Early Middle Ages Houses of Gien (France) from the Inside: Geoarchaeology and Archaeobotany of 9th–11th c. Floors

ABSTRACT

At Gien (France), indoor floors from early Middle Ages occupation (8th–10th c. AD) are very well preserved, providing a new reference for archaeological investigation in northern France. This site is located on an outcrop, 20 m above the Loire valley, where a 15th c. castle stands now. The medieval occupation combines high-status houses with crafting and agricultural areas. They constitute a new urban nucleus, which grew 2 km east from an ancient Roman settlement. During the rescue excavation, four buildings of different status were sampled and studied using an integrated approach, combining stratigraphy, micromorphology, chemical, macro-remain and phytolith analyses. Micromorphological investigations helped to identify 74 built floors, from 0.5 to 150 mm thick, made with transformed local clay or imported silty earth. Mineral floors were covered by vegetal ones, consisting of crop processing refuse. These litters include an abundance of phytoliths and some seeds, both produced by cultivated cereals, which were processed in situ, such as Triticum durum, Secale cereale and Hordeum vulgare. The refuse above the mineral and vegetal floors were trampled. They were produced not only by domestic activities, such as cooking and eating, but also by metallurgic activities and animal husbandry. The investigation of a contemporary pit indicated that, despite the large amount of refuse, floors were well maintained and regularly rebuilt. The spatial distribution of waste indicated that a single space could be dedicated to several activities, which were not necessarily separated by new floors. Moreover, the total absence of bioturbation allowed the study of a stage of dark earth formation, by comparing it to the contemporaneous mechanical disturbance of a part of the strata which occurred when building new floors. All these results give new evidence of the richness and the complexity of the early Middle Ages town, in addition to help identifying the activities which could take place in early castral areas.

KEYWORDS:

• Micromorphology
• phytoliths
• macro-remains
• dark earth
• castle
• crop processing
• urban
• town

Acknowledgments

Authors want to thank Hervé Sellès, Jean-Michel Morin, Magali Labille, Christine Pümpin, Anne Gebhardt, Anne Nissen, Christophe Petit and the two anonymous reviewers for the constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Quentin Borderie is a researcher in geoarchaeology, works on cultural layers in Western Europe and on archaeological site formation processes. He recently published Dark Earth in the Geoarchaeological Approach to Urban Contexts (CNRS 2014) and The loess cover of Eure-et-Loir (France): pedo-sedimentary potential and spatial organization (Quaternaire 2017).

Prof. Terry Ball is Professor of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, holds PhD in Archaeobotany, and specialises in phytolith systematics, morphometrics, and Old World cereals. His recent publications include co-authoring ‘Phytoliths as a tool for investigations of agricultural origins and dispersals around the world,’ ‘Morphometric Analysis of Phytoliths: Recommendations towards Standardization from the International Committee for Phytolith Morphometrics,’ and ‘A morphometric study of variance in articulated dendritic phytolith wave lobes within selected species of Triticeae and Aveneae.’

Dr Rowena Yvonne Banerjea is Researcher in Geoarchaeology, writes on the application of geoarchaeology, in particular soil micromorphology, phytolith analysis and geochemistry, to understand the formation processes of the archaeological record, and to understand frontier landscapes in medieval Europe. Rowena has publications on these topics in the journals Antiquity, Geoarchaeology, Journal of Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, Journal of Archaeological Science, and Quaternary International.

Dr Mélinda Bizri is an archaeologist and explores spatial organisation and structuration of medieval sites through power relations in medieval society. See, for example, her PhD titled Construction and Occupation of Fortified Areas in Velay (France-Auvergne), 13th–15th Centuries (Clermont-Ferrand 2017).

Coline Lejault is an archaeologist and medieval ceramic specialist and works for 10 years in Orléans and the Loiret area in France. Her analysis focuses on pottery production in Saran where several kilns dated from VIe to XIe centuries had been found.

Sabrina Save is a researcher-cum-field archaeologist with a background in palaeoenvironmental and archaeometric analysis, and a specific interest in soil palaeopollution. She is the director of two labs, Amélie and Terrascope, dedicated to soil geochemistry and thin section preparation. She works throughout Europe and beyond.

Alys Vaughan Willams Tor Cottage, Scarthin, Cromford, UK.

ORCID

Quentin Borderie http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2199-4038