Néolithique à l’âge du Bronze en Grèce et en Bulgarie au 4e millénaire av. J.-C, combinait des recherches sur ces deux axes. Il a permis de confirmer, mais aussi de réduire, le hiatus séparant les dernières manifestations du Néolithique/Chalcolithique des premiers niveaux connus du Bronze Ancien. La variable climatique a été réévaluée dans le même cadre. La dynamique scientifique créée par ce projet se poursuit jusqu’à aujourd’hui. M’étant formée aux principes et aux outils d’analyse bayésienne, j’ai approfondi mes recherches dans ce domaine, d’une part en traitant le dossier des datations de Dikili Tash, d’autre part en travaillant sur la chronologie de l’âge du Bronze en Bulgarie du Sud et dans les régions limitrophes. L’ouvrage inédit joint au dossier, s’inscrit dans la même lignée, puisqu’il est consacré à la construction d’une nouvelle chronologie en Égée et dans son pourtour balkanique pour la période du 7e au 4e millénaire avant J.-C. Plutôt que de proposer un énième schéma de périodisation en recyclant des appellations qualitatives courantes mais ambiguës (Néolithique, Chalcolithique, Ancien, Moyen, Récent, Final), j’élabore un système de référence commun neutre, fondé sur nos connaissances les plus récentes des séquences stratigraphiques et de la chronologie absolue de sites précis. Pour cette synthèse, je mobilise environ 2000 dates, provenant d’une centaine de sites, répartis dans les deux pays qui sont au coeur de mes recherches, la Grèce et la Bulgarie, mais aussi en Asie Mineure et en Turquie européenne.Le groupe de travail « Changements environnementaux et sociétés dans le passé » au sein du Labex DynamiTe de l’université de Paris 1, dont j’assure le copilotage depuis 2014, s’inscrit dans le dossier « Environnement ». Une série d’opérations de terrain menées en Bulgarie en 2018-2019 grâce à un financement du Labex préfigure un projet plus ambitieux sur les dynamiques environnementales et la visibilité des sites protohistoriques dans cette partie du monde égéo-balkanique. Les différents domaines de mes activités – recherche, formation, valorisation– se croisent à Dikili Tash, site où je travaille depuis une trentaine d’années, les 12 dernières en tant que co-directrice du programme. À ce titre, j’ai pris une grande part dans la conception et la réalisation des nouvelles recherches, qui ont permis, entre autres, d’allonger de presque 1000 ans la séquence d’occupation, fournissant pour la première fois des indices concrets du Néolithique Ancien dans la région, de renouveler nos connaissances sur les dernières étapes du Néolithique (5e -4e millénaire av. J.-C.), en matière d’habitat, d’économie et d’artisanat, et de réviser la nature et la durée d’occupation du Bronze Récent (2e mill. av. J.-C.). Je suis également co-auteure du volume de synthèse sur les recherches 1986-2016, sous presse. La mission franco-hellénique de Dikili Tash a été récompensée en 2020 par le Grand Prix d’archéologie de la fondation Simone et Cino Del Duca – Institut de France.