The Place of Coastlines in Prehistoric Systems Between the Lateglacial and Mesolithic Periods in Western France : Petrology's Contribution to Assessing the Spread of an Original Coastal Resource - Flint Pebbles.
Author(s): Louis Marguet
Year: 2025
Summary
This is an abstract from the "<html>Twenty Thousand Leagues (and Years!) under the Sea:<i> </i>Exploring the Place of Seashores in Prehistoric Socio-economic Systems</html>" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
The LGM and Lateglacial coastal occupations of the Armorican Massif (western France), now submerged, are largely absent from our socio-economic models and considerations for these period. Despite the lack of direct evidence, yet current data indicate the frequentation of these coastal environments. During this period, several sources of flint were available in this crystalline massif with no flint continental formation: primary and secondary outcrops of flint located under the actual Channel, both accessible because of lower sea levels (between -120 and -50m), or marine pebbles from the prehistoric Atlantic coastline located dozens kilometers away from the actual seashore. These marine pebbles, considered as a marine resource in our context, are then the best proxy to explore the place of coastal environments within these communities. Our research is based on the collect and the study of a large sample of sea flint pebbles with petrological methods. Archaeological assemblages are then studied using these results. The goal is to determine the importance of coastal pebbles among “channel flints” in these sites, to discuss the place of coastal environments during the Lateglacial and the Mesolithic. Finally, this new analysis method can be applied to different coastal environments around the world.
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The Place of Coastlines in Prehistoric Systems Between the Lateglacial and Mesolithic Periods in Western France : Petrology's Contribution to Assessing the Spread of an Original Coastal Resource - Flint Pebbles.. Louis Marguet. Presented at The 90th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 2025 ( tDAR id: 509212)
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Abstract Id(s): 50454