DC7: The meaning of prehistoric shell-middens: From their common background to their singularity

Objectives

Prehistoric shell-middens as residues of gathering and living at the coast are a clue to understand the way of life of Holocene living near the coast. They can give us an access to hunter-fisher-gatherer (HFG) activities, their diet, their residence mode, the organization of their settlement, and of their territory all around their living place or places.

Our knowledge on shell-middens in different regional settings along the East Atlantic facade is varied, because of both their diversity in original composition and the different involvement of archaeologists through time. 

The objective of DC7 is to compile all the archaeological data from artefacts to bioarchaeological data on prehistoric shell-middens for a novel interdisciplinary, cross-regional summary and scientific evaluation including geomatic statistics, and to establish a citizen tool accessible to researchers to compare shell-middens from different areas. 

Such a database is necessary to overcome the frontiers between countries and to collect and compare the diversity of archaeological remains (spatial data of the sites, archaeozoology, lithic technology). A first version of this database is already existing, but it is necessary to update it. 

DC7 will seek methods to cross-reference archaeobiological and archaeological data. This data will be geo-referenced, which will allow to draw up the spatial distribution of e.g. artefact types or bioarchaeological data. 

This project will use geomatics statistics, where statistic tests will allow to differentiate what is common to most of these residue heaps and what is particular. Are their particularities linked to economic or social factors? The process of neolithization e.g., with the change from HFG to agrarian societies, is diverse and complex, and this database will be a clue to describe the diversity of this phenomenon in coastal areas. It will also give researchers the opportunity to identify poorly documented misconceptions such as e.g. the residence of certain Neolithic populations admitted as permanent, which is not necessarily correct. 

The mapping of preserved coastal settlements includes a large geographic region. Working in different countries will make the grey literature in these areas accessible. There will be synergies about the spatial placement and meaning of shell-middens with DC3 and DC4, and on exploitation of marine resources with DC6. 

Another objective of the project is to set shell-middens on the agenda regarding other types of communication of these sites to a broader community (synergies with DC10). 

Expected results 

This project is based on an existing database that the candidate will have to update from the literature on the coastal archaeology in the Esat Atlantic from the north of the Scandinavian countries to the south of the Iberian Peninsula. 

The aim is to use this database to describe and understand the maritime lifestyles that gave rise to the shell-middens analysed in the project. 

This project will require the candidate to work on the corpus in interaction with the European researchers involved in the project. The efficiency of the database will be tested and improved for an open access querying, hosted on a national server (TGR-Humanum for France).