New observations on the Bandkeramik house and social organization Lamys Hachem

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Lamys Hachem. New observations on the Bandkeramik house and social organization. Antiquity, Antiquity Publications/Cambridge University Press, 2000, 74. ￿hal-02964089￿

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LAMYSHACHEM"

The careful study of faunal and artefact remains associated with Bandkeramik houses in France has shown new details about activity zones and village organization in the Early Neolithic. Lamys Hachem describes the result of work from Cuiry-16s-Chaudardesin the Aisne valley, France.

Key-words: Linearbandkeramik, Neolithic, houses, faunal remains, France, Aisne valley The people who settled in central and western eral thousand artefacts were recovered (around Europe at the beginning of the Neolithic were 85 kg of ceramics, 380 kg of lithic finds and farmers living in villages composed of longhouses. 500 kg of animal bone), the occupation layer These structures were made of wood and daub, representing just over 72% of the total weight but all that remains today are post-holes, wall of finds. The dispersal of finds within this layer foundation trenches, refuse pits alongside the walls is far from uniform. The principal deposits are and other pits further away from the houses. concentrated outside the houses in the areas Research into the earliest Neolithic of Eu- along the side walls, reflecting the position and rope has always shown great interest in how main use of the lateral pits. However, some finds these domestic units functioned (Soudsky 1969; are located within the rear part of the build- Modderman 1970; Boelicke 1982; Luning 1982; ings (Lanchon et al. 1997: 6). This rear sector, Milisauskas 1986; Coudart 1989; 1993;Hodder which corresponds to the western third of the 1990). Analysis of a number of recently exca- houseplans, produced evidence for specific vated sites in the Paris basin has produced some activities, indicated by the presence in situ of new data on this research issue. The main re- complete vessels, as well as waste of a more sults come from Cuiry-16s-Chaudardes (Aisne, general nature. Similar observations have been France), dating to the late Linearbandkeramik made in the Villeneuve-Saint-Germain settle- (Lbk),and Jablines (Seine-et-Mame,France), dating ment at Echilleuses in the Loiret dkppartement to the subsequent, Lbk-related, Villeneuve-Saint- (Simonin 1996, 1997). Other areas within the Germain group. The period involved is approxi- houses at Jablines produced insignificant num- mately 5000-4800 BC. bers of finds, suggesting a closed domestic space The new data from these sites provide a pre- where debris was regularly collected and then liminary response to several questions, nota- dumped outside. Zones of high artefact density bly concerning the distribution of finds in the were observed well outside the houseplans, cor- lateral pits and the function of the household responding for example to temporary flint-working and its place within the village. areas behind the western, back end of the houses. By contrast, there are very few finds from the The site of Jablines:houses and original area in front of the east end of the buildings, tra- neolithic occupation surface ditionally considered to be the main access zone. At Jablines, near Paris, an excavation covering Analysis of household activities has been 2500 sq. m produced two houseplans. The origi- made in two famous Linearbandkeramik sites nal Neolithic occupation surface was preserved where the original Neolithic soil has disap- as a layer roughly 10 cm thick, which could be peared, in Germany (AldenhovenPlateau) and compared with the underlying and contempo- in Poland. Study of the finds in the pits (which rary subsoil features (Bostyn et ~l.1991). Sev- did not preserve animal bones) around the * UMR 7041 (Protohistoire europ6enne1, Laboratoire d'ArchCozoologie, Centre ArchCologique, Abbaye St Jean-des- Vignes, 02 200 Soissons, France.

Received 20 November 1998, accepted 18 February 1999, revised 1 March 2000. ANTIQUITY74 (2000): 308-12 NEWS & NOTES 309 houses suggest that at Langweiler 8 the north- ploughing or earlier erosion. The larger quanti- ern area of the house was associated with lithic ties of faunal remains may be related to house artefacts (Boelicke 1982; 1988), and that at size. Excluding the six houses with extreme counts Olszanica some human activities were spatially (the lowest and highest numbers), variation in segregated by gender (Milisauskas 1986; 1989). quantity by house does remain significant, as the At the recently discovered ‘Petit Paradis’ site standard deviation shows. The average of 1386 in Belgium, pit containing thousands of lithics bones per house must therefore be taken only as and few other finds will also provide new in- a broad indication of the quantities involved. formations about household activities (Burnez- Sieving has been rarely used on the Aisne Lanotte & Allard 1998). valley excavations, because of the very exten- The situation outlined above for Jablines sive surface areas dealt with every year under clearly indicates the amount of material lost rescue conditions. In order to estimate poten- on sites without preserved occupation surfaces. tial loss of faunal remains due to the absence However, at Jablines similar kinds of artefact of sieving, a comparative study was undertaken occur in both the occupation layer and the sub- on three lateral pits next to houses at Cuiry- soil features, and this is particularly the case 16s-Chaudardes (Hachem 1995a: table 13). One with the lithic finds (Bostyn 1994).This would square metre out of two was hand excavated, suggest that, on sites where the original occu- usually by trowel, and the other was wet sieved. pation surface has disappeared through erosion, Some interesting results emerge from this study. the preserved sample of finds remains unaf- In quantitative terms, the proportion of finds fected in qualitative terms, since the range of recovered by sieving may seem important (4949 artefacts is not fundamentally modified. This bone fragments), but 98% of the bones from conclusion is encouraging for the validation of sieving are unidentifiable splinters of less than analyses of the material from the vast majority 1 cm, originating from disintegration of bone of sites where the finds have only survived in surfaces or from burnt household waste. In features dug into the subsoil. qualitative terms, the identifiable fragments provide additional information on the small- Cuiry-les-Chaudardes:the most important est species such as fish, birds and aniphibia, Lbk faunal sample from 33 houses and on the smallest anatomical parts of other Further analysis of the distribution of finds from species, such as phalanges of small game. In- pit contexts has been conducted at the Linear teresting as this information may seem, the Pottery site of Cuiry-lhs-Chaudardes (Hachem number of identifiable fragments is minute, 1995a;1997). This settlement has been completely compared to the number of bones recovered excavated and covers an area of 6 ha, with 33 without sieving. The great length of time that houseplans. Here, small groups of houses were would be involved in systematic sieving of thou- successively built over a period of 150-200 years sands of cubic metres of sediment thus seems (Ilett et al. 1982; 1986). The relative chronology excessive in relation to the results which, further- of the houses is based on ceramic decoration, and more, have only a limited effect on species rep- the site can be divided into five settlement phases resentation in the sample. This is confirmed with an average of six houses per phase. The by work on lithic material from sieved residues houseplans are quite widely spaced and all have on the same site by M. Plateaux (ERA 12/CNRS), lateral pits. The bones from the pits are particu- and on faunal remains from sieving at another larly well preserved. This site has produced the settlement in the Aisne valley at Bucy-le-Long largest sample of faunal remains currently known (K. Bolen, UCLA, pers. comm.). The loss in quan- for the whole Bandkeramik culture (49,778bone tity and quality of information due to the absence fkagments,excluding sieving).The number of bone of systematic sieving is of minor importance com- fragments per house (i.e. from the lateral pits of pared to the benefits derived from the excava- each house) varies considerably, from 10 to al- tion of large areas, without which the broader most 7000 fragments. The minimum volume of context would not of course be understood. waste per house has been evaluated at about 10 kg (approximately 1000 bones). Smaller quanti- Spatial distribution of finds ties of bone are probably explained by differen- Further examination of the spatial distribution tial preservation of features,. through deep of faunal remains at Cuiry-16s-Chaudardes has 310 NEWS & NOTES revealed quantitative differences between the determinations thus seem to indicate that the lateral pits on the north and south sides of each pits of each house were accumulating refuse house (Hachem 1995a; 1997: 251). Each house for at least one year (Hachem 1995a: 159). shows a tendency to discard faunal material on one side rather than the other, and in some Small houses and large houses in a spatially cases on one side exclusively. This situation is structured village clarified when the settlement phases are taken What is found in these pits ? The total sample into account, suggesting the existence of neigh- from Cuiry-16s-Chaudardes (15,795 identified bourhood rules: pairs of contemporary houses bones) represents 20 species, approximately (associated chronologically) typically discard 80% of which are domestic animals (Hachem their bone waste on opposite sides. The sym- 1997: 252). Three kinds of livestock [cattle, sheep metric principle underlying waste distribution and pig) are systematically present in the pits is also apparent for the lithic finds (Plateaux of each house, as are two wild species (red deer 1993: plate XLI), since the lateral pits which and aurochs). Apart from these species, wild contain over 60% of the flint artefacts of a given boar and roe deer are quite common, and bea- house also produce the maximum quantities ver is the most frequent small animal. How- of bone. The social interpretation of this struc- ever, there is variation between houses and this tural opposition of waste disposal can be linked is particularly the case with the relative fre- to two factors: the way the space was used in- quency of hunted animals. There are two rea- side the house and secondly the neighbouring sons for this. The first is related to chronology, house whose physical disposition was taken since there was more hunting at the beginning into consideration. of the occupation of the site than at the end. Another phenomenum appears to be system- The second is linked to house types. atic in these Bandkeramik villages: the exist- Typological analysis of the 33 houseplans ence of concentrations of finds in recurrent, at Cuiry-1Bs-Chaudardes separates the buildings precise locations within the lateral pits into two broad categories, depending on the (Chataignier & Plateaux 1986; Ilett et al. 1986; number of rooms behind (west of) the ‘corri- Constantin 1995; Hachem & Auxiette 1995; dor’ (FIGIJRE1): small houses (up to 15 m long) Simonin 1997).The main concentration occurs with one room behind the ‘corridor’,and large in the southern pit near the ‘corridor’ (two houses (over 15 m long) with two or three rooms closely set rows of posts marking the western and in some cases a foundation trench (Hachem end of the central part of the house), but there 1995a).Meat consumption is apparently related are also concentrations on the northern side to these two architectural types. There is a re- (FIGURE1). This spatial distribution seems to lationship for example between the size of the suggest the presence in the side walls of open- house and the volume of bone waste discarded: ings (doors or windows), although these can- the maximum values generally occur in the large not be detected on the groundplans themselves. houses. But a more precise relationship between Interpretation of the quantitative variation faunal remains and house type can be defined. in faunal remains between houses is still prob- The highest values for wild animals in general lematic. Is this related to differences in the length (from 23.8% to 41.1%), and in particular wild of time the pits were open, or is it linked to the boar, occur in small houses, whereas the high- number of occupants per house ? While it is est frequencies for domestic animals (from not yet possible to resolve these problems, cer- 91.3% to 96%) come from large houses. This tain data of a qualitative nature nevertheless phenomenon has a broader relevance, for it offer a partial response. For example, variation seems to be one of the main factors explaining observed between houses at Cuiry-16s- the differences of hunting rates in the 95 Lbk Chaudardes in the relative frequency of domestic sites of Europe that have provided enough faunal and wild animals cannot be explained by dif- remains for analysis (Hachem 1999). ferences in the use-lives of pits. The list of sea- Finally, it can be argued, using the distribu- sonal markers (trophy antlers and the kill-off tion of both animal bones and of buildings, that pattern for cervidae which includes very young the Neolithic house was integrated within a animals) for 25 houses indicates 56 cases be- particular conception of village space. The set- tween spring and autumn (April-November) tlement at Cuiry-16s-Chaudardes developed hom and 29 for the winter (December-March). These two distinct nuclei, and the analysis of faunal NEWS & NOTES 311

FIGLJRE1. Difference of meat consumption between small and large Linearbandkeramik houses from Cuiry- 1Ps-Chaudardes (excavations UMR 7041, ex ERA 12 du CNRS). The highest values for wild animals, and in particulor wild boar, occur in small houses (one room behind the corridor), whereas the highest frequencies for domestic animals come from large houses (two or three rooms behind the corridor). remains suggests the existence of a spatially main tendencies: cattle herders, sheep herders structured village. On the basis of these two and hunters (Hachem 1997). Therefore the cor- lines of evidence, the site can be divided into responding link between the size of the house four zones (Hachem 1995a; Hachem 1997: 256- and the fauna consumed could be established 7). Only the houses located in the northwest according to the social status. zone show a high rate of hunting, and gener- All these results shed new light on domes- ally speaking, three species seem linked to the tic organization in the Linearbandkeramik, as zonal division, since the houses with the highest well as opening particularly interesting perspec- relative hequencies of cattle, sheep and wild boar tives for understanding the social structure of are located separately by species. This pattern is these early Neolithic communities. maintained throughout the five settlement phases. It could be explained in social terms in the sense Acknowlrdgen~ents.I would like to thank Nada Hac hem that the Ruban6 society can be composed of three and Michael Ilett for the translation of this text. 312 NEWS & NOTES

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